Former Moss Point, Miss., Mayor Mario King will serve 30 months in prison and spend three years on probation, a federal judge in Gulfport decided today. King and his wife, Natasha King, pled guilty to wire- fraud charges in February after a grand jury indicted them last year.
Since the Mississippi Free Press published our initial three-part UM Emails exposé in August 2020 about communications that revealed how university officials have catered to and coddled wealthy donors and alums, oftentimes against the wishes of students and current faculty, the story has continually unfolded. This timeline puts the events that have unfolded at the embattled university in context and allows readers to examine many of the emails that informed our original investigative reporting.
The Mississippi Center for Justice filed a lawsuit today against Mississippi State Auditor Shad White, a Republican, for defamation on behalf of a sociology professor whom White’s office investigated for participating in the anti-racism “#ScholarStrike.”
The University of Mississippi has placed its ombudsman, Paul J. Caffera, on administrative leave and is seeking a temporary replacement after he sued to stop the university from compelling him to share confidential information about faculty, staff and graduate students who have privately confided to his office about issues on campus.
During a period of what University of Mississippi faculty are calling a time of increasing paranoia, the university is set to terminate a celebrated professor of history—the outspoken anti-racism and decarceral scholar, Dr. Garrett Felber.
The University of Mississippi Faculty Senate passed two resolutions in a show of support for embattled sociologist and UM professor James Thomas. It calls on Chancellor Glenn Boyce and all administration to respond to State of Mississippi’s attacks on academic freedom and Thomas personally.
Mississippi State Auditor Shad White called into a SuperTalk radio show on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. He and host Paul Gallo criticized attorney Rob McDuff’s legal argument, but did not say what it is—that the existing state law against teachers strikes pointedly does not apply to James Thomas’ actions.
McDuff provided a full statement to the Mississippi Free Press earlier today in which he rejects the notion that Thomas has to now pay money to the auditor’s office. “Professor Thomas’s actions did not violate any law, and he does not owe the State any money,” the attorney said.
UM Emails Part II: In late 2018, a number of University of Mississippi officials struggled to strike a balance between empathizing with aggrieved wealthy white donors who clung to the Ole Miss of yore and responding to a UM faculty and student body that, overall, felt the school was not moving fast enough into the future.
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