The United Campus Workers union has officially chartered a chapter on the campus at Ole Miss.

In a story reported by The Daily Mississippian and covered by Y’all Politics, this will be the local chapter of UCW. UCW is under the larger Communications Workers of American umbrella. UCW claims 1,800 members across 16 campuses in the state of Tennessee, where the union originated. It is also organized in Georgia, and this is its first entrance into Mississippi.

But this isn’t a traditional union in the sense that the union and management negotiate pay, benefits, hours, etc. There wasn’t a majority vote by a specified bargaining unit for this union to represent employees.

In addition to being a right-to-work state, public employees have no collective bargaining rights in the state of Mississippi. State employees are simply free to join voluntary unions and this is similar. UCW appears to be more of an association of like-minded faculty and staff.

In Tennessee, UCW’s work has largely been centered on social and economic justice issues, which includes lobbying the legislature for pay raises or expanded health insurance while fighting privatization of campus services and pension reform. Essentially, it is a left-of-center, grassroots organization.

Finding liberal professors at Ole Miss to join UCW shouldn’t be that difficult.

Two of the early proponents and members of the union are Jessica Wilkerson, assistant professor of Southern Studies and history, and James Thomas, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology.

Wilkerson was recently a guest speaker at a Students Against Social Injustice rally where protestors demanded the university remove the Confederate statue on campus and implement speech codes for students.

Thomas, as many will recall, recently received national attention when he tweeted that protestors should harass Republicans in public, including the time-worn traditions of sticking fingers in salads and redistributing appetizers.

UCW reports it has more than 50 members registered at Ole Miss.

Delta State University no longer has policies in place that stifle campus free speech.

Recently, Mississippi Center for Public Policy, National Review, and College Fix raised questions about DSU’s student regulations that read, “words, behavior, and/or actions which inflict mental or emotional distress on others and/or disrupt the educational environment at Delta State University” could possibly “subject violators to appropriate disciplinary action, including suspension and expulsion.”

As a result of this policy, the university received a speech code rating of red from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

According to Rick Munroe, Vice President for University Advancement and External Relations at DSU, the university rescinded the policy in February 2017. However, the old policy inadvertently remained on the website. But the recent attention prompted the university to update the website with the new policy.

The new policy, which largely follows state and national laws, now lists offenses against persons as, “physical abuse, verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, harassment, sexual contact without permission, coercion and other conduct which threatens or endangers the health or safety of any person.”

Gone is the far more troubling, and open for interpretation, mental or emotional distress language. This could have been interpreted as a violation of a students’ rights to free speech or as a “speech code.”

This is the direction in which all universities should be moving. Free speech and intellectual debate should be encouraged on college campuses. Diverse opinions should not just be tolerated, they should be welcomed and encouraged. Students must have the right to express themselves freely, no matter how popular or unpopular such expressions may be.

Let’s hope other colleges and universities follow Delta State’s lead. And make it explicitly clear that college campuses are the last place on earth that should stifle free speech.

The last time university officials in the Southeastern Conference capitulated to the demands of a student-led mob, things did not work out well for that school. It should serve as a lesson to all.

In Columbia, Missouri, in 2015, students put on the protest of the century – or at least that is how it seemed.

The funny thing about this protest is that it didn’t have any great meaning or purpose. This wasn’t the Vietnam War or ERA. It began with a complaint about cuts to health benefits for graduate-student employees. The student body president at the time, who is black and gay, stated that someone off-campus shouted racial slurs at him. There was a report of another racial slur at an anti-racism rally. And then there was the famous “poop swastika,” where someone supposedly drew a swastika on a bathroom wall in feces.

There was a sit-in, which led to the first round of capitulation. The university agreed to robust diversity training. When that didn’t go far enough, the president of the university system, Tom Wolfe, apologized and health benefits for the graduate student employees were restored. Still not enough to satisfy the hunger of the social justice crowd on campus. Wolfe had to go.

Then there was a hunger strike, led by a student named Jonathan Butler. None of this served to get any real traction or generate national attention. But then the authoritarian mob found a powerful ally: Members of the entire football team announced they were boycotting the next football game if Wolfe didn’t resign.

Under the pressure of national embarrassment and with the leverage of high-profile athletes, Wolfe resigned. Chancellor Bowen Loftin resigned as well. In order to relieve the pressure, the university completely capitulated in a desperate attempt to satiate the demands of the mob. After making the ultimate sacrifice of the system president and its chancellor, everything at Missouri returned to normal, right? Not exactly.

The protesters' tent city remained. And a new era of “wokeness” was ushered in and ESPN became a network for social justice warriors. A professor, Melissa Click, became famous for pushing away journalists trying to cover the story, at one point, yelling, “I’m going to need some muscle in here.”

Columbia, Missouri isn’t exactly Berkeley, Palo Alto, or Madison. After all of the accommodation and sacrificing of public figures to make peace with the social justice mob, a funny thing happened. People began to vote with their feet. Enrollment plummeted. The year the protests began, Missouri had a freshman class of 6,200. The following year, it was down to less than 4,800. And the year after, just 4,100 enrolled in the freshman class. And alumni not only stopped enrolling their children, they also quit giving.

As budgets depleted, more than 400 jobs were cut and several dorms were closed. At one point, dorms were even converted to motel rooms for visitors in town for sporting events.

The protesters may have claimed victory at the University of Missouri, but the school lost. Perhaps this was a warning sign.

It will be interesting to see how universities respond in the future, particularly those in the South. At the University of Mississippi, the largest university in the state where I live and work and my alma mater, protesters known as the Students Against Social Injustice recently staged a protest. They followed the now-common practice of issuing demands of the university.

According to SASI, the university must remove a Confederate statue from campus and speech codes must be implemented to “protect students from the racist violence we experience on campus.” This is similar to what students have been doing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the past year, though to the credit of the protesters at Ole Miss, they didn’t actually attempt to tear down the statue. At least not yet.

The real issue isn’t the protests or the protesters themselves. Actual intellectual debate should be encouraged on college campuses. Diverse opinions should be tolerated, whether those opinions are popular or not. The issue is how university leadership responds. Schools must not be run by authoritarian mobs. If university administrations continue to buckle under the weight of social justice mobs, they may suffer the same consequences as the University of Missouri.

This column appeared in the Washington Examiner on November 5, 2018. 

Three Mississippi legislators were elected to judicial posts this year, necessitating special elections for the final year of the legislative term. But none of the seats will be competitive from a partisan standpoint.

Rep. Brad Touchstone, a freshman Republican lawmaker from Oak Grove, was elected County Journal Judge in Lamar county on November 6. Touchstone was instrumental in the passage of the Occupational Board Compliance Act of 2017, key occupational licensure reform the legislature adopted two years ago.

The district is overwhelmingly Republican and certain to stay in the Republican column.

Two Democrats also won judicial positions. Rep. Adrienne Wooten of Jackson was elected a Hinds County Circuit Court judge while Rep. Willie Perkins of Greenwood was elected a chancery judge for the judicial district that covers Bolivar, Coahoma, Leflore, Quitman, Tallahatchie and Tunica counties.

Both of these districts are certain to stay in Democratic hands.

Gov. Phil Bryant will set a special election after the members formally resign from the legislature. The special election winners, particularly if they win a runoff, will only be present for a short period of time for the session that concludes the first week of April.

They will then have to get back on the campaign trail and win again in the fall when every seat in the legislature is on the ballot.

Colleges and universities are supposed to be places where curiosity is developed and intellectual debate in encouraged. But with each passing day, it appears that the debate part of the equation is limited in favor of indoctrination, or at a minimum, silence.

Most people, regardless of their political leanings, understand the ideological beliefs of college professors. One 2016 survey from Econ Journal Watch showed liberal professors outnumber conservatives by a ratio of 12 to 1. Business and economic schools tend to have a narrower margin, though they still lean left, while social sciences and humanities are even more liberal than the median. The same survey showed liberals in history departments outnumber conservatives 34 to 1. None of this is surprising.

The same schools that pride themselves on diversity of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and every other box the Departments of Diversity and Inclusion can check appear to have little interest in diversity of thought. However, the issue isn’t that most professors are liberal; that alone is not the problem. The issue is that everyone must conform to those “preferred” beliefs. Or, at a minimum, pressure is put on students to keep their differing opinions to themselves. At least that is how college students feel.

In a recent survey of full-time undergraduate students by McLaughlin & Associates on behalf of Yale’s William F. Buckley, Jr. Program, a majority, 52 percent, said professors often use class time to express their social or political beliefs completely unrelated to the subject of the class. And 53 percent said they often “felt intimidated” in sharing ideas or opinions that were different from their professors.

The problem extends beyond professors. The students who hold those majority views on many campuses often don’t want debate either. Fifty-nine percent of students agreed that a college “should forbid people from speaking on campus who have a history of engaging in hate speech.” I certainly don’t know anyone who condones hate speech, assuming they can define it, but when the subjectivity is left to college administrators, we are often left with anything right-of-center being classified as “hate speech.” A smaller minority, 33 percent of college students, believe that physical violence is justified in preventing speakers who espouse such “minority” views. Even if it is a smaller percentage, 33 percent is still a worrying number.

Simply put, free speech is not winning on college campuses like it should. Also troubling, 38 percent of students favor speech codes, like those at Delta State University in Cleveland, that restrict free speech. According to student regulations, “words, behavior, and/or actions which inflict mental or emotional distress on others and/or disrupt the educational environment at Delta State University” could possibly “subject violators to appropriate disciplinary action, including suspension and expulsion.”

This leads to many other questions. What causes mental and emotional distress among college students? Seeing as how traumatized many students were after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, is it safe to assume that a Trump sign, t-shirt, or a Make America Great Again hat would cause serious distress for a young student who has never had his/her political views questioned? While you and I may find this patently illogical and an illegitimate cause for emotional distress, these are the considerations we face when a school has speech codes. Ironically, at a place where whole departments are created in the name of diversity, a majoritarian mob of professors and students may prevent minority expressions.

Open discussions and free exchange of divergent ideas are becoming rare on college campuses. When there are “open discussions,” it is generally limited to “discussing” why conservatives are wrong, hateful, and bigoted. Such discussions are purposely one way and dialogue is not permitted.

For more than a century, the American university system was considered the best in the world for providing a classical liberal undergraduate education. Students received a well-rounded worldview and were prepared for success in life, regardless of their personal philosophy on civil society and government. For the sake of our future generations, we must reclaim our universities from this liberal high jacking.  We must demand that students have the right to express themselves freely, no matter how unpopular such expressions may be.

This column appeared in the Starkville Daily News on November 28, 2018.

With Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s victory in the special election runoff to fill the remainder of Sen. Thad Cochran’s term, Mississippi voters did what they have done for the past 30 years; vote for a Republican Senator.

To find the last time a Democrat won a U.S. Senate race in Mississippi, you would have to go back to 1982 when a young Republican political operative named Haley Barbour lost to Sen. John Stennis, a Democrat who had held the seat since 1947.

In that context, Hyde-Smith, or any other Republican winning, isn’t that unusual. It is what Mississippi voters prefer. Just as voters in California or Connecticut will continue to elect Democratic Senators.

After all, Mississippi is considered the least “elastic” state in the country. What does that mean? An elastic state is one that is relatively sensitive or responsive to political winds of the day. It doesn’t necessarily mean a “swing-state” in that sense of the phrase, but rather one where there are a lot of swing voters.

Mississippi just doesn’t have that, and that is largely due to the two largest voting blocs in the state. Both African Americans and white evangelicals are among the most loyal to a particular party and unlikely to change those loyalties. And right now, Republicans have a bigger chunk of the vote.

Still, many thought this vote might be different. Just look at what happened in Alabama last year we were told. If a Democrat could win there, surely they have a shot in a state that is a little less Republican than Alabama. But that was a lazy analysis that omitted major details. For example, Roy Moore was already less popular than the median Alabama Republican candidate even before he was accused of various improprieties from an earlier time in his life.

Without that angle to leverage, we had the “kitchen-sink” approach where Mike Espy and allies, often in the media, simply threw everything they could at Hyde-Smith. You mean she sends her daughter to private school? The travesty. Call MSNBC immediately. Admittedly, the public hanging comment was tone-deaf and extremely unwise and likely provided some energy to the left, but it was hardly the statement of racially animus the national media and progressives tried desperately to make it out to be.

The apparent strategy was to maximize turnout among supporters while hoping to depress Republican support for Hyde-Smith. In some ways that worked. Espy's voters returned and Hyde-Smith trailed typical Republican margins in GOP strongholds like Rankin, Desoto, and Lamar counties by about 5 points. With 90 percent of precincts reporting in the runoff, Espy received just under 360,000 votes. Nearly the same number received three weeks earlier. Hyde-Smith, however, was only at 430,000, far below the combined 515,000 she and state Sen. Chris McDaniel received.

Espy will end up with an overall percentage close to that achieved by former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in 2008. Musgrove’s 45 percent of the vote was certainly helped by the excitement of Barack Obama at the top of the ballot, but Musgrove did two things Espy didn’t; he ran as a conservative and he talked about issues.

Unfortunately, issues were something we heard relatively little about in this election. Every race seems more like a litmus test of President Trump’s appeal or the Left’s resistance than it does a discussion of policy solutions. We have substantive problems in Mississippi and we need public policy solutions that focus on our state and our citizens.

Future campaign strategies will be left for those who run campaigns and focus on transactional politics. But when we look at the data, one underlying principle remains; Democrats have a very high basement (meaning the vote total anyone with a D next to their name will receive), but a very low ceiling. The variables seemed to align perfectly (save for a Moore-like scandal) if Democrats were ever going to pull off an upset. And yet they still came up short.

National media will come and go. Same with out of state operatives and campaign cash. But from any objective measure, Mississippi remains a Republican state. On most matters, that means a “conservative” state.

Especially with something as consequential in the eyes of voters as a United States Senate seat on the line, it doesn’t appear than the Magnolia State has any interest in sending a liberal or a progressive to Washington.

This column appeared in Y'all Politics on November 27, 2018. 

Outrage culture flared up again recently as election results poured in for analysis. By Wednesday morning, the political left had decided any shortcoming of Democratic nominees could be blamed on one demographic—white women.

Across the nation, the American people made their choice. The Senate remained red, while the House flipped blue. CNN Politics published a detailed breakdown of voter turnout demographics by age, race, gender, and party. Disgruntled voters shared screenshots of Democratic elections lost where women voted for the Republican choice.

The statistical breakdown of the white female vote “prove” to ideologues that white women betrayed themselves and the “sisterhood” by electing and re-electing white, male Republicans. This is the only conclusion they drew.

For the ideologically possessed, it could not be possible that women would willingly and wholesomely elect, for instance, Sen. Ted Cruz by their own free will. If not betrayal, it must be oppression that forced their hand into a red vote.

White women “choose to uphold white supremacy and patriarchy,” according to Vox, likening the exit poll data of 2018 to the opposition of racial integration of schools. Ironically, this demonization of white women is a huge reason one might not consider a vote across the aisle.

The insult of this blame is two-fold. First, the collectivist view assumed of women only sees them as a voting bloc. In the effort to recognize women with a feminist lens, the left has only diminished each women’s individuality by writing her story for her. Insisting that women of any race are indebted to any political force sounds eerily like oppression.  Oppression also sounds a lot like insisting one vote a certain way, think a certain way, and be shamed for deviating.

Secondly, the intelligence and autonomy of women is belittled. To say that the white women who voted for Cindy-Hyde Smith, a white female Republican, are subject to their own ignorance or familial oppression is laughable.

In a 41.4% to 40.7% vote, Cindy-Hyde Smith will have to win a runoff vote to retain her Senate seat. Are white women of Mississippi to blame for possibly electing the first female Mississippi Senator to office?

It is confusing to be a woman in Mississippi reflecting on these exit poll reactions. As a woman, ought I fall in line and vote for a woman or a Democrat? It is curious which would be a more loyal action to this myopic worldview.

Tracking social points following every election would prove to be exhausting.

The reality is every vote is counted once, not weighted by age, race, or gender. Ideally, our votes reflect our values and policy beliefs. Such a simple concept ought not be controversial.

It is not the burden of any single group or demographic to carry any candidate over the finish line. Instead, it is the responsibility of each active voter to consider their own decision. It’s shocking to see feminism ostracize their own people for the social crime of voting autonomy.

If Mississippi women are viewed as so void of independent thought that they can’t be trusted with their own beliefs, the left should get used to losing more female votes.

Anja Baker is a Contributing Fellow for Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

Even with the much publicized and much shared remark from Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith about public hangings, the path to victory for any Democrat is very difficult. And potentially impossible to complete.

Last week, Mississippians had the unique task of voting in two separate U.S. Senate races.

Sen. Roger Wicker, who has served since 2008 and was running in the regularly scheduled Senate race, defeated State Rep. David Baria, a Democrat from Hancock county, 59-39.

The other election was to fill the remainder of the term for former Sen. Thad Cochran, who retired earlier this year. Under Mississippi’s special election rules, there is simply a non-partisan, jungle primary where the top two vote getters advance to a runoff if no candidate receives 50 percent plus one.

The election featured three main candidates: Sen. Hyde-Smith, who was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant, State Sen. Chris McDaniel, a Republican from Jones county who nearly toppled Cochran four years ago, and Mike Espy, a former Democratic Congressman and member of the Clinton cabinet.

The final vote was 42 percent for Hyde-Smith, 41 percent for Espy, and 17 percent for McDaniel. The presence of two Republicans diluted the overall GOP vote and takes away from the work Espy will have in the runoff.

Republican and Democrat totals in special election

Special election results, by county (combined Republican and Democrat votes)

When total Republican vote is highlighted, rather than top vote getter in each county, it tells a different story than a map showing Espy making inroads in a number of traditional Republican counties. In fact, the total GOP vote looks very similar to the Wicker/ Baria map. Republicans were somewhat split, but at the end of the day Democrats only received 40 or 41 percent in both elections.

Indeed, Copiah, Oktibbeha, and Yazoo counties were the only counties carried by Wicker where the GOP did not receive a majority between Hyde-Smith and McDaniel.

While trailing by just one point may appear comforting, the path to a majority is much harder for Espy. Rather than 15-20 percent of the electorate being up for grabs, it is more likely that Espy is near the Democrat ceiling when it comes to a Senate seat in Mississippi. Especially when it is a runoff on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

Going back to 2006, Republicans have won between 55 and 64 percent of the vote in the six Senate elections held in the state. The high point for Democrats was Ronnie Musgrove’s 45 percent in 2008. And that was with Musgrove running as a conservative (something Espy certainly is not). With Barack Obama on the top of the ballot and John McCain held to just 56 percent.

Both campaigns will work on turning out and maximizing their support in the runoff. The problem for Espy is there likely aren’t enough people to turn out. Even McDaniel himself quickly came out and endorsed Hyde-Smith, something he didn’t do in 2014. It would be wishful thinking to presume McDaniel voters are up for grabs in any significant fashion.

For the past several years colleges and universities throughout the country have embarked on a mission to limit free speech, in the name of protecting the feelings of those who might not like to hear what someone else says.

Delta State University is one of those schools, but their speech codes go further than most.

For the most part, Delta State’s student regulations include commonsense rules and procedures for any university, such as a requirement that you pay your bills and punishment for destroying property. And there are some rules that likely aren’t followed (or enforced), such as the prohibition of alcoholic beverages on campus or at university sponsored events.

But far more problematic is policy number 27 which states that “words, behavior, and/or actions which inflict mental or emotional distress on others and/or disrupt the educational environment at Delta State University” could possibly “subject violators to appropriate disciplinary action, including suspension and expulsion.”

Essentially, you could be punished up to expulsion for words that inflict emotional distress on others. What is emotional distress? Obviously, different words could upset different people in different ways.

We saw students nationwide requiring days off and tests postponed after the triggering event of Donald Trump winning the presidency in 2016. So we know there are plenty of items that cause mental and emotional distress among our youth on college campuses. And in many instances, for illegitimate reasons (i.e., being unhappy about an election).

Delta State has long had trouble with free speech. They were one of just two schools in Mississippi to receive a speech code rating of red from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE.

Policy number 27 is likely unconstitutional, but more than that it is scary. Scary that a university would put such a policy in place that violates the free speech rights of one student and threatens to expel that student for doing nothing wrong at all. Just something that may have upset someone.

For more than a century, the American university system was considered the best in the world for providing a classical liberal undergraduate education. And for preparing their students to be successful in life. For the sake of our future generations, we must reclaim our universities from the insanity we see daily.

But for now, if you’re on campus at Delta State, use extreme caution with your words. One man’s free speech might be another man’s emotional trigger and the university wants to be the arbiter.

(While the link to the policies is no longer live, a cached version from November 5 can be found here.)