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Earlier this week an ordinance was passed in the city of Jackson by a 3-1 vote to “prohibit certain activities near healthcare facilities.” 

This ordinance specifically targets the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The ordinance will create a “bubble zone” around the abortion facility, forbidding pro-life speech, prayer, or activity near the building. 

Council Member Melvin Priester was largely concerned with maintaining a peaceful atmosphere in the business community. Mayor Chokwe Lumumba commented that he stands for free speech, having protested in Ferguson himself. He warned that protestors must remain, “dignified and respectful.”  Council President Virgil Lindsay stated that this is an issue of access to healthcare. 

The comments, made by city council members in regards to the ordinance, were befuddling and seemingly erroneous – but, what can be said about such a blatant violation of our rights? Apart from the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, this ordinance restricts freedom of speech and assembly on public property. As such, it is a subject which our council members and other politicians should have impeccable clarity. 

Many, including myself, do not agree with various methods used on the sidewalk outside JWHO. If we stand for free speech, however, we must also stand for free speech that we are not personally comfortable with.

Additionally, it is difficult to understand how individuals practicing basic liberties outside of a “healthcare facility” are preventing access to basic healthcare. 

If our representatives are rendered unable to understand the importance of maintaining freedom of speech, assembly, and religion, it is not surprising that they cannot recognize the right to life of the unborn. 

Dozens of women, just this year, have chosen to walk from the abortion facility to the Cline Center, located across the street. Dozens of women, just this year, have chosen life because of the loving support of sidewalk counselors. It is now illegal for sidewalk counselors to offer this support outside of the abortion clinic.

We can hope that this shocking violation of basic rights will open many eyes to the shocking violation of rights that the abortion industry poses to mother and child.

The city of Jackson can attempt to hush the activity outside of the abortion clinic, but maybe, in that silence, we will be able to hear the truth of what is actually happening within those pink walls. 

The Jackson city council has passed a controversial ordinance aimed at curbing pro-life counselors and protesters from standing outside the city’s abortion clinic in Fondren. 

The new ordinance bans individuals from approaching within eight feet of any person, unless that person consents to receiving a leaflet, bans people from protesting, congregating, or picketing within fifteen feet of the abortion center, and bans any amplified sound.

The council held a long meeting last Thursday, and eventually addressed the ordinance in a packed room, open to the public, after eight hours of other scheduled discussions.

Following this meeting, one council member, Melvin Priester, took to his official Facebook page to make some comments about the day. After addressing some of the other issues that were on the docket, he turned to the controversial new ordinance and had this to say (please note errors are his own as the statement appears unedited): 

“I am absolutely, 100% convinced that give or take 20 years from now, one of these bored kids that gets drug to City Council meetings to wait for their parent to make a public comment will be in a bar on whatever 2039's version of a Tindr/Grindr date is. His/her date is going to ask ‘so, why did you move here?’ And this person is going to reply, ‘As a kid, my family was SUPER-religious. I didn't even go to school, they just posted me up outside the only abortion clinic in a 3-hour radius day-after-day. Anyway, I'm 12 or 13 and my folks would always take me to Jackson City Council meetings to protest abortion. We'd sit there for HOURS so dad could talk for like 3 minutes. It was soooooo boring. He made me sit there and film it on my cell phone even though it was a televised meeting. Anyway, I swore to myself at like the 4 hour point of dying on one of these hard benches for the millionth time that as SOON as I turned 18, I'd get sooooo far away from Jackson and never look back. So here I am, living in San Francisco, working for planned parenthood. You know how it turns out.”

Priester suggests that religious families will see their children turn against their views, turn against them, turn against Jackson, and will seek a life working for the nation’s largest abortion provider.

The comment is incredibly hurtful for the thousands of faith-filled Mississippians who seek to imbue in their children the values that they hold dear. These good people attempt to pass on what’s important to them, teach their kids to get involved in the community, and to defend the most innocent among us, the unborn. 

These values deserve to be praised rather than shamed.

The question must be asked: would Priester fire off such a one-sided and belittling analysis of this situation if the shoe were on the other foot? I would think not, it seems much more likely that he’d praise people for exercising their civic duty, had they not had the gall to disagree with him.

Priester, himself, has tweeted that, “[I]t’s the citizens of Jackson and the families they raise that truly make Jackson great.” Apparently this doesn’t apply to those who dare to raise their children in “SUPER-religious” or pro-life houses.

Regardless of where you stand on the newly passed ordinance, many can probably agree that belittling those who show up to council meetings to participate in their civic duty and suggesting that their kids will turn against their views, probably isn’t the way to foster respectful dialogue on a controversial issue. 

The Jackson city council will soon file their official votes on an ordinance targeted at shutting down protests outside the last abortion clinic in Mississippi.

The abortion provider lies in the heart of Fondren, one of Jackson’s few thriving neighborhoods, and one with further development incoming, including a new hotel across the street from the clinic.

Protesters and counselors seeking to offer alternatives to abortion regularly coordinate efforts outside of the building. In regard to this ordinance, council members ought to consider whether the current situation truly warrants the curtailing of free speech in this capacity.

The new ordinance would ban individuals from approaching within eight feet of any person, unless that person consents to receiving a leaflet. The proposed rule would also ban people from protesting, congregating, or picketing within fifteen feet of the abortion center and ban any amplified sound.

Proponents of the regulation have cited noise complaints and the potential for heightened conflict as the reasoning behind the legislation. However, opponents of the regulation have noted that the noise is often escalated by the abortion center who will turn up music while sidewalk participants attempt to speak with those around the abortion center and that the regulation curtails their free speech rights.

Local businesses and the new hotel seem to be concerned about the impact that these protests can have on business and seem to be in favor of the ordinance change. However, our right to free speech does not end where business interests begin, and we should be wary of choosing economic development over protections for our constitutional rights.

Perhaps, what the council members are missing is the fact that no matter what they do, protesters and sidewalk counselors who attempt to offer alternatives to abortion, will still find a way to carry out their work. Freedom of speech should rarely be curtailed, and leaders should always seek to err on the side of advancing speech rather than stifling it.

Furthermore, there are better options on the table to solve existing issues than to overregulate free speech en masse. Rather than ban all those seeking to protest or offer counsel, the city ought to better enforce existing noise ordinances, if noise truly is an ongoing issue. If we don’t execute the laws on the books, then new ordinances stand meaningless and will be ignored. If people are being assaulted, as some claim, again, we have laws on the books.   

More largely, in regard to ongoing neighborhood development, at the end of the day, the abortion center can paint itself bright pink colors, play music, and attempt to be a part of the more hip, growing Fondren community, but it can’t cover up what happens inside its walls, a continued dark stain on the neighborhood and the city.

Mississippi has a tainted history when it comes to the state using its power to stifle free speech and public protests. City leaders should tread cautiously when it comes to regulating speech they don’t like. 

As Ole Miss gets ready for their first football game of the season on Saturday, university officials are marching forward with plans to remove the Confederate statue near the entrance to campus. 

Interim Chancellor Larry Sparks, who holds the position while the Institutions for Higher Learning searches for the next Ole Miss chancellor, said the school intends to move the statue to the Confederate cemetery, near the old Tad Smith Coliseum. 

The university has submitted plans to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the IHL. Once the university receives the green light, the school hopes to have the monument relocated within 90 days. 

The push for the statues removal began to get increased attention last fall when a group known as the Students Against Social Injustice staged a protest and issued demands of the administration, something that is now common practice among left-wing campus organizations. 

According to SASI, the university must remove the Confederate statue from campus and speech codes must be implemented to “protect students from the racist violence we experience on campus.” And, the next chancellor “must” meet with this group to discuss their demands.

Last spring, the Associated Student Body voted to relocate the statue, as did three other governing bodies. 

SASI, which includes students and liberal professors, has since been putting their own markers on the statue marking the number of days since the ASB vote.

Before the SASI push to move the statue, the university placed plaques on various locations on the campus, including the statue. This was done in early 2018 as part of a years-long process. These plaques are designed to "contextualize" names or objects on campus.

The politics of division might reign in our major cities. But in places like Jackson, hospitality and communal spirit are alive and well.

With senior year of college comes the expected announcement of one’s next steps in life. At Georgetown University, where I spent my undergraduate career, as well as at many other elite schools around the country, it seems that at least a plurality of students plan on either continuing their education or going to major consulting firms. While one can choose many roads, they almost all seem to lead to the same urban areas: D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or San Francisco.

In January, rather than follow the well-worn paths of some of my friends and colleagues, I chose to accept an opportunity at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, a state think tank in Jackson. I had friends who understood the decision, and I had friends who were perplexed by it. Over the next five months I found myself having to explain and defend why anybody would want to live in the South, declining the comforts so easily found in the nation’s largest cities.

Frankly, I understand the confusion. For at least four years, our mindset as students was centered around life in Washington, D.C., a vibrant urban area. The mainstream news outlets, our social media feeds, the movies we watched, and the politics we followed all suggested that big cities were the only places worth being, because that’s where the action was and will continue to be.

However, as I packed up the UHaul and left Georgetown behind, I felt a sense of comfort. The words “Go west, young man, go west,” so often attributed to Horace Greeley, played repeatedly in my head. I was proud of the fact that I was escaping the behemoth that is Washington, off on a new adventure.

For the past 10 years, since my dad had been transferred to the Pentagon in 2008, I had lived in or around D.C., and grown quite used to the city and its people. Entering Georgetown, I was sure that I wanted to stay in the area and get involved in politics. However, over the course of four years, as the tidal wave of progressive opinion steadily beat against me, it became clearer and clearer that the values I held dear were not fully acceptable on the campus or in the city. I was attacked and belittled, not only for my conservative politics but for my Christian faith.

It took far less than four years for me to grow tired of this toxic state of public discourse. Furthermore, for many in D.C.’s young political scene, too great attention was given to developing one’s next career steps rather than one’s self as a person. Jobs often took over life, and little time was left for other commitments. As I evaluated where I would go after college, I decided that, while I wanted a rewarding job, I also wanted to find an area where I could continue to grow in my faith, to get involved on the local level, and to develop myself as an individual. I wanted to find a community in which I could become attached and build a home. And I realized that all of this would be difficult in D.C.

On campus, the relentless culture of outrage was alive and well, as “woke” activists constantly pushed the boundaries on the next issue and demanded that all stand in lockstep with them as a testament to intersectionality. In moving South, all of that dissipated. The professional outrage is absent and community organizations are flourishing. People tend to spend more time at the local bluegrass exhibition than they do protesting.

In Jackson, people care more about the church community you’re a part of than the job title you hold or whether you have an R or a D next to your name. In Jackson, “Southern hospitality” is alive and well: people know their neighbors and sincerely care about how they’re doing. In Jackson, I have found my spirits lifted. It has become clear to me that, while the politics of division has taken center stage nationally, outside the cities, on the communal level, the best of our country is still thriving.

Undoubtedly, Mississippi is not a perfect place, far from it. But this state is built on a strong set of foundational values, which have provided a pleasant sense of relief against the growing social and political tribalism that was ever present in D.C. I have been welcomed into a community. It is here that I plan to put down roots, and I would strongly encourage others to think about doing the same.

This column appeared in the American Conservative on August 7, 2019.

As the battle over abortion continues to wage across the country, clinics have found themselves in the spotlight for the little interest they seem to show in health of women they claim to serve.

Often, abortion clinics are heralded as champions of women’s rights – safe-havens that provide reproductive healthcare services, protect essential rights of privacy, empower the right to choose, and empower the idea of autonomy over a woman’s own body. 

Is this really the whole truth? What might be unearthed if this newfound spotlight was taken advantage of and used to explore further into the practices and agenda of the abortion industry, heralded as an emblem of feminism? 

Recently, a pro-life organization, Americans United for Life, or AUL, released information containing lists of all the violations brought forth by the respective state departments of health against abortion clinics in each state. This compilation offers intriguing insight and astonishing validation to abortion clinic horror stories.

There are six states with only one abortion clinic remaining in operation; Mississippi is one of these. The pink building on North State Street is the last standing abortion facility in Mississippi. It is called Jackson Women’s Health Organization, or just JWHO, and is cited in the report released by AUL with numerous violations. 

Examples of the violations, in Mississippi and those that occurred in other states, are: 

JWHO was cited by the Mississippi Department of Health in a statement of deficiencies and a plan of correction, with a, “failure to ensure a safe and sanitary environment.”

As stated in AUL’s report, “patients were further exposed to unsanitary conditions by improper water temperatures for laundry, sterilizers not being cleaned monthly, single-use vials being used multiple times and on different patients, vaginal probes not being disinfected between uses, and infectious waste not being stored or disposed of properly.” 

JWHO was cited with a “failure to ensure that staff are properly trained for their duties.” Examples of this violation are: 

This particular issue is further perpetuated by, “itinerant providers” or, “fly-ins.” These are doctors that fly hundreds of miles away from their homes to abortion facilities. This reality raises the question: what profit motive is there to cause a doctor to trek hundreds of miles away from his home to perform an abortion?

As an example: Willie Parker, a doctor who has been known to provide abortions in Mississippi, lives in Chicago, 750 miles away from his abortion patients. As a result, abortion doctors often do not have local hospital admittance privileges. 

Willie Parker is an abortion provider, public figure, and a self-proclaimed women’s rights advocate. As stated in his official website, “his work includes a focus on violence against women, sexual assault prevention, and reproductive health rights through advocacy…” Interestingly, Willie Parker has recently been accused of sexual assault. The irony and the hypocrisy of the abortion industry only continues. 

Improper standard of patient care is an issue that is further perpetuated by another citation highlighted in AUL’s report. JWHO was found to have, “unlicensed, unqualified, and untrained staff providing patient care.”

As stated by AUL’s report, “The abortion facility failed to ensure that required medical professionals were present during abortion procedures and when patients were in the facility or could not provide proof of required professional licenses, training, or qualifications.” 

The reality that JWHO is little concerned with safety and patient care is only reinforced by the remaining violations detailed in AUL’s report. The last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi has also been cited with the following violations: 

JWHO is also a repeat offender. 

Repeat offenders are prevalent in 11 states. Mississippi, with only one abortion clinic left standing, is one of the 11 states. This indicates incredible negligence. Unfortunately, this negligence is not isolated to JWHO. 

The owner of JWHO, Diane Derzis, owns two additional abortion facilities, in Richmond, Virginia and Columbus, Georgia. The Virginia abortion clinic, Capitol Women’s Health Clinic, is cited with four of the same violations as JWHO. These violations are: 

Derzis previously owned an abortion facility in Birmingham, Alabama that was closed in 2012 by the state health department due to numerous health code violations. 

This negligence is not simply isolated to the few abortion clinics that Diane Derzis owns, however. It is a trend, an epidemic of abortion clinic malpractice that pervades every state in the nation. This ugly reality is made abundantly clear by AUL’s report.

While abortion facilities, such as JWHO, are regulated by the state, pro-life pregnancy resource centers, such as The Center for Pregnancy Choices, or CPC, located in the Jackson metro area, are not regulated by the state – but rather, self-regulated. It is an interesting contrast. 

On one hand, JWHO and seemingly countless other abortion facilities, have proven a lack of adherence to legallymandated standards of safety, health, and overall patient care. Abortion facilities have fallen short and failed these regulations repeatedly. 

On the other hand, many pregnancy resource centers across the nation, including the CPC, are HIPPA and OSHA compliant by self-mandate. In addition, the CPC adheres to strict codes of confidentiality and professionalism by free association with national networks such as: Care Net, Heartbeat International, and The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. Most pregnancy resource centers belong to at least one of these organizations; and each organization has a set of terms concerning care and competence that must be agreed to in order to secure membership. The CPC is also overseen by an OB/GYN with local hospital admittance privileges and staffed with registered nurses who are both well qualified and properly certified. 

In the past, federal judges have blocked abortion bans and kept abortion clinic doors open. One might ask, are state regulations actually beneficial if abortion clinics fail to meet these standards and are aided in this negligence by court rulings? If left to the free market, rather than court rulings, would JWHO still be open? Even more, are abortion facilities helping or harming women? 

In recent news, Missouri may become the first abortion free state after the state Department of Health has refused to renew a St. Louis Planned Parenthood’s license. The state Department of Health has declared this abortion facility unfit to be licensed yet, pro-choice activists are labeling this loss tragic, bemoaning the this incredible afront to their rights, and screaming that the legislature must remove themselves from their uteruses.

It almost seems as if pro-choice activists are blind to the discrepancy posed between the abortion industry’s claims of championing women’s rights and their apparent inability to meet minimal standards of safety, health, and overall patient care. It is simply impossible to uphold women’s rights and simultaneously treat women who are seeking help with blatant negligence. Why isn’t this fundamental truth more obvious? 

Mississippi is viewed as ground zero in the nation’s battle over abortion. There is no other state in which this discrepancy is more apparent. In the 2016 documentary, Jackson, Diane Derzis was quoted saying, “This [tragic story] is a direct result of the Mississippi legislature trying so desperately to outlaw abortion while ignoring the health of pregnant women.”

One might pose the question to Derzis, does the problem fall upon Mississippi legislature, or does it fall upon you and abortion facility owners like you? 

What if the issue is really that abortion facilities are praised for manipulating women into their doors, with empty empowerment about autonomy and choice, and harming them for the sake of monetary gain? In 2017 there were 2,594 abortion procedures performed at JWHO. On JWHO’s website, it states that abortion procedure fees range from $600-$800. Therefore, a conservative estimate would calculate that JWHO earns over $1.5million a year.

In contrast, the CPC is a nonprofit organization that offers free services and strives to offer true empowerment and education concerning all the lifegiving choices a woman really has. If pro-choice activists believe so vehemently in choice, why have they created a society that so often views abortion as the only choice? 

In light of this invaluable information, we can arm ourselves with the truth and question widespread information that is presented as irrefutable truth. We can arm ourselves with the truth that pregnancy resource centers, like the CPC, are dedicated to walking alongside women from the first pregnancy test to long after birth, offering free services, counseling, and physical support.

Pregnancy resource centers, across the country, are the true safe havens for women – helping women who feel as if abortion is their only option, instead of harming them. 

We can arm ourselves with the truth that abortion facilities, like JWHO, operate under a pretense of empowerment, feminism, and healthcare; but, in reality, fail to meet even minimal standards of safety, health, and overall patient care.

The abortion industry is nothing but a poorly disguised agenda of monetary gain and manipulation – an industry that harms women who feel as if abortion is their only option, instead of helping them. 

A newly tenured professor at Ole Miss has a message for his students and it has little to do with wishing them luck in the upcoming school year.   

James Thomas, an assistant professor of sociology at Ole Miss otherwise known as InsurgentProf, took to Twitter Tuesday night to share his thoughts regarding President Trump’s rally in Greenville, North Carolina. Thomas described millennials who support the president as “modern day Hitlerjugend” and declared that “any and every humanities and behavioral/social science teacher has an obligation to put these racist remarks in proper context.”  

That’s awfully strange rhetoric for a professor who teaches at a university where a large portion of the student population identifies as conservative, even if the leadership and most professors don’t share that view.

While Thomas’ rhetoric may seem like standard fare for the everyday woke leftist of 2019, Thomas has a long history of inflammatory statements regarding conservatives. The most notable of which was last year when he called for liberal activists not just to disrupt the meals of Republican lawmakers but rather to “put your whole fingers in their salads. Take their apps and distribute them to the other diners.”

Though Thomas is free to have his views, as I’m sure they’re shared by many staff members in his department, Thomas now finds himself in the upper echelon of academia with his recent accomplishment of reaching tenured status. While outspoken and at times brash, Thomas isn’t the problem with Ole Miss. He is merely a symptom of the larger academic culture of the university itself. 

Ole Miss has become so dedicated to the ideals of fabricated diversity, identity politics, and social justice, it celebrates and advances professors like Thomas to the highest levels of the university power structure. Would an equally dedicated conservative professor enjoy the same opportunities of advancement?.  

It’s important to remember that it wasn’t too long ago that well-respected, Oxford businessman Ed Meek was forced to sacrifice his $5 million donation to the university and suffer harm to his professional reputation after making social media comments that were deemed politically incorrect and generally “problematic” by the established academic class of leadership in Oxford.  

Considering that people like Thomas put such an emphasis on “equal justice,” it’s odd that Thomas’ comments weren’t  met with the same strong condemnation by his peers. In fact, one might call it hypocritical – assuming one were not worried about energizing the thought/speech police of the progressive movement.

Ole Miss is at an inflection point and needs now, more than ever, to return to foundational basics. 

This starts by encouraging an environment where opinions contrary to Professor Thomas, or any other academic ideologue, are welcomed – even encouraged – as long as such opinions are delivered in respectful and responsible ways. It starts by encouraging true diversity of thought and reasoned debate that comes from the academic tradition of the scientific pursuit of truth. It starts by emphasizing a culture which prioritizes assertive citizenship participation on issues rather than demonstrations of outrage. It starts by recognizing the value of each individual within the university rather than focusing on the rights of a collective group

The University of Mississippi has an opportunity to reclaim its former position as the preeminent academy for a classical, liberal arts education  in the state and in the South. It wasn’t so long ago that people like William F. Buckley, Jr. came to Oxford to host nationally televised, Socratic debates between the nation’s best thinkers of the left and right. 

If we don’t move back toward the center, we may slowly disintegrate into the University of Nowhere.

The nation’s largest teachers union has adopted a new policy affirming a fundamental right to abortion, while rejecting the idea that student learning should be a priority of the union.

At their recent convention, the National Education Association, of which the Mississippi Association of Educators is an affiliate, affirmed a new business item that reads:

“The NEA will include an assertion of our defense of a person’s right to control their own body, especially for women, youth, and sexually marginalized people. The NEA vigorously opposes all attacks on the right to choose and stands on the fundamental right to abortion under Roe v. Wade.”

This is a sharp change from prior years when they attempted to walk more of a middle ground, saying they support “reproduction freedom,” not abortion, while bragging about not spending money in regards to pro-abortion legal services.

As we have seen with the left, abortion has moved from “safe, legal, and rare,” to legal until the moment of birth and funded by taxpayers. And if you disagree with that you are evil, anti-woman, and essentially support violence against women. 

But the bigger question is, is it necessary for the NEA, or its affiliates, to take a position on abortion? NEA is certainly a left-wing organization, that has never been in doubt. But, what does abortion have to do with education or teachers? 

One might presume a rejected item that calls for a renewed emphasis on quality education would be more in line with the NEA. That read:

“The National Education Association will re-dedicate itself to the pursuit of increased student learning in every public school in America by putting a renewed emphasis on quality education. NEA will make student learning the priority of the Association. NEA will not waiver in its commitment to student learning by adopting the following lens through which we will assess every NEA program and initiative: How does the proposed action promote the development of students as lifelong reflective learners?”

But, alas, the union rejected those ideas. 

According to the most recent data available from the union, the NEA has just 4,561 members in Mississippi, compared to over 54,000 in Alabama. The numbers in Mississippi show a 5 percent drop in the past five years. 

If you’ve had an opportunity to check the news recently, you might have noticed a lot a talk about Ole Miss. And we’re not talking about their latest purchase of $4,500 trash cans. Though, that certainly should raise a few eyebrows. 

It has now been roughly 230 or so days since Jeffrey Vitter announced his resignation as Chancellor of the University of Mississippi, making him the first person ever to resign his post, and in turn triggering a leadership vacuum.  

With the departure, both state and local media have spent a great deal of time talking about who is in the hunt for the chancellorship. Yet not much has been written or said about what the candidates want to achieve.   

The question the IHL, students, alumni, and facility should be asking those who seek the chancellorship is not what’s on their resume but what does their Ole Miss look like?  

The university finds itself at a critical juncture – between the solidification of the progressive academic movement, centered on political correctness and multiculturalism, that has dominated the school for the last few years –and the real kind of progress in terms of academic rigor and freedom, diversity of thought and speech, citizenship, enrollment, and culture.   

Going into this next academic year, Ole Miss will no longer be under NCAA sanctions, will be entering into its second year of being in the top half of one percent of research institutions, and will still be healing from the wounds inflicted by the demonstrations (related to Confederate monuments) which took place last April.  

If any man or woman earnestly seeks to carry this office with the style, grace, acumen, humility, and effectiveness of former chancellors, then that potential leader should be communicating a bold plan for the future of Ole Miss. Such a plan should not include following the modern script of the edutocracy. Today’s academies of higher education suffer from many self-imposed wounds. America is losing faith in the value of sending its next generation of civic and business leaders to college. Reversing that dangerous trend is going to require someone with a clear vison but also with the intestinal fortitude to withstand the slings and arrows of the higher education establishment.

The university needs now, more than ever, a chancellor who holds a deep reverence for the school’s traditions and institutions as well as the opinions of its students and alumni. This chancellor will need to possess practical ideas for turning around declining enrollment, for increasing the number of in-state students, for strengthening academic programs across the board, and for creating an environment where free expression is preserved and cherished. 

Ole Miss has the potential to be far greater than a mere punchline in the jokes made by the state’s political class. All it really needs is strong leadership. We’ve been there before. But strong leadership is in such short supply, especially if that leader is also required to bring terminal degrees and a publishing pedigree. 

The search of the next chancellor isn’t just about whether the IHL picks someone who is qualified. There is no shortage of well-credentialed, academic administration careerists. I’m sure the list of qualified candidates is long and distinguished.

The most important qualification right now should be about a candidate’s vision for Ole Miss. What can it become? What should its graduates know? What principals and ideas underpin the institution in such a way that a degree is unmistakably valuable and unique? The people of the state of Mississippi, the alumni, the faculty, the students, and even the world, await the results of this incredibly important hire. 

So what will Ole Miss become? 

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