The Mississippi Legislature turned a cold shoulder to Gov. Haley Barbour’s proposal to merge the state’s three historically black universities. Neither the House nor Senate took up the plan in committee. The deadline for committees to vote on bills and send them on for further consideration was Tuesday.While the merger plan can still be brought up during the session, its failure to make it out of either chamber’s committee process shows that it has very little support at present.
The Greenwood Commonwealth’s editorial board applauded the legislature’s decision, writing: “Let’s put this highly emotional, racially polarizing, politically distracting idea to rest and focus on realistic ways to cope with the financial hurt that this economic downturn is putting on Mississippi’s entire university system. Consolidating universities -- with perhaps one exception -- is not going to happen. What could be done, though, is the consolidation of so-called “backshop” functions -- purchasing, payroll and insurance -- and not just at the historically black universities but throughout the entire system. Faculty also could be shared between universities that are in fairly close proximity. And, as the universities themselves have been forced to discover, programs with few majors should be eliminated.”
The Jackson Free Press, an alternative weekly, called out Jackson State University President Ronald Mason for failing to be open about his support of the merger idea. The newspaper broke the story about Mason’s secret efforts to float his own merger proposal to state officials.
“Mason is the real surprise in this equation,” the Free Press editorial board wrote. “If anyone should be expected to get the sensitivity over this issue, it is the president of the state’s largest HBCU—an African American himself. But the way he chose to sneak around the halls of the Legislature—with a very unprofessionally prepared proposal, to boot—shows that he has no situational awareness on this issue. And that raises concern about where else that tone-deafness translate on his campus.”