OXFORD — Police disbanded a pro-Palestinian student protest at the University of Mississippi less than an hour after it officially started when counter-protesters threw a water bottle and other items at the protest, prompting the protesters to respond in kind with water.

When police removed the pro-Palestinian students from the Quad, a grassy area behind the library, the largely white male students roared.

“Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey, good bye,” the counter-protesters chanted. 

The confrontation was in reaction to a largely peaceful protest held by a group called UMiss for Palestine that called on the university to divest from companies tied to Israel, a common demand at student protests across the country in the wake of the Israel-Hamas War. The university has said it doesn't have any direct investment in Israeli-based companies, and that no arrests were made or injuries reported. Nationally, about 2,000 arrests have been made, according to AP.

Many of the roughly 60 protesters wore masks, chanting “free, free Palestine” and “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.” 

But they were vastly outnumbered by more than 200 counter-protesters, who drowned them out with shouts of “fuck Joe Biden,” “whose your daddy,” “USA” and “we can't hear you.” Some of the counter-protesters shouted racist remarks, such as “hit the showers” and “your nose is huge.”

The campus in north Mississippi had seen two gatherings last fall after the Oct. 7 attacks — a vigil organized by Hillel, a Jewish organization, and a rally for humanitarian aid for Palestinians — but multiple students on both sides said Thursday's protest was the tensest they had seen. Ole Miss, a largely white university, has few Palestinian and Jewish students.

It was the first pro-Palestine protest at a Mississippi university since students at Columbia University set up an encampment about two weeks ago.

The sheer novelty seemed to draw some of the counter-protesters who came from Fraternity Row, a few blocks away from the Quad.

“Um, we were gonna go to the pool, but then we heard this was gonna happen so we were like fuck that, we're gonna come over here and counter-protest it,” said Trevor Lahey, a 21-year-old business major, who said he came out with his fraternity brothers, though he wouldn't say which one. 

Though the pro-Palestinian students have a right to free speech, Lahey added, he thought they were taking it too far. 

“I don't care that much, I just don't want them to encamp on my school,” Lahey said. “It looks ugly. I'm paying for them to be there.” 

The Pro-Palestinian protesters were not setting up camp. They wouldn't speak to a reporter beyond a statement they had prepared, but Mississippi Today couldn't obtain it by press time.  

Earlier in the day, Gov. Tate Reeves said he was aware of the protest and that campus, city, county and state law enforcement were “being deployed and coordinated.” 

“Peaceful protests are allowed and protected – no matter how outrageous those protesters views (sic) may seem to some of us,” he wrote. “But unlawful behavior will not be tolerated. It will be dealt with accordingly. Law and order will be maintained!”

University police had initially erected metal barricades separating the student protesters from the Phi Mu Fountain, but the counter-protesters began to congregate behind the library. Just steps separated the two camps, with a handful of officers standing between them.

The situation began to escalate when a student in hot pink athleisure exchanged words with a student protester wearing a keffiyeh. The student protester charged at her, but others held her back. 

Then a half-eaten sandwich was thrown at the protesters, prompting the police to hem them in with the barricades. 

It's pointless to protest in the U.S., said a 21-year-old student who only gave his name as Dillon. The student protesters could better support Palestine by going “over there,” he said, adding he thought it was a “stupid war” that he doesn't support.  

But he still decided to join the counter-protesters, Dillon said.

“I just wanted to see it for myself,” he said. “I wanted to be a part of something. I love my country. I love them, too. I just don't think what they're supporting is right, in my opinion.”

“They shouldn't be throwing shit, in my opinion,” he added, referring to both sides. 

That's when a counter-protester threw a water bottle. The student protesters threw something back, and soon, food-related items were volleying across the barricade. 

In an attempt to de-escalate, the police began to escort the protesters away. The counter-protesters cheered and started running after them, which some police and staff with the University of Mississippi First Amendment Support Team tried to prevent, leading one student to shout, “I'm not walking with them, I'm just walking this way!” 

“Nobody fucking cares, shut up!” a white female protester yelled as she swatted him with a plastic bag of takeout. 

“Assault!” The counter-protesters shouted. 

A police officer in a vest pulled her aside. Her mouth trembled, and she initially refused to give her full name. A legal observer with the Mississippi Center for Justice slipped her his card. 

“I'm trying to let you go,” the officer said, exasperated. “But I'm going to annotate that this happened. If you don't want to cooperate, I'll just take you to jail.” 

Police warned other students for their behavior. On Chapel Lane, where the student protesters waited to go inside the School of Applied Science, four officers escorted two Black students to their cars as the counter-protesters jeered. 

A plainclothes officer told the crowd to get back. 

“I'm doing the same thing they're doing — I have freedom of speech,” one student said to him. 

“Absolutely, 100%, but you can't come up to them,” the officer said.

Inside the School of Applied Sciences, the pro-Palestinian protesters holed up in a classroom. They comforted each other, made a plan to leave campus and accounted for all their sashes and flags. Through windows covered in white vinyl, the visages of counter-protesters could be seen. 

“Y'all did beautifully,” said one student, who didn't give a name, as students clapped for each other. “I'm so happy.”

Near tears, a student named Jana, whose family is from Palestine, thanked the group.

“Hey guys, I know that what just happened was really intimidating, and it was a little scary, but I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys,” she said. “This wasn't going to happen in Oxford without all of you guys. Palestine was being heard. And I just want to thank you guys so much. I know that was such a big risk, but this is the most that people have ever thought for us, so don't give up. I know that was really hard, but we need to keep fighting. This was just the start of it, okay?”

Jana grew up in Southaven, but her dad was born in a refugee camp in Jericho, in the Palestinian West Bank. She said her family still knows people in Gaza.

The idea that her university could be investing in companies connected to Israel is personal, she said. Along with other students, she's tried to investigate Ole Miss's ties to military defense contractors like Raytheon, and it's something she plans to look into more. 

“Our university endowment has no direct investment in Israeli-based companies, the university offers no study abroad opportunities to Israel, and the university has no formal agreements with defense contractors,” Jacob Batte, the university's media relations director, wrote in an email. 

Jana said she was surprised at how many students came out, considering many of them aren't affected by the conflict. 

“I don't even know if they were just against us, or if they were there to just like, get a good laugh,”she said. 

The police helped the protesters get to a bus that would take them to their cars. The counter-protesters started barking at the students, and as a student gave them a middle-finger, one of them shouted “at least it's not a plane this time,” a possible reference to the Sept. 11 attacks.

As the crowd died down, three Black friends in the parking lots said they wished it would've been possible for the two groups to have a dialogue. They didn't know much about the conflict and would like to learn more. 

But the counter-protesters made that impossible, they said. 

“They just conformed to the larger group,” Hannah Brock, a 21-year-old social work major observed. 

Both sides should've had representatives debate, they added. 

“It wasn't equal, like—” said Victoria Fox, a 21-year-old criminal justice major.

“They were just throwing out insults,” 21-year-old Carlesis Ferguson said about the counter-protesters. “You couldn't even hear (the Pro-Palestinian students) and it was their protest.” 

In the Circle, the former home of the campus's Confederate monument and where the protest was slated to be held before the university convinced students to move it, Chancellor Glenn Boyce spoke at a ceremony for JROTC students. The mood was calm, as if the protest hadn't happened.

“I'm humbled to be here with you today,” Boyce said. “Once again you represent this university's legacy at its absolute finest.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Mississippi Supreme Court in a 7-2 ruling found that Parents for Public Schools does not have legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of the state Legislature sending public money to private schools.

The opinion, released Thursday, did not address the issue of whether the $10 million appropriation made in 2022 by the Legislature to private schools was constitutional.

Justice Robert Chamberlin of Southaven, writing for the majority, concluded Parents for Public Schools did not have standing to bring the lawsuit, in part, because harm to the public schools could not be proven.

Chamberlin wrote that the public education advocacy group says the legislative appropriation “will adversely affect the funding of public schools by legislating a competitive advantage to the independent schools who will receive the funds. This alleged future harm, however, is speculative and not sufficient to meet even Mississippi's permissive standing requirements.”

Coloring the ruling of the majority at least in part, is that the funds appropriated to the private schools were federal COVID-19 relief funds and not state money.

The office of state Attorney General Lynn Fitch had argued that the case should be dismissed because of lack of standing. Fitch's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the court's ruling.

Will Bardwell, an attorney for Parents for Public Schools, told Mississippi Today that the Thursday ruling was “outrageous” because the organization he represents had a “direct interest” in ensuring Mississippi's public schools were not undermined.

“This is not how courts are supposed to operate,” Bardwell said. “This is not how courts are supposed to work. When lawmakers ignore the constitution, courts are supposed to stand in their way. Other than Justice Leslie king and Justice Jim Kitchens, seven members of the Mississippi Supreme Court didn't do that today. And that's sad.” 

The lawsuit revolved around Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution, which declares simply that no public funds shall go to any school “that at the time of receiving such funds is not conducted as a free public school.”

During oral arguments before the Court in February, attorneys for Parents for Public Schools contended that it made no difference whether the funds were state or federal funds, only that they were public funds.

Parents for Public Schools argued that it was a group composed of parents of public school children so it should have standing to pursue the lawsuit.

Hinds County Chancellor Crystal Wise Martin agreed with that argument, but the state's highest court overturned her ruling.

Chamberlin wrote that because the funds were federal, “state taxpayer standing
is untenable under the facts of this case.”

Justice Leslie King of Greenville argued that Parents for Public Schools did have standing. King, who was joined in his opinion by Justice James Kitchens of Crystal Springs, questioned whether anyone would have standing to file a lawsuit under the majority's opinion.

King wrote, “The majority's holding today flies in the face of our longstanding liberal standing jurisprudence and severely limits the ability of Mississippi citizens to challenge government actions that violate the constitution.”

Mississippi Today's Taylor Vance contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

A bill to correct an outdated law barring in vitro fertilization children from next of kin inheritance passed both chambers Wednesday afternoon and now heads to the governor to be signed into law. 

This is the fifth year Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, filed the measure to give inheritance rights to children conceived via IVF after the death of one parent, as 27 other states have done. These bills died in the legislative process the last four years.

“What a relief … I am just so thrilled that after all this time we came to an agreement that will soon be law,” McLean said. “This will help countless families and children have the right to be able to receive these benefits as they should.”

McLean's legislation was inspired by the personal story of one of her constituents, Katie Studdard, whose 5-year-old daughter has been denied Social Security benefits from her late biological father since birth. 

READ MORE: Five years later, this Mississippi mom is still fighting an outdated law blocking her child's inheritance

“And that's how a lot of bills that we end up sponsoring come to us – from stories, from an issue someone is having where we need to make adjustments to state law,” McLean said.

Studdard, who lives in Columbus, started fertility treatments with her late husband, Chris McDill, before he died of cancer. She did not have success with the embryos while her husband was alive, but decided to continue trying for a baby after her husband's death. She conceived her daughter Elyse a year after her husband died. 

House Bill 1542 passed the House unanimously in mid-March and overwhelmingly passed the Senate in mid-April at the eleventh hour. But the Senate passed it with a reverse repealer, referring it to conference in the hopes of expanding the bill beyond its original scope to protect in vitro fertilization and other forms of assisted reproduction, in the wake of recent events calling fertility treatments into question in Alabama. 

Ultimately, that was too big a task to take on at the end of the session, with pro-life groups coming out publicly to express concern about new language they didn't have time to vet, explained Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall. Fillingane was one of the lawmakers tasked with debating the details of the bill in conference. 

House and Senate conferees reverted the bill back mostly to its original language and were able to achieve the primary goal of securing inheritance rights for posthumously-conceived children with the final version. In addition to that goal, Fillingane said, conferees were able to come up with a definition for “alternative reproduction,” which didn't previously exist in Mississippi. 

“I think Chairman (Brice) Wiggins and Chairman (Joey) Hood (of the Judiciary A committee where the bill was assigned) thought … ‘let's get this issue addressed for this family in Columbus that has waited (five) years … and let's at least get a definition in place sort of as a starting point to build a framework out hopefully over the next sessions to add to protect the IVF procedures and processes and surrogacy,'” said Fillingane.

Fillingane had two of his own children through surrogacy, but traveled to California to do so – because the state has clear statutory guidelines around parental rights in surrogacy cases. 

“I did not feel comfortable having my kids in Mississippi … there were absolutely no protections that the state of Mississippi offers for parents who have children this way. As a family lawyer, I was uniquely situated to see some of these things,” he said.

Senate Judiciary A Chairman Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, who was instrumental in getting the bill to the finish line, wasn't available for comment. 

Although it's been a trying few years, Studdard said she has a newfound appreciation for the Legislature. As a teacher, she has live streamed floor debates during her lunch period at school, has become acquainted with the legislative language of various iterations of the bill, and talked extensively with lawmakers. She says that every time she hears a new legislative word that she doesn't know, she googles it.

“I've learned a lot,” she said. “I think anybody going through any life-changing event, like I did with (my husband's) cancer, and then IVF, and now this bill …you gain a whole new appreciation and so much knowledge you never thought you'd know.”

Studdard is overjoyed that the Senate proposed naming the law after her late husband, Chris McDill, and is proud to model for her daughter and her students that it is possible for an everyday person to enact policy change. 

Primarily, she hopes the benefits her daughter will start receiving next year will go toward her future education.

“I just think this financially will create so much security for her and her education, that's number one for me,” Studdard said. “I want her to not have to worry about taking out a student loan. I want her to have a good financial start to life when she goes to college. To be able to hand that to your child is a gift.”

When McLean first authored a bill to address Studdard's predicament, it was the first year of her first four-year term. Now, it's the first year of her second term, and she says it feels full circle. 

“When (Studdard) first told me about her little girl and being a single mom, at that time Elyse was just a baby, and it really hit home to me because I am also a single mother of a daughter, and I understood the significance of this and how we really need to protect children and women and mothers and families,” McLean reflected. “I felt like it was really something I could get behind.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.