by Michael Goldberg, Mississippi Today
August 25, 2025

Mississippians can no longer access the Bluesky app after the social media platform blocked access to users in the state.

Bluesky said on Friday that it made the decision after the U.S. Supreme Court declined for now to block a Mississippi state law that the platform said limits free expression, invades people’s privacy and unfairly targets smaller social media companies. The state law, passed in 2024, requires users of websites and other digital services to verify their age.

“The Supreme Court’s recent decision leaves us facing a hard reality: comply with Mississippi’s age assurance law—and make every Mississippi Bluesky user hand over sensitive personal information and undergo age checks to access the site—or risk massive fines,” the company wrote in a statement. “The law would also require us to identify and track which users are children, unlike our approach in other regions. We think this law creates challenges that go beyond its child safety goals, and creates significant barriers that limit free speech and disproportionately harm smaller platforms and emerging technologies.”

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, whose office defended the law, told the justices that age verification could help protect young people from “sexual abuse, trafficking, physical violence, sextortion and more,” activities that the First Amendment does not protect.

The age verification law added Mississippi to a list of Republican-led states where similar legal challenges are playing out.

NetChoice is challenging laws passed in Mississippi and other states that require social media users to verify their ages, and asked the Supreme Court to keep the measure on hold while a lawsuit plays out.

That came after a federal judge prevented the 2024 law from taking effect. But a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in July that the law could be enforced while the lawsuit proceeds.

On Aug. 14, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal from a tech industry group representing major platforms such as Facebook, X and YouTube.

There were no noted dissents from the brief, unsigned order. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that there’s a good chance NetChoice will eventually succeed in showing that the law is unconstitutional, but hadn’t shown it must be blocked while the lawsuit unfolds.

Bluesky grew after the 2024 presidential election. Many users of X, which is owned by Elon Musk, retreated from the platform in response to the billionaire’s strong support of Donald Trump.

In Bluesky’s statement explaining its decision to block access in Mississippi, the company said age verification systems “require substantial infrastructure and developer time investments, complex privacy protections, and ongoing compliance monitoring — costs that can easily overwhelm smaller providers.”

“This dynamic entrenches existing big tech platforms while stifling the innovation and competition that benefits users,” the company added.

Bluesky said it did follow other digital safety regulations, such as the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act. Under that statute, age checks are required only for accessing certain content and features, and Bluesky does not track which users are under 18, the platform said:

“Mississippi’s law, by contrast, would block everyone from accessing the site—teens and adults—unless they hand over sensitive information, and once they do, the law in Mississippi requires Bluesky to keep track of which users are children.”

The Mississippi law, authored by Rep. Jill Ford, a Republican from Madison, is called the “Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act,” named after a Mississippi teen who reportedly committed suicide after an overseas online predator threatened to blackmail him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Bluesky blocks access in Mississippi, citing free speech and privacy concerns over state law appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The content presents a perspective that emphasizes concerns about free speech, privacy, and the impact of government regulation on smaller tech companies, which aligns with a more progressive or liberal viewpoint on digital rights and corporate regulation. It critiques a Republican-led state law as potentially overreaching and harmful to innovation, while also acknowledging the law’s intent to protect children. The balanced presentation of both sides, with a slight emphasis on the tech platform’s viewpoint and civil liberties, suggests a center-left bias.

by Simeon Gates, Mississippi Today
August 21, 2025

As children during the 1950s, Hilliard Lackey and Lillian Troupe often had to skip school to pick cotton with their sharecropping parents. 

They grew up together in the small north Mississippi town of Marks, both raised by devoutly Christian families. 

Marks has struggled with poverty for generations, and problems were compounded by Mississippi’s history of underfunding public education for Black students. Schools remained segregated, and both said it was common for Black children around them to drop out or miss school so they could work in the fields.

“That was the life we knew, the life we inherited,” Hilliard Lackey said. 

Hilliard and Lillian met as classmates in sixth grade, started dating in high school and married in 1966. Despite the challenges of the time, their parents and church leaders encouraged them to be ambitious and succeed.

Today, several members of the Lackey family have doctoral degrees: Hilliard and Lillian Lackey; their daughters, Tahirih Lackey and Dr. Katrina Davis; the couple’s daughter-in-law, Tracy Knight Lackey; and his stepbrother and sister-in-law, Dr. Robert Long and Vanessa Rogers Long.

Pew Research Center found that as of 2023, about 26% of all Black Americans 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 11% have advanced degrees. In Mississippi, 18.5% of Black residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Hilliard Lackey is a longtime professor of urban higher education and lifelong learning at Jackson State University. He attended what was then called Jackson State College, earning his bachelor’s in history and political science, pre-law track, in 1965. (It became Jackson State University in 1974.)

Hilliard Lackey – who later earned a master’s degree in educational administration, an education specialist degree in the same topic, and a doctorate in higher education administration – was the first in his family to go to college. 

“I left home and came to a whole new city, a whole new environment. It’s a college,” he said, looking back on the experience. “And I was astounded, and scared, and frightened and bewildered.”

Lillian, then still named Troupe, attended Coahoma Community College before transferring to what was then called Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College – since 1974, Alcorn State University. She graduated from Alcorn with a bachelor’s in business education in 1966 and earned a masters in education administration from Jackson State in 1974. 

She was still living and working in Marks during community college.

“I went to Coahoma … rode the school bus, came home, got out of my clothes, went to the field, picked cotton,” she said. “And so I picked my way out of the cotton field to Alcorn.”

In June, West Coast Bible College & Seminary awarded Lillian Lackey an honorary doctorate for her years of community service. 

Two of Hilliard and Lillian Lackey’s four children have doctorates. Davis has a medical degree and is a urogynecologist. Tahirih Lackey has a doctorate in civil environmental engineering and is a research hydraulic engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center.

Both sisters say their parents’ emphasis on education and success and their religious faith influenced their career paths. 

Davis recounted that every Sunday, each member of the family stood in front of the fireplace and discussed what they’d done that week to achieve their goals. She and her siblings attended a variety of academic and athletic summer programs before and during college.

Hilliard and Lillian Lackey converted from Christianity to the Baha’i faith as adults. They raised their children “essentially as Christian Baha’is,” according to Hilliard Lackey, and let them choose what religion to follow when they were 15 years old.

“They pretty much told us, ‘Whatever you want to be, you can be, and we’ll be there to help you,’” Davis said.

“I would recognize that my parents, they were always helping other people. Like, throughout my whole life they demonstrated those concepts,” Tahirih Lackey said.

“None of us thought we had any barriers,” Davis said. “If there were barriers, they were from our own mental blocks.”

Hilliard Lackey’s stepbrother, Dr. Robert Long, is a dentist in Clarksdale. Long also credits his upbringing for his success, saying his parents raised him and his siblings with a strong work ethic and Christian values.

“They instilled in us that nobody is going to give you anything, nobody is obligated to give you anything,” Long said.

Long grew up in a small rural town in Quitman County, 15 miles from Marks. He had a similar upbringing to Hilliard Lackey. His parents encouraged him to get an education. 

He attended Earlham College, where he majored in biology and found a mentor who inspired him to become a dentist.

He described his undergraduate experience as a “culture shock” and an “academic shock.” He chose to persevere through the challenges.

“I knew I could go home,” he said, “but I didn’t want to go home.”

Vanessa Rogers Long grew up in a middle-class family in the small community of Memphis, Mississippi, and, like most of her family, has lived a life dedicated to service.

She was the first Black hospital administrator for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. She founded Mississippi Delta Connection, which is part of Links Inc. She also mentors teens on service and leadership skills. She has received several honors, including having her sorority,  Alpha Kappa Alpha, dedicate a bench to her at her alma mater, LeMoyne-Owen College. 

“Service is what I do,” she said.

Hilliard and Lillian Lackey are also deeply involved in community service, including their “Lackey Scholars” program inspired by a former teacher. Hillard Lackey estimates they’ve helped more than 500 high school students from Quitman County attend and graduate from Jackson State since 1967. In addition, they mentor dozens of students from Quitman County’s Madison Shannon Palmer High School to act as role models for their peers and the community. 

“That’s just been our thing, it’s always been,” Lillian Lackey said. “To help somebody, if they were hungry, if they were cold, if they were whatever.”

When asked what he would tell first-generation college students, Hilliard Lackey said: “Education is an equalizer. It gives an advantage to the disadvantaged. It levels the legacy playing field.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Lackey family members show value of education appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This article emphasizes the value of education, community service, and overcoming historical racial and economic challenges, themes often highlighted in center-left discourse. It acknowledges systemic issues like underfunding of Black education in Mississippi while focusing on personal achievement and community upliftment without overt political partisanship. The tone is positive and supportive of education as a tool for social mobility, aligning with moderate progressive values but avoiding strong ideological language.

by Devna Bose, Mississippi Today
August 20, 2025

INDIANOLA — The top of the Jeep was down, and Miskia Davis was behind the wheel, leading a parade through downtown Indianola.

It was 2019, just two years after the now 50-year-old Davis became superintendent of Sunflower County Consolidated School District. Back then, she wasn’t sure this moment would ever come. 

She recalled feeling the first cool breeze of October as she waved at people who lined the street, smiling and celebrating.

But it had — the district’s first “C” rating, its first passing grade, and the community had shown up to a parade to celebrate the achievement. Generations of teachers and Sunflower County graduates stood on the sidewalk, proudly cheering the assembly of cars and students.

“It was … Oh my God,” Davis said. “My children were like, ‘We did something.’”

The work hadn’t been easy, but it had been worth it, Davis thought — the number crunching, the doubt and lukewarm welcome she felt from the community, the tough decisions she’d had to make.

Now, she’s ready to move on.

Daughter of the Delta

From starting kindergarten to subbing for elementary classes, Davis’ childhood and career in Sunflower County and her identity as a daughter of the Delta were her strengths in the classroom, she said.

“I grew up in Drew, poor and with two young parents,” Davis said. “We didn’t have elaborate meals, and when I went home, the lights may have been off. But it made me who I am, and these children were experiencing the same things I experienced as a child.”

So Davis was relatable. But as a young high school teacher at Ruleville Central High School, some of her students looked older than her and many were taller than she was. She was forced to learn how to command respect, too. 

One particular child taught her an invaluable lesson. He was a star football player in her biology class, and he was failing the course by two points. He caused trouble in class and Davis was determined to fail him, despite more experienced teachers prodding her not to, to look past her own ego. 

So Davis gave him another chance. She had him do extra work and spent hours talking to him. She learned why he behaved poorly in class — he was one of seven children to a young, single mother. 

“He was angry at the world, and I just happened to be in the world,” she said. “It taught me the power of relationships. I think that’s the most important catalyst in transforming education.”

It was during that time that her superintendent “saw something” in her and pushed her to become a school leader. That kickstarted her journey in administration. 

Davis soon learned she had a particular gift for turning failing schools around. Under her leadership as principal, Ruleville Middle School went from failing to an “A” letter grade in three years. 

Her school improvement strategy began to take shape, similar to her teaching style. Davis was both a disciplinarian and someone to whom teachers and students could relate. She prioritized building strong relationships with teachers who were invested in their students. But she didn’t shy away from making controversial decisions, either. In Ruleville, she fired nearly all of the staff when she arrived. 

But as Davis was gaining her footing as an administrator, Sunflower County School District was struggling. 

After consistent failing grades resulted in the state takeovers of Indianola, Sunflower and Drew school districts, the Legislature decided to consolidate the three systems in 2012. 

District consolidation is a massive undertaking for any community, but especially for Sunflower County — smack dab in the middle of the Delta, an under-resourced region with a shrinking population, high poverty rates and a deep history of racial exploitation.

Davis arrived in 2014 to a school district that had lost hope — a district that she didn’t recognize.

All Sunflower knew was ‘failure’

Davis never wanted to be superintendent. 

She spent three years working under the leader of the consolidated district. But when the superintendent was dismissed in 2017, Davis was appointed to the head role in an interim capacity. She got the job in January of 2018 without ever applying.

So with another state takeover looming, Davis went to work. The biggest challenge? The district and the community seemed resigned to failure. 

“We had been failing so long, that’s all we knew,” she said. “No one was even sad.”

Early on, Davis visited a school to discuss recent test results. She was so struck by teachers’ apathy that she stopped the meeting midway and had them tear off a scrap of paper and write “yes” or “no” to a question: Did the teachers believe their school could ever be successful? 

More than half said no.

“They were teaching my children,” Davis said, tearing up. “And they didn’t think they would ever be successful.”

Davis went to the school board to tell members that she wouldn’t be renewing many of those teachers’ contracts. That’s when she realized she didn’t just need to boost test scores — she needed to change attitudes. 

The hashtag #WINNING was born.

“We started to celebrate every little accomplishment,” Davis said. “We got T-shirts, shades, whatever. That was our mantra.”

Children received certificates for a week of perfect attendance. When students did well on benchmark assessments, teachers were ushered into the hallway to be celebrated by students and colleagues. Davis created the “Killin’ It” awards, given to students and teachers for meeting their testing benchmarks. 

They were just certificates, at the end of the day. But it led to a changed school culture, a renewed belief that they could succeed. 

As an administrator, Davis leaned on what she knew worked as a teacher, relationship-building and strong discipline (she even sent her nephew to alternative school for fighting), and combined it with a data-driven approach and an eagle-eyed focus on testing. 

She put an academic coach in every building, whose sole responsibility was supporting teachers. 

Davis took teacher Dylan Jones out of the classroom and put him in the central office, where he was tasked with tracking district metrics. 

Jones uncovered which consultants were working and which were uselessly costing the district millions. The district went from contracting with 30 firms to just four. 

Jones also created an accountability system for teachers. With one click, Davis could see how each teacher’s students were performing, and she gave everyone access to the data. If teachers weren’t meeting their goals, Davis hosted regular meetings and had them explain — in front of everyone — what they needed to succeed. 

Davis’ methods weren’t popular at first. Educators went to the school board and complained that the system was “punitive.” Some even quit. But Davis was steadfast and implored board members to see the work she and her team could do, if given the chance. 

The district’s rating didn’t budge in 2018. 

But in fall 2019, after Davis’ first full year as superintendent, Sunflower County Consolidated School District had earned its first “C” rating.

What happened after the first ‘C’

Those early years were difficult, Davis remembered, because she felt so isolated, just her and her team “in the trenches.”

She hosted community meetings, imploring local parents, leaders and business owners to support the district. 

“They told me to come back when we were no longer failing,” Davis said.

So after that first “C,” when she started seeing the district’s hashtags on Facebook, when more people started coming to school events, when she started to get invited to speak at the local Rotary Club, it was bittersweet. 

Teachers, too, took a while to come around. Their performance was being closely monitored through the accountability system, but soon they realized that Davis wasn’t giving them mandates outside of improving test scores. She gave them autonomy in their classrooms. Teachers had the final say on how to improve their students’ achievement. That kind of trust isn’t common, Sunflower County teachers told Mississippi Today.

It wasn’t until 2021, when voters passed a $31 million bond issue that would pay for major school renovations, that Davis felt the full support of the community. 

Davis even won over Betty Petty, a local matriarch and fierce advocate for kids and parents. 

“She has actually shown a presence at the schools, constantly meeting with teachers and making sure all children are learning,” Petty said. “We had community meetings where she would actually come out and listen to our concerns.”

Petty attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Gentry High School last July. Before renovations, plumbing problems caused flooding when it rained, so students had to wade through water to get from class to class. Davis said she’d never forget the sight of generations of Gentry graduates in the school atrium, looking around in wonder at the new facility.

“At first, I chose the community,” Davis said. “But eventually, the community chose me.”

The legacy she leaves behind

Strong schools make strong communities, but it can take time for results to show. Indianola Mayor Ken Featherstone hopes to see the dividends soon. 

Featherstone took office four years ago, around the same time the district got its first “B” grade. It has maintained the grade ever since, the highest in the entire region.

He, like Davis, was reared in the Delta, but empathizes with her struggle garnering the support of a community deeply impacted by gun violence and low investment from state officials. 

“People are very result-oriented,” he said, leaning back at his desk in city hall. “You till the soil, but it’s not until you start your seed breaking the ground do you see other people starting to water it. That’s just human nature.”

He’s hoping the district’s academic gains will be a boon for Indianola’s struggling economy.

“We’re seeing things slowly come to our area,” Featherstone said. “To get manufacturing jobs to come to our area, we have to improve our public school system. Directors and presidents of manufacturing plants … they need to know where their kids are going to attend school.”

Davis announced in October 2024 that she would be leaving the superintendent job at the end of the school year. Now, she travels the state, consulting with other districts on how to replicate what she did in Indianola, as a director of District and School Performance and Accountability for The Kirkland Group, an education consulting firm based in Ridgeland. 

Her departure was a tough blow, Featherstone said, and leaves the district’s hard-fought success hanging in balance. 

Petty and her network of parents are concerned, too. 

“I don’t think any of us know what will happen moving forward,” she said. 

Davis said there was no big epiphany. She just felt her mission was accomplished. She said she’s adamant that the district’s “best days are ahead,” under new superintendent James Johnson-Waldington. 

Johnson-Waldington, who was most recently serving as superintendent of Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District, is also Sunflower-grown, and he was Davis’ principal when she taught at Ruleville Central High School. He plans on employing strategies similar to Davis: holding teachers accountable and celebrating their achievements. 

After all, if it’s working, why change it?

“I feel a good kind of pressure,” Johnson-Waldington said. “I like challenges, and this is a new challenge for me. I’m not taking a failing school district to success. This is about maintaining and growing, and I accept that challenge for the very reason that this is home. I’m going to work very hard to maintain what Miskia has done.”

Davis leaves behind a legacy, Featherstone said, that makes her hometown proud. He was in the crowd that day at the parade. He remembers the excitement, the pride. 

“Older teachers were there, and you could see the look on their faces that they knew they had reared someone who threw the oar out to a sinking district and brought it back up,” he said. 

“She made us see ourselves in a better light, and we can’t thank her enough.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post This superintendent took a failing Delta school district to a ‘B’ rating. Now, she’s leaving appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This article presents a positive and detailed profile of an educational leader working to improve a struggling school district in a historically under-resourced and economically challenged region. The focus on community uplift, education reform, accountability, and addressing systemic challenges aligns with themes often emphasized by center-left perspectives. However, the article maintains a largely neutral and factual tone without overt political framing or partisan language, emphasizing pragmatic solutions and community collaboration rather than ideological positions.