| Friday, June 21, 2024 |
| Miller retires after 24 years as Mississippi Horse Park director | |
 | Bricklee Miller is retiring as the Mississippi Horse Park director after 24 years. She presented highlights from throughout the years at the Board of Aldermen's Tuesday meeting. Miller noted that the horse park started as four simple metal buildings on a dirt road in 1999 and has now expanded to a 69,000 square feet area with three large barns and an open-air arena. The horse park has drawn in 1.4 million visitors and $63 million in its 25-year history, she said. The horse park is a partnership between the city, Oktibbeha County and Mississippi State University. "As we look back to 1999, 25 years ago, the horse park has grown enormously, and that is because of your exemplary leadership," Ward 6 Alderman and Vice Mayor Roy A'. Perkins said to Miller. When Miller started her position in October 2000, she said she wanted to help the horse park to attract thousands of visitors because it was "out of sight, out of mind" on the backside of campus on a dirt road. In 2001, Oktibbeha County approved paving Poor House Road, which led to the development of the Sunnyland community, Miller noted. "It's just a way to show that a facility in an area can be an economic developer too, not just a driver, and that's what the horse park has done," she said. |
| Girls learn construction, trade skills at FORGE camp | |
 | Twelve-year-old Annabelle Brislin is pretty sure she wants to be a professional soccer player when she grows up. But this week, she poured concrete. At FORGE Construction Camp for Girls, Brislin and other campers have spent every day since Monday talking to skilled trade professionals, touring construction sites and learning hands-on skills like plumbing and roofing. Brislin told The Dispatch that even if she does become a soccer player, she will still use the skills she's learned at camp throughout her life. "I wanted to do the camp because I wanted to try something new," she said. "This is something you can use for the rest of your life -- all these resources. You never know when something falls apart and you have to build it back together." "We're just trying to give these girls those hands-on experiences to see if there's something that they want to do," FORGE Executive Director Melinda Lowe told The Dispatch. "... We're teaching them life skills. This is something that they can use to help their parents around the house or when they get older, they won't have to call a plumber to come in and fix a leaky pipe." FORGE, a collective of local construction companies that aims to increase vocational training, selected 12 students from local private and public schools to attend the inaugural camp. Wednesday they visited an active construction site at Mississippi State to see work in action. |
| Saturday conference to focus on Black men's mental health | |
| After losing her father to suicide in 2019, Camillia Harris decided she never wanted another man to lose hope again. Instead, she wanted to offer Black men a "safe space" to know they were not alone. Since 2023, Harris's organization, justUs, MH Foundation, has done just that, organizing conferences on Black men's mental health across the country. On Saturday, one of those conferences is coming to Columbus. Harris said the conference will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Nissan Auditorium at Mississippi University for Women. The conference emphasizes the importance of mental health resources, like the 988 suicide hotline and therapy, along with other practical tools for improving mental health. Each conference also includes a panel of local Black men from different professional backgrounds sharing their experiences, Harris said. Sixteenth Circuit Court District Attorney Scott Colom will also be on the panel. He decided to participate in the conference, as he often sees the consequences of untreated mental health issues within the justice system. Colom said by speaking at the conference, he hopes to encourage others to find ways to improve their mental health. "Nobody thinks they're going to be the person that has the bipolar episode or the mental breakdown, or all the dangers of ignoring it. Nobody says 'that's going to be me,'" Colom said. "But it happens to people, so you have to be proactive and make sure you're monitoring and thinking about how you're feeling and how your mental health is doing." |
| New Mississippi law won't impact bump stock possession | |
 | The debate continues about what residents can legally have when it comes to modifications to guns. 3 on your side looks at whether the latest Supreme Court ruling conflicts with any state laws, including one set to take effect on July 1. A federal ban on bump stocks took effect in 2018. It was in response to the mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival the previous year. The ATF regulation classified guns with bump stocks as machine guns. That ban was struck down by the United States Supreme Court last week. "Because there aren't any Second Amendment issues, because in this instance, given the federal failure to regulate, there aren't any preemption issues, the states can go ahead and do what they want," explained Christopher Green, Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law & Government at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Mississippi lawmakers just passed legislation criminalizing the manufacture, possession and use of "machine gun conversion devices." The question then is whether that impacts bump stocks. Sen. Joey Fillingane was on the conference committee that worked out the details of the bill's language that they say was specifically targeting Glock switches. "Basically, the distinction is, when you pull the trigger one time if more than one shot is fired with just the single pull, then that is what we outlaw. That's considered a machine gun," explained Fillingane. |
| Streamlined permitting, new technologies put nuclear energy back in spotlight | |
| In an increasingly rare bipartisan vote, the U.S. Senate passed the Fire Grants and Safety Act on Tuesday, legislation that included the text of the ADVANCE Act aimed at spurring new nuclear power generation in America. The measure passed the Senate by a vote of 88-2. It previously passed the U.S. House in May by a vote of 393-13. Mississippi's two U.S. Senators and all three Republican Congressmen supported the legislation, while the state's lone Democrat, Congressman Bennie Thompson, was recorded as not voting. The Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy, or ADVANCE Act is being hailed as one of the most significant pieces of legislation to come out of Congress in recent years as it seeks to encourage more innovation and investment in nuclear technologies. Simplifying nuclear reactor permitting and deployment is a major part of the legislation as is reenforcing the staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) while updating and revising the Commission's authority and processes. Nuclear power generation has gained bipartisan support in large part due to it being "clean energy" that is sustainable. Democrats have backed the move as they continue to call for less reliance on coal and natural gas. Republicans largely see it as a reliable option that does not come with the pitfalls associated with other green energy efforts within the Biden Administration's "climate change" agenda, such as solar or wind. Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown (R) told Magnolia Tribune on Thursday that the three-man Public Service Commission (PSC) is very supportive of efforts to increase nuclear power generation in the state. In fact, the Commission passed a resolution in March voicing their support for the advancement of nuclear energy. |
| AI is exhausting the power grid. Tech firms are seeking a miracle solution. | |
 | The mighty Columbia River has helped power the American West with hydroelectricity since the days of FDR's New Deal. But the artificial intelligence revolution will demand more. Much more. So near the river's banks in Central Washington, Microsoft is betting on an effort to generate power from atomic fusion -- the collision of atoms that powers the sun -- a breakthrough that has eluded scientists for the past century. Physicists predict it will elude Microsoft, too. The tech giant and its partners say they expect to harness fusion by 2028, an audacious claim that bolsters their promises to transition to green energy but distracts from current reality. In fact, the voracious electricity consumption of artificial intelligence is driving an expansion of fossil fuel use --- including delaying the retirement of some coal-fired plants. In the face of this dilemma, Big Tech is going all in on experimental clean-energy projects that have long odds of success anytime soon. As the tech giants compete in a global AI arms race, a frenzy of data center construction is sweeping the country. Some computing campuses require as much energy as a modest-sized city, turning tech firms that promised to lead the way into a clean energy future into some of the world's most insatiable guzzlers of power. Their projected energy needs are so huge, some worry whether there will be enough electricity to meet them from any source. |
| Nonstop attacks about Trump, Biden's mental acuity loom over the first presidential debate | |
 | For those with questions about the leading 2024 presidential candidates' mental acuity, or those involved in stoking the increasingly heated spin online around such questions, Saturday night was a bonanza. President Biden appeared to "freeze up," as the New York Post put it, as he walked offstage at a downtown Los Angeles fundraising appearance with former President Obama and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. The Biden campaign and its allies accused the Post and others who circulated the "freeze" meme of misrepresenting the footage. The same evening, former President Trump called for his 2024 rival to take a "cognitive test," claiming he himself had "aced" one while in office -- then botched the name of the doctor who administered it. "Ronny Johnson. Does everybody know Ronny Johnson?" Trump said, meaning Dr. Ronny Jackson, who is now a Texas congressman. Next week's debate, which will be broadcast by CNN and simulcast on other networks, will be one of the few moments for the public to view the candidates side-by-side, unfiltered, for an extended period of time. Voters will be able to judge for themselves each man's vitality, energy and mental acuity. Peter Reed, director of the Sanford Center for Aging at the University of Nevada Reno, said it's not possible to know a person's mental acuity based on video snippets. Cognitive and physical capabilities vary from person to person -- and there's no way to tell just by watching a five-second clip, he added. This potential inflection point in the campaign -- one of two scheduled debates between the men -- comes as the candidates and their allies grab hold of video moments of alleged or apparent slippage, circulating them for maximum outrage on TikTok, X and Instagram. In a race between an 81-year-old incumbent and a 78-year-old challenger, age has been fully weaponized. |
| Trump Has Rapidly Eroded Biden's Edge in 2024 Cash Battle | |
 | Former President Donald J. Trump out-raised President Biden for the second consecutive month in May, outpacing his successor by roughly $81 million in donations over the last two months as he rode a surge of financial support after his felony conviction. In May, Mr. Biden's campaign and its joint operation with the Democratic National Committee raised $85 million, compared with $141 million for Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee, according to the two campaigns. In April, the Trump team also brought in $25 million more than the Biden team. The Biden campaign said it entered June with $212 million on hand combined with the party. The Trump operation and R.N.C. have not released a full tally of their cash on hand since the end of March. A partial count on Thursday, revealed in Federal Election Commission filings, showed that Mr. Trump had amassed a war chest of at least $170 million with the party. Overall, Mr. Trump was a daunting $100 million behind Mr. Biden at the start of April. In two months, he cut that cash deficit by at least half. And for the first time, Mr. Trump's principal campaign committee had more cash than Mr. Biden's: $116.5 million to $91.6 million. The full accounting of both sides' finances will be made public in federal filings next month. But the combination of Mr. Trump's improved fund-raising and Mr. Biden's heavier spending on advertising this spring appears to put the two sides on a path to enter the summer relatively close to financial parity. |
| Black Voters in This City Could Determine 2024. And It's Not Looking Good for Biden. | |
 | Few cities have received as much care and attention from Joe Biden as Milwaukee. His courtship started early: He traveled here to tout his Covid relief plan in his first official trip as president. He visited again last December and then once more in March, not long after clinching the 2024 Democratic nomination -- and unlike most trips, he didn't dash home to the White House afterward. The president instead overnighted in the city's famed Pfister hotel. In fact, his administration always seems to have a presence here: Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison and a handful of Cabinet officials have also visited Wisconsin's largest city just since the start of the year, promoting various initiatives or federal dollars directed its way. The only problem is, Milwaukee isn't returning the affection -- not even close -- and that could be a big problem for Biden. Polls suggest the president is trailing his 2020 performance in the city and surrounding county. In Wisconsin's April Democratic primary, his performance within the city limits lagged well behind the rest of the state. There's one big reason why: Black voters in Milwaukee. An influential bloc that can determine if the state remains blue or flips this fall, these voters have serious and lingering doubts about Biden and whether he's delivered on his promises to them. There's no danger that Donald Trump will carry this historically Democratic city in November. But there is a considerable risk that an anemic showing in Milwaukee could cost Biden this critical swing state -- and possibly the election. |
| SCOTUS leaves the door open for tribal nations to expand into online gaming | |
| In a flurry of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the Justices' lack of action on one case is a major victory for the tribal gaming industry. The court left in place an agreement between the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the state of Florida, and left the door open for tribal nations to expand into online gaming, as the commercial gaming industry moves more and more in that direction. The agreement gives the Seminole Tribe of Florida the exclusive right to offer online sports betting statewide. Customers can place bets on their phones from anywhere in Florida, as long as the server receiving the bets is on Seminole land. A commercial gaming company sued in federal court, arguing that deal violates the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. "I mean, we're dealing with federal interpretations of a statute that was drafted before the internet existed," said Jonodev Chaudhuri, former chair of the National Indian Gaming Commission. By declining to take up the case, the Supreme Court cleared the way for more agreements like the one between the Florida and the Florida Seminole. "For tribes, the stakes were enormous," noted Steve Light, a tribal gaming expert at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Still, the court's decision doesn't automatically grant every tribe the authority to expand into mobile betting. "It allows for states and tribes to sit down at the negotiating table," Light added. |
| Supreme Court upholds gun ban for domestic-violence restraining orders | |
| The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal law that prevents people who are subject to domestic-violence restraining orders from having firearms in its first major Second Amendment decision since a 2022 ruling that expanded gun rights. The court said the Constitution permits laws that strip guns from those deemed dangerous, one of a number of firearms restrictions that have been imperiled since the conservative majority bolstered gun rights in its decision two years ago known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In an 8-1 decision, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that "an individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment." Bruen required the government to point to historic analogues when defending laws that place limits on firearms, leading to a spate of court challenges against limits on possessing firearms -- including the one in this case, United States v. Rahimi. |
| Higher learning trustees address lag in university faculty salaries | |
 | Mississippi is the lowest in the Southeast for faculty compensation at its public four-year universities and, on average, pays its faculty $21,000 less per year than the regional average. For the last five years, Mississippi has been working to catch up on median salaries with its peers: Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas. The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, which oversees public colleges and universities in the state unanimously approved the 2026 fiscal year budget request to the legislature at their June meeting on Thursday, hoping to bridge the gap in budget between Mississippi and other Southern states. "We didn't feel like the legislature could fund all the costs within one year, so we tried to break it into six-year increments and keep up as best we can, and so we feel like we have made significant progress," said Dr. John Pearce Jr., Senior Associate Commissioner for Finance. "Unfortunately, it was a moving target, so we are almost in the same place as where we started this process, but at least we didn't lose ground." "We've been so thankful to the governor and the legislature of the state of Mississippi for recognizing these needs and they've done a really good job of helping us bridge this gap," said Bruce Martin, president of the Board of Trustees. "We have a ways to go but they've been very helpful." |
| Mississippi rejoins college student disability organization | |
 | Mississippi has rejoined an organization for addressing the needs of students with disabilities on college campuses. At the monthly Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees meeting, the ADA and Accessible Services Task Force announced that the state reestablished the Mississippi chapter of the Association of Higher Education Disability, or AHEAD. "It's a resource for us to help our universities do a better job in meeting the needs of students on campus," said Jeanne Luckey, Vice President of the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees. AHEAD is a network of disability resource professionals that disseminates data and research on accessibility to its members while providing consultation for higher education institutions on how to best assist students with disabilities. Mississippi previously had an AHEAD chapter that went inactive. Now, the state has reestablished its membership. "This will be a great resource for our universities as they move forward," Luckey said. |
| MSMS past, future focus of upcoming Town and Tower | |
| The past, present and future of the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science will be the subject of Mississippi University for Women's Town and Tower meeting this quarter. Newly-named MSMS Executive Director Ginger Tedder will be speaking at the luncheon at 11 a.m. Thursday, along with Thomas Easterling, director for academics and former faculty member Emma Richardson -- who authored "A History of The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science." "It is my distinct honor to be on the program with Mrs. Emma Richardson and Dr. Thomas Easterling, sharing the history of MSMS and its impact on the community and our state," Tedder wrote in an email to The Dispatch. Tedder was recently promoted to her position from interim director in April following a legislative session where the future of MSMS was up for debate. A bill proposing the school relocate to Mississippi State University in Starkville was amended to propose merging MUW with MSU. That effort ultimately failed in the Senate. Since it was founded in 1987, MSMS has been located at MUW, where the two have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. MUW President Nora Miller said the aim of next week's Town and Tower meeting is to raise awareness within the community and foster active support for MSMS. "The primary objective of this quarterly Town and Tower meeting is to enlighten attendees about the founding of (MSMS), its mission, the strategies employed to accomplish this mission and the essential requirements for its future sustainability," Miller said. |
| IHL board rubber-stamps Delta State program cuts | |
| The governing board of Mississippi's eight public universities summarily approved a plan Thursday to resuscitate Delta State University's ailing budget. The lengthy list of program deletions was among the first of 60 items on the consent agenda that were unanimously approved, with no comment or discussion during the board's meeting. The drastic restructuring, which was unveiled at a DSU town hall earlier this year, will result in the regional college in the Mississippi Delta shuttering its College of Arts and Sciences and eliminating 21 of its 61 programs, including degrees like history, English, chemistry and accountancy. The university has already cut more than 66 positions, and more cuts are coming. Though an ad hoc committee of faculty, staff and administrators had input, the deep cuts are largely the priority of the president, Daniel Ennis, and the 12-member board that hired him. IHL board member Teresa Hubbard is a Delta State graduate. "As an alum, we always hate to see cuts happen," she said. "But at the same time, I think it's more of a repositioning and reappropriating of things to get them where they need to be." According to Hubbard, the board has provided mostly moral support for Ennis as he undertook the restructuring. "This board hired Dr. Ennis, and he is just an incredibly impressive man. And I think he's on the right track," she said. "He runs some things by us, but he puts so much thought and energy and effort into every decision that he makes that I just don't think we could have done a better job, with the results that he's showing." |
| JSU offering student loan repayment program | |
| Jackson State University is taking a new approach to combat a statewide teacher shortage. The university announced it is implementing a student loan repayment program. Jackson State said it is the first historically Black college and university in the country to offer a loan repayment assistance program. Once the student graduates, and if they get a job that pays them less than $45,000/year, the program will help pay off federal student loans, private loans and parent plus loans. The loan repayment program will be available starting in the fall for all freshmen teacher education majors as well as certain other freshmen and transfers. The program is free to qualifying students.JSU director of undergraduate admissions Janieth Wilson-Adams said, "We are directly addressing the financial challenges that many of our graduates face. This initiative ensures that our students can focus on their professional aspirations and personal growth without the burden of overwhelming debt." |
| Carey's bookstore suffers fire damage | |
 | The William Carey University bookstore on its Hattiesburg campus was damaged in a fire Thursday evening. Hattiesburg Fire Department said it was alerted around 6:30 p.m. of smoke coming from WCU's McMillan Hall, the building that houses the university's book store, post office and IT Department. Firefighters were able to put the fire out shortly after they arrived, but that the bookstore suffered the most and heaviest damage, HFD Chief Sherrocko Stewart said. The IT Department and post office suffered very minor water and smoke damage, Stewart said. No injuries were reported, Stewart said. Stewart said the cause of the fire remained under investigation, but that investigators believed after an initial inspection that the fire started in the rear of the book store. |
| Florida Argues It Could Stop Professors From Criticizing Governor | |
 | In 2022, Florida's Republican state legislators passed the Stop WOKE Act, championed and signed by GOP governor Ron DeSantis. The law would limit the way faculty members at public universities can teach about race and gender. But since November of that year, federal judges have repeatedly blocked the law from impacting universities. Florida students and faculty members represented by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have won a preliminary injunction to halt its implementation, and they're continuing to push to have the act's restrictions on classroom teaching ruled unconstitutional. Attention-grabbing oral arguments a week ago before the U.S. Court of Appeals' 11th Circuit conveyed what could happen if they lose. A heavy-hitting Washington lawyer, known for representing big-name Republicans and now defending the Florida law, made a series of arguments that academic freedom advocates have called "extreme." If judges adopt these conclusions, they say, states could demolish the tradition of academic freedom in American higher education. Florida found a powerful advocate: Charles J. (Chuck) Cooper has represented U.S. attorneys general, former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and others, and he was once himself a U.S. assistant attorney general in the Reagan Administration. In that role, Cooper successfully urged Samuel Alito to become his deputy, and The National Law Journal reported that Cooper advised Alito on his later, successful confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. Last Friday, Cooper told the three 11th Circuit judges that professors' speech in the classroom is government speech, and "the state, when it is the speaker, it can choose what it wants to say." Cooper said a state can "insist that professors not offer -- or espouse, I should say, and endorse -- viewpoints that are contrary to the state's." |
| Another huge student apartment tower joins the construction scene near Cumberland Avenue | |
 | A new student apartment project is under construction near the ever-changing Cumberland Avenue as the University of Tennessee at Knoxville community evolves to accommodate a rising student population. VERVE Knoxville by Subtext is expected to wrap up by summer 2026 at 1919 Lake Ave., just south of 20th Street and Cumberland Avenue. It is separate from the massive Core Spaces project under construction along the Strip. VERVE Knoxville will have 136 apartment units ranging from one to four bedrooms. That's enough to house nearly 500 students. The fully furnished apartments would have a variety of amenities, including high-speed internet, washers and dryers. Shared amenities would include a sauna, fitness center, yoga studio, pool terrace and sky lounge. The building will be 14 stories tall with nine residential floors and 318 parking spaces across five-and-a-half levels of parking. The building is just more than 329,000 square feet. On campus, a historic public-private partnership to build three new dormitories broke ground in March. This UT project could house nearly 3,000 students on campus. |
| Which Top Research Universities Are Most Receptive to Partner Hires? | |
 | It's a predicament faced by scores of scholars, and it goes by many names: The two-body problem. The dual-career couple. The trailing spouse. How do two scholars in a relationship land jobs at the same institution? For job candidates trying to negotiate an offer, and for institutions trying to seal the deal with one promising professor by offering a spot for their significant other, it can be a thorny question. Now, a research team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has documented, seemingly for the first time, how receptive the nation's leading research universities are to partner hires, ranking every R1 institution in a newly published scorecard. Their work is not only broadly relevant -- studies have found that more than one-third of academic researchers are in a relationship with another scholar -- but also, they argue, timely, given the positive effects that recruiting and retaining partner hires can have on institutions' diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Of 146 R1 institutions, nearly two-thirds indicated publicly that they create faculty positions for partner hires, though just over half of the 129 universities with available information said specifically that those could be tenure-track jobs. Only three institutions -- Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus -- explicitly stated that they did not create faculty jobs for partner hires, and 17 institutions didn't turn up any information on partner hiring. |
| Where Do Students Vote -- and Why? | |
| Republican legislators across the U.S. have rallied for laws to limit or deter college students, who typically skew liberal, from voting in the district where they go to college. Most recently, Wisconsin lawmakers proposed a bill, which never advanced, that would have required the state's university system to inform all incoming students about how to vote absentee in their home states; the state had the highest youth voter turnout in the nation in the November 2022 midterm election. Bills that seek to disqualify student IDs from counting as a form of identification at polling places have also become increasingly common. The legislative push illuminates an intriguing question: Are students more likely to vote where they go to college, or at their parents' home or other permanent address? A number of factors may influence the choice: which community feels more like home, which region they are more knowledgeable about, or even where they feel their vote is more important. But, according to Meagen Rinard, assistant director for community and civic engagement at Ohio State University, one factor is by far the most important to students: convenience. Students typically opt to vote wherever it is easiest, she said, whether that means voting absentee in their home district or at the polling place on OSU's campus. Historically, Ohio is one of the nation's most important battleground states, though former President Donald Trump won the state by significant margins in both 2016 and 2020. At the same time, the voting rate at OSU trends about 10 percentage points higher than the national average for universities. |
| Issues with FAFSA could mean many students don't go to college in the fall | |
 | This year's college financial aid process was supposed to be easier, after the U.S. Department of Education revamped the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, last year. But problems with the FAFSA form began last fall. The new form was released months behind schedule, setting colleges scrambling to get financial aid packages out in time. The released form included a mistake that would have cost students $1.8 billion in federal student aid. The Education Department said in January it would fix the issue -- but the fix only compounded the delays in sending student's FAFSA data to schools. And a technical issue with the form meant many non-citizens, or children of non-citizens, could not fill it out. Eric Hoover is a senior writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education and has been covering the FAFSA ordeal. He says there are still a lot of students experiencing issues with FAFSA, like low-income first generation students and, in many cases, students who are born in the U.S. but have one or more parents who are undocumented. "It also includes a huge swath of broadly defined middle-income students who have encountered problems with the FAFSA and who, in some cases, had to wait and wait and wait to get one aid offer or to get aid offers from all the colleges they were waiting to hear from so that they could sit down at the kitchen table with mom and dad and try to make an apples-to-apples comparison of their aid offers," he says. |
| What's the Deal With the Blocked Title IX Rule? Here's What Colleges Need to Know. | |
| The Biden administration's Title IX rule, which promises greater protections for LGBTQ students under the federal gender-equity law, is now blocked in 10 states. Federal judges have answered Republican state officials' legal challenges with preliminary injunctions. More than 20 states are suing over President Biden's Title IX policy, accusing the Education Department of overstepping its authority. The Title IX rule was released in April, nearly two years after it was proposed. The regulations reversed Trump-era live-hearing requirements for resolving complaints of sexual misconduct and broadened the scope of sexual harassment that colleges would be required to investigate. Colleges were given an August 1 deadline to comply, but the legal battles are unlikely to be resolved before then. Though these regulatory changes are silent on the question of transgender students' participation in athletics -- which federal officials say will be dealt with in a separate final rule -- the perception that the Biden administration is trying to force states to permit transgender students to compete on girls' and women's sports teams has proliferated and is a key reason for state officials' opposition. Several Republican-led states have passed laws banning transgender students' participation on athletic teams consistent with their gender identity. Here, we take a closer look at what's at stake for Biden's Title IX rule, and for the college administrators responsible for retooling campus policies, during this wave of litigation. |
| Trump proposes green cards for foreign grads of US colleges, departing from anti-immigrant rhetoric | |
 | Former President Donald Trump said in an interview posted Thursday he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges, a sharp departure from the anti-immigrant rhetoric he typically uses on the campaign trail. Trump was asked about plans for companies to be able to import the "best and brightest" in a podcast taped Wednesday with venture capitalists and tech investors called the "All-In." "What I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges too, anybody graduates from a college. You go there for two years or four years," he said, vowing to address this concern on day one. Immigration has been Trump's signature issue during his 2024 bid to return to the White House. His suggestion that he would offer green cards -- documents that confer a pathway to U.S. citizenship -- to potentially hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates would represent a sweeping expansion of America's immigration system that sharply diverges from his most common messages on foreigners. |
| Will Republicans Save the Humanities? | |
| The American Enterprise Institute's Jenna Silber Storey and Benjamin Storey write in The Chronicle of Higher Education: For the first time in decades, certain parts of the long-suffering humanities are a growth sector in higher ed. Even more surprisingly, this expansion is being driven by state legislatures and governing boards dominated by Republicans. At public colleges in red and purple states like Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah, about 200 tenure- and career-track faculty lines are being created in new academic units devoted to civic education, according to Paul Carrese, founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL) at Arizona State University. These positions are being filled by faculty members trained in areas including political theory, history, philosophy, classics, and English. Since there are only about 2,000 jobs advertised in all those disciplines combined in a typical year, the creation of 200 new lines is a significant event. Because a political party intensely critical of higher education has backed the founding of those programs, some worry that they will debase academic standards, subject intellectual life to political imperatives, and constrain teaching within certain ideological limits. Others hope that this burst of hiring might help colleges better prepare students for civic life and rebuild interest in the humanities. Criticism of these new programs is both understandable and premature. |
SPORTS
| EA Sports College Football 25 passes 14K opt-ins, Mississippi State to host video game launch party | |
| After more than a decade of waiting and anticipation, EA Sports College Football 25 drops in less than a month. OneTeam Partners, which commercializes group licensing rights of professional and collegiate athletes, has been running point on managing the facilitation of NIL rights between EA and college football athletes. Just 10 days after the launch of the opt-in program, EA announced more than 10,000 athletes opted into the game. OneTeam told On3 on Thursday afternoon that EA is now north of 14,000 opt-ins ahead of the July release. The Mississippi State football program announced Thursday it plans to host an EA Sports College Football 25 launch party on July 18. Scheduled to be at Humphrey Coliseum, the event is open to Bulldogs fans and current members of the team. Mississippi State is also working to bring some former players to Starkville. The Mississippi State athletic department is still working through the details of the event, however, part of the proceeds of the event will go to support the NIL collective, The Bulldog Initiative. It's a smart idea to bring the community together while also fundraising to assist the football program retain and attract talent. Mississippi State is the first school to announce a launch party, but it's expected other schools will follow suit. The Bulldogs have worked closely with EA Sports throughout the process, sending in a range of assets and making sure their signature cowbells are included in the game. |
| Finebaum: 'Time for Lane Kiffin to put up or shut up' | |
 | Paul Finebaum was just answering the question, he said. "At some point, it's time for (Ole Miss coach) Lane Kiffin to put up or shut up," the SEC Network analyst told me Thursday on "The Opening Kickoff" on WNSP-FM 105.5. "He talks a good game. We all love his Twitter game, even though I never thought it was that creative. I just think he's got this mystique with fans, and he lives off of that." How will Kiffin and the Rebels be viewed if they don't make the 12-team College Football Playoff this season? That's the question Finebaum was asked during an appearance this week on "McElroy and Cubelic in The Morning." He said it would be a failure. "This is what (Kiffin) has been building toward," Finebaum told Cubelic. He took it a step further on Thursday. "I'm not hating here," Finebaum explained. "I'm simply making a statement. I think this is a very big season. Lane got a tremendous break. No. 1, (Former Alabama coach) Nick Saban leaving. He was never going to beat Nick Saban. Secondly, by not having Alabama on the schedule." He admits there are other hurdles on the schedule, but that's life in the SEC. |
| No June signing window for college football on horizon | |
| College commissioners passed on taking a formal vote on the addition of a June high school signing period during Collegiate Commissioners Association meetings this week, veering away from a potentially seismic shift in the college football recruiting calendar. Per ESPN's Pete Thamel, commissioners voted down the introduction of a June signing window in a straw vote Wednesday and essentially confirmed that decision by not taking a formal vote during meetings Thursday. In the 2025 cycle, the early signing period will open on Dec. 4, 2024, followed by the traditional signing period starting on Feb. 5, 2025. Buzz around a June signing window for high school recruits has persisted across the country in recent years as the transfer portal and now the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff have converged on the early signing period, the window in which college football programs have formally signed the bulk of their recruiting classes since its introduction in 2017. Per Thamel, high school coaches in states including Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee were among the most outspoken detractors of adding a June signing window. |
| College World Series championship round breakdown: Does Tennessee or Texas A&M have the edge? | |
 | With the championship series matchup set at the College World Series, there are a couple of things we can say with certainty. We know that the SEC can once again claim the mantle of best college baseball conference, but we're also guaranteed to have a first-time national champion. For the third time in four years and fifth time since 2011, the final series will be an all-SEC affair. Furthermore, a league member will leave Omaha with the championship trophy for a fifth consecutive tournament. Neither Tennessee (58-12) nor Texas A&M (52-13), however, has ever been in this position. Both programs have been to Omaha as recently as two years ago, but neither has reached the best-of-three final under the tournament's current format. Tennessee, in fact, has the only runner-up finish of the pair, and that was way back in 1951. Both finalists boast potent batting orders. The Vols put up a hefty 9.2 runs a game, but the Aggies aren't far behind at 8.6. A&M's shutout of Florida on Wednesday to clinch its spot in the final was its 12th whitewash of the season, the most in the country. We've already seen both teams flash some leather in Omaha. Tennessee's better overall health might help them get to more balls in play, but the Aggies are just as sound in the fundamentals. |
| 'There's a lot less mopping:' How is the Jell-O Shot Challenge doing after LSU's record performance last year? | |
| Things are just fine without LSU. The residents of north downtown Omaha are getting more sleep during this year's Men's College World Series without the sound of Zydeco blasting through their windows. And beer? There's plenty to go around this summer, now that the defending national champion LSU baseball team didn't make it to Omaha. "There's a lot less mopping this year than last year," said Pat McEvoy, manager of Rocco's Pizza and Cantina, which is located about 50 steps across the street from the MCWS. "It's not nearly as boisterous, no." Rocco's is the home of the "CWS Jell-O Shot Challenge," and last summer, LSU made the event, and the establishment, famous. Tigers fans purchased 68,888 purple-and-gold Jell-O shots during the 2023 MCWS and turned Rocco's into an 11-day party. They danced and drank when the leaderboards were updated four times a day, chanting "L-S-U." They even brought a guy who played a trumpet. It didn't matter that last year wasn't even a contest. Special "Jelleaux Shot Champion" T-shirts were made to commemorate the feat, even though LSU fans beat the second-place 2023 competitor, Wake Forest, by more than 60,000 Jell-O Shots. Each year, $1 of the $5 Jell-O shots goes to the schools' local food bank. Rocco's also donates another 50 cents of each shot to Omaha charities. |
| He's Baseball's Hottest Pitcher -- Because He Prepares Like a Quarterback | |
 | Pittsburgh Pirates rookie Paul Skenes has quickly become baseball's must-see attraction on the mound. He hurls 100-plus miles an hour fastballs, throws a strange yet devastating off-speed pitch called a "splinker," and makes opposing batters so helpless they might as well be holding a pool noodle instead of a wooden bat. And before every start, he prepares for the wizardry he performs with a baseball by tossing around a football. Through seven starts, Skenes is starting to look like the Patrick Mahomes of major league aces. He has struck out 53 batters in 39.1 innings with a 2.29 earned-run average after putting together another dominant one-run performance this week against the Cincinnati Reds. For a Pirates franchise that hasn't made the playoffs since 2015, Skenes offers the hope of having one of the brightest young talents in the game taking the ball every fifth day for years to come. All of his success starts with a meticulous preparation and recovery routine that Skenes, 22, developed in college at LSU and that the Pirates went out of their way to accommodate once they called him up earlier this season. "Paul is very routine oriented," said Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin. "The routine he has right now, a lot of it was built before he got to the Pirates." That pro-style program is something Skenes developed when he was in college at LSU, where his pitching coach was Wes Johnson, who previously held that same position with the Minnesota Twins. Working with Johnson meant Skenes got a head start on what it takes to get his body ready to pitch every fifth day -- and part of that looks a lot like being at an NFL training camp, even though Skenes never played a second of high-school football. |
| Why ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips believes there will be a 'reset in college sports' | |
| Amid all the uncertainties surrounding college athletics these days -- from the specifics of the House settlement and how it'll play out to the continued lobbying of Congress to make laws covering athlete compensation to whatever conference realignment domino next falls -- ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips at least knows this much: "There's going to be a reset in college sports," he said Thursday. "And it's OK. It doesn't mean it's going to be the end of college sports, by any means. It's going to look different." How different and how soon are the questions. Phillips on Thursday spoke at the annual meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors, an organization that represents newspapers and websites and advocates for sports journalism. The APSE's 2024 convention began this week in Charlotte, with Phillips appearing for a 45-minute question-and-answer session he agreed to be on the record. Well, almost on the record. The only questions Phillips didn't want to answer were about the degree to which the ACC would embrace funding from private equity. Phillips recently returned from Omaha, where FSU had been the last remaining ACC team in the College World Series. Three other conference teams -- N.C. State, North Carolina and Virginia -- also reached Omaha, Nebraska, and the College World Series, offering a fitting end to what'd been a memorable on-the-field 2023-24 sports year for the ACC. |
| FCS school challenging proposed NCAA settlement allowing revenue sharing among athletes | |
| In the first sign of potential trouble for the proposed settlement of three athlete-compensation antitrust cases against the NCAA and the Power Five conferences, a school from outside the Power Five on Thursday filed a motion seeking to intervene in the case and making a presumptive request that a federal judge declare the proposed agreement is "void and of no effect." Lawyers for Houston Christian University (HCU), a member of the Football Championship Subdivision's Southland Conference, wrote in their bid to intervene: "The proposed settlement will adversely affect HCU. None of the parties, particularly the Defendants, has consulted with -- much less taken any step to protect -- HCU's interests. Neither HCU nor its conference were parties to this litigation, had a seat at the negotiating table, or had any input into any resolution of this matter, including the proposed settlement." Steve Berman, one of the lead attorneys for the athlete plaintiffs in the antitrust cases, said via email: "There is no settlement that has been finalized or filed, so I question how this school can intervene in opposition to something that is not done. ... Contrary to what is claimed, there is nothing in the settlement that requires Houston Christian University to spend any more in the future; rather, it gives universities the choice to spend on its athletes under a more free and fair system. If HCU doesn't want to do so, it doesn't have to. ..." |
| Survey: Majority of FBS ADs polled believe they should be governed by new association | |
| As college sports hurdles toward a new financial model, a majority of Football Bowl Subdivision athletic directors surveyed by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics believe the FBS should be governed by a new association under the College Football Playoff umbrella. The eyebrow-raising disclosure was among several hot topics of discussion during the Knight Commission's panel, "House case impact: Blueprints for the future of Division I," at the recent National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics convention in Las Vegas. The 2023 survey, in which 50 FBS ADs participated, indicated that 26.2% strongly agreed and 28.6% agreed with the notion that it was time for the FBS to abandon the NCAA. The snapshot of AD sentiments comes against the backdrop of NCAA President Charlie Baker saying at the same convention that he is heartened that the settlement of the House antitrust case binds all of Division I together for the duration of the 10-year agreement (which still must be certified by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken). Also participating in the panel was soon-to-be-retired Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, who was asked directly if the House settlement means the Power Four conferences have a binding commitment to stay part of the NCAA for 10 years, particularly since the current NCAA Tournament media rights agreement ends in 2032. |
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