Ayers case finally over (kinda) (Signifying Nothing: how does saying nothing at all become so loud?)

Tuesday, 19 October 2004

Ayers case finally over (kinda)

Now, the heavy lifting begins after the final end of the Ayers lawsuit. Personally, I was never very clear on what the plaintiffs actually wanted (I suspect they would have been content with a segregated, “separate but truly equal” system), but in the end it ended up as more of a desegregation case than an equal financing case.

I tend to think that this state needs to focus its limited resources on K-12 education and community colleges, providing scholarships for the truly needy to attend four-year institutions while making the middle and upper class pay something close to “retail” for university educations, and shutting down or privatizing the non-doctoral institutions (Alcorn State, Delta State, Mississippi Valley State, and Mississippi University for Women). Unfortunately I think Ayers is a hindrance, not a help, toward those goals.

3 comments:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.

1. Robert Prather wrote @ Tue, 19 Oct 2004, 2:28 am CDT:

Alcorn State, Delta State, Mississippi Valley State, and Mississippi University for Women

Shutting them down has been a subject of discussion since the 1980s, at least (OK, I read the article: 1976). Not gonna happen. As I understand it, the predominantly black universities that were once paragons of “separate but equal”, and hence a bit atrocious, have somehow morphed into centers of opportunity for minorities.

I’ve thought for a long time that seven universities is way too much for a state as small as Mississippi, but keeping the first three open is probably a price we’ll have to pay for a segregationist past. It’s not a good use of funds and no doubt harms the other universities, but it’s probably politically necessary at this point.

On K-12, Mississippi is one of the few states where increased spending would do some real good. K-12 spending for the nation as a whole has increased dramatically in the past four decades, to little benefit, and more spending is not called for elsewhere. Not so in Mississippi.

2. Chris Lawrence wrote @ Tue, 19 Oct 2004, 3:27 am CDT:

Well, DSU is historically-white, so I don’t see any serious reason (other than the fact it was historically the “teacher’s college”) it couldn’t be closed or consolidated with MVSU.

3. Robert Prather wrote @ Tue, 19 Oct 2004, 1:46 pm CDT:

My mistake on DSU and any gains we could get would be desirable. If they could close DSU and the W, it would be worthwhile.

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Welcome to Signifying Nothing, a weblog featuring serious (and frivolous) commentary from Chris Lawrence, an associate professor of political science at Middle Georgia State University in Macon, Georgia.
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Signifying Nothing formerly featured the stylings of Brock Sides, a left-leaning philosopher turned network administrator currently residing in Memphis, Tennessee who now blogs at Battlepanda, and Robert Prather, a libertarian-leaning conservative economist and occasional contributor at OTB.

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