OXFORD Miss.
Mississippi’s three historically black universities have spent about $145 million of money allocated from settlement of a college desegregation case.
The state College Board met in Oxford on Wednesday and reviewed a report on how Jackson State, Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State have handled money from the $503 million settlement.
The report will be submitted to the U.S. District Court on Oct. 1 as part of the annual filing due in the federal case.
A settlement was reached in the long-running college desegregation case in 2002. It mandated more equitable funding among the state’s historically white and historically black institutions.
The settlement, stemming from a 1975 lawsuit filed by the late Jake Ayers Sr., created funding to add additional programs at the three universities.
Among those programs was Jackson State’s engineering program, which recently was accredited.
