While Mississippi’s Republican leaders are considering state-level redistricting after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that reduced protection for minority voters, the decision could also have an impact on Mississippi’s smallest governing bodies, including school boards.
The Louisiana v. Callais decision gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which required states to draw districts to provide more minority representation. Now, Gov. Tate Reeves and other Republican leaders say they want to gerrymander Mississippi’s electoral districts.
But the Callais decision will likely touch all levels of government. Attorneys and advocates warn that the state’s education system could also be affected if legislative and county districts are redrawn.
In the South especially, race and political parties are correlated. That means, in many cases, weakening Democratic voting power in Mississippi also means narrowing the pathway for Black people to get elected.
John. Spann, program and outreach officer for the Mississippi Humanities Council, speaks during an unveiling ceremony for a freedom marker that honors civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman in Philadelphia, Miss., on Friday, June 14, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today“Everybody’s talking about Congress and Republicans trying to maintain a majority,” said state Rep. Bryant Clark, a Democrat from Pickens. “One of the things going unseen is that this goes all the way down to school boards.”
A majority of school board members in Mississippi are elected, not appointed. The elected school boards most at risk of losing Black representation are those in areas without a majority-Black population or areas with slim majorities.
“It won’t be the most immediate thing, and it’s not going to happen with fanfare, but … I would expect over the next few years, we’ll see local bodies redistrict school boards,” said Amir Badat, a voting rights lawyer based in Mississippi.
John Spann, a historian who focuses on civil rights, said the future of the state’s public school students — 45% of whom are Black, the largest single demographic — are at stake.
Mississippi’s fourth-grade reading gains over the past several years have drawn national attention. But part of what makes those gains so pronounced is that improvements have been shared across demographics.
That means if Mississippi’s Black students fall behind, Spann said, the state falls behind.
“When the school board is representative of the areas in the counties and communities they represent, you see more resources for the children who are enrolling in public schools,” he said. “Our education system is not at the bottom anymore because of the investment over time in these children.
“We see there’s progress happening, and I would love to see Mississippi continue to rise. We can’t do that if we allow different things to distract us and move us back.”
READ MORE: FAQ: Mississippi redistricting. Why does it matter? What’s being considered?
A direct impact to school boards
The most direct impact of the Callais decision on schools, Badat said, is that it removes protections against racially discriminatory redistricting applied to school boards.
As of 2024, about 12% of lawsuits across the country pertaining to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act are related to schools, according to the University of Michigan law school’s database.
One such case is in DeSoto County, a fast-growing area in north Mississippi that borders Tennessee. The Legal Defense Fund is arguing that the way the county’s current districts are drawn splinters Black representation. The result is that none of the 25 county offices, including the school board, are currently held by a Black representative, even though the Black population has grown from 12% to 36% since the 2000 Census, according to the organization.
“What we heard from testimony around Black representation on the school board is that there are huge disparities in discipline, graduation rates and test scores,” Badat said. “Voters said the school board isn’t responsive to the needs of the Black community.”
The makeup of city councils and county boards of supervisors also impacts schools because schools are partially funded by property taxes. These boards decide those rates.
Spann worries about similar scenarios in other up-and-coming areas across the state.
Civil rights attorney Carroll Rhodes speaks of the history of redistricting and his legal work in helping to create majority-Black legislative districts in Mississippi during an interview at the state Capitol on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today“Budget priorities, consolidation, curriculum, and disciplinary policies could all be affected by a lack of representation,” he said. “I’m worried about places like Gluckstadt, Hernando and Olive Branch. If things were to change in Mississippi, would Black children there have a voice?”
Mississippi school boards that don’t represent their student bodies don’t always make decisions in the best interest of their schools, Spann said.
“Historically, all-white boards were making sure that funds were being halted and making sure schools in some ways remained desegregated,” he said. “You see funding going to private schools. You see this in the Delta, where in the past money has literally been diverted from building new schools for predominantly Black areas.”
Some counties in the Mississippi Delta where private academies popped up after desegregation orders in the 1970s still have majority-white school boards governing majority-Black student bodies.
Carroll Rhodes, an attorney who has spent most of his career litigating redistricting cases in Mississippi to help elect more Black candidates to office, said if local bodies redraw voter lines in the favor of white voters, it could undo decades of progress.
“It would be regressive,” he said. “Not just for education, but regressive for our society if that were to happen.”
State education policy in the balance
School boards aren’t the only government bodies that make decisions about education.
If legislative seats are redrawn without considering Black voters’ representation, it could mean fewer Democrats at the state Capitol and an easier pathway for conservative education policy.
Democratic State Rep. Bryant Clark stares at a projected slide of budget numbers during a Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, meeting of the Mississippi Joint Legislative Budget Committee. Credit: (Photo/Rogelio V. SolisThis past legislative session, Republican House Speaker Jason White’s push for school choice barely succeeded in his chamber because of pushback from a few members of his own party and strong Democratic opposition, and died in the Senate.
“We’ve already heard from state Republicans that they want to redistrict,” Badat said. “With fewer Black lawmakers fighting against defunding public education, expanding school choice would be more achievable. You worry the gains we’ve made might be eroded.”
Clark, who’s been in state government for more than two decades, said if some of the Republican-backed education policies proposed this past session had succeeded, it would’ve wreaked havoc on the public education system.
Now, with the potential of losing Democrats at the state Capitol, Clark said, “I’ve lost sleep thinking about the repercussions of this decision and the far reaching effects it can have.”
Clark’s father, the late former Rep. Robert Clark, was the first Black lawmaker elected to the Mississippi Legislature in the 20th century. Clark said his father decided to run for the Legislature after unsuccessfully trying to make improvements in Holmes County schools, where the majority-Black student body was led by an all-white school board.
A former teacher, Robert Clark was later made the House Education Committee Chairman, ushering in an era of education reforms alongside then-Gov. William Winter. Under Clark’s decade of leadership, the House passed the historic 1982 Education Reform Act that led to a number of improvements to public schools.
“There’s a saying: A rising tide lifts all boats,” Rep. Bryant Clark said. “When Mississippi made those big investments in education in the ’80s, that’s when we made tremendous strides economically in the state. This could take us backward.”
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