Kaelyn Fox-Thomas

Students at The University of Southern Mississippi gathered Friday, April 11, for the “In Their Shoes” protest march, organized by the university’s chapters of the NAACP and Afro-American Student Organization. The demonstration aimed to speak out against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bans, including a bill recently passed by the Mississippi Legislature.
The legislation would ban DEI programs in all K-12 public schools and public universities across the state. If signed into law, it would require institutions to submit annual reports of formal DEI-related complaints to their governing boards and make adjustments to ensure compliance.
Tamea Jenkins, a senior and president of USM’s NAACP chapter, said the protest was organized to push for visibility and representation on campus.
“We started this because we wanted to make a change on campus,” Jenkins said. “We wanted them to know that we’re not going to let them steamroll us. We’re not going to conform to assimilation or anything like that. So it’s not really that much representation of us out at USM and we want incoming students to know that we are here and we are fighting. Everything is falling under one category and it doesn’t feel very inclusive, I know it’s community and belonging but what is the community? Where do we belong if everything is just piled up together?”
Mari Tyler, a senior and NAACP marketing director, said she hopes to see more people take a stand against proposed DEI restrictions.
“To be honest, I do have hope for education coming back,” Tyler said. “But at the end of the day, with the way it’s going, more people need to stand out and speak about it. I really do think we need to step up, we need to do this for our youth.”
USM history professor Dr. Andrew Wiest, who has taught at the university since 1987, said he is unsure how the bill would impact his classes.
“I don’t know how it will impact me personally,” Wiest said. “Just from an outside reading of it, it looks really restrictive on what I could teach. You know the history of women that’s in there and the history of civil rights. It’s part of what happened and I’m supposed to teach what happened.”
He added that navigating how to teach historical topics under such legislation could be difficult.
The bill has raised concerns among some students who fear that the proposed legislation could limit historical education and change how certain topics are addressed in the classroom.
Although the bill has passed both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature, it has not yet been signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves.