AP and staff reports

When Phillip West was attending Alcorn State University in 1965, he could not major in business administration at the historically black school. The Natchez native said many aspects of college life at Alcorn — from academics to dorms — did not measure up to the state’s majority white public universities.

&uot;There’s nothing out there that measures up, even now,&uot; he said.

When he began serving in the state House of Representatives in 1998, West began trying to correct some of those inequalities — beginning with something as simple as the baseball field.

&uot;I got the Legislature to pass a bill giving Alcorn $300,000 for lights at the baseball field,&uot; West said. &uot;I mean, peewee leagues have had lights for 25 years.&uot;

West isn’t alone in his stories of inequality at Mississippi’s three historically black public universities.

The state paid Gertrude Ellis to go to college a thousand miles away rather than let her attend school with whites. ”Negro” colleges in the state in the 1950s did not offer curriculum as detailed as what Ellis wanted, so she was sent to the University of Michigan.

Nearly five decades later, Mississippi is still trying to shed its image as a place where public colleges cater to whites while blacks schools offer a second-class education.

For the first time since the state was sued in 1975 over its segregated college system, top leaders are talking seriously about resolving the case out of court.

Gov. Ronnie Musgrove is the lead negotiator in top secret meetings that he hopes will yield an acceptable proposal by the end of the year.

Musgrove has said the state’s inability to put college desegregation to rest ”is the thing that is looked at that holds us back anytime you talk about innovation or anything else.”

There’s a hitch, however. The state is being asked to ante up several hundred million dollars for its three historically black universities, a proposal that comes when state finances are in their worst shape in nearly a decade and agency heads are girding for spending cuts.

Southern neighbors Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee also have longstanding cases. Tennessee’s is one of the oldest, dating back to 1968. A 1984 settlement requires colleges there to be desegregated by the 2000-01 school year, though many are not expected to meet court-approved diversity goals.

In Alabama, historically black colleges are getting more money for programs and buildings, as well as for scholarships to attract more white students. Louisiana has a monitoring committee overseeing its efforts.

Mississippi by far has the most active of the college desegregation cases. Two extensive federal trials have been held in Oxford – in 1987 and then again in 1994. In the 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state still had segregated universities.

The latest settlement efforts have angered Ellis and other blacks because of the private negotiations and new lawyers brought in for the talks.

”I don’t think it will be settled as easily as they say. This is just going to drag out and drag on,” said Ellis, a retired Jackson teacher who over the years has driven to New Orleans or Oxford to watch court hearings in the case.

West, who was president of the NAACP at the time the lawsuit was filed,

The lawsuit is named for the late Jake Ayers Sr., a father who filed suit on behalf of his son and about 20 other black students claiming the black colleges were substandard. Among the plaintiffs is now-U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who is involved in negotiations.

While most black leaders say they favor resolving the lawsuit, an end would also sever much of their influence in determining the direction of the state’s higher education.

Each time the College Board adopts a new policy or plans new programs, black plaintiffs have a chance to go back to court to block them. This past year, they persuaded a judge to halt a college expansion on the Gulf Coast.

Many whites, meanwhile, are tired of the fight and its effect on the state’s image.

”We don’t have black and white colleges anymore,” said state Rep. Tom Cameron, I-Greenville. ”We need to quit worrying about what happened in the past.”

Cameron also bristles at the thought of big ticket spending just for the traditionally black schools, and he said if plaintiffs stick to unrealistic expectations the case is going to go on and on.

Lawmakers are especially leery of huge commitments on the heels of a promise made earlier this year to spend $338 million on teacher pay raises over the next five years.

Mississippi has eight public universities, including the historically black Alcorn State in south Mississippi, Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State in the Delta.

In 1995, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers ordered Mississippi to begin new programs and scholarships at those campuses. The state has complied, but despite the efforts, the three schools have only a small percentage of white students. The traditionally white schools have been more successful at attracting black students.

Lawmakers over the past five years have authorized about $57 million in Ayers-related expenses, including endowments for the three schools.

Blacks involved in the lawsuit have not supported all of Biggers’ orders, including tougher admission standards at the historically black schools, and the plaintiffs have repeatedly filed appeals.

Alvin Chambliss Jr., an outspoken plaintiffs’ attorney who has been left out of settlement negotiations, said he’s ”not going to be the person who torpedoes settlement talks.”

Chambliss said plaintiffs want to continue with an appeal in the case while awaiting an outcome of negotiations and are cautiously optimistic the state will agree to spend $300 million to settle.

”We’ve been optimistic for 25 years,” he said.