In 2022, Dyamone White, then in her late 20s, filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that Black voters like her didn’t have a fair chance to elect justices to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Three years later, she won a significant victory. A federal judge ruled that Mississippi Supreme Court election districts violated the Voting Rights Act and that Black candidates who wanted to run for the state’s highest court were unlikely to succeed. U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock instructed lawmakers to draw a new map to give Black voters more power, with court-ordered special elections to follow, likely this fall.

“WE WON,” White wrote in a social media post that day in August 2025. “This isn’t just a personal victory — it’s a win for every Mississippian who has waited too long for fair representation. I became a plaintiff because I refused to accept that our state’s highest court could exclude the very people it serves. Today, that changes.”

But that change still hasn’t happened — and a recent seismic ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court means it may never happen.

In late April, the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Louisiana v. Callais that dramatically weakened the Voting Rights Act, making it much harder for racial minorities to win voting discrimination lawsuits.

The decision further intensified a mid-decade redistricting war that’s been spreading across the country ahead of the congressional elections in the fall. But the decision affects politics beyond the federal level. The now-upended court battle about Mississippi’s judicial elections will serve as an early test of whether voting rights plaintiffs can still mount a convincing case in some circumstances.

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court vacated Aycock’s ruling from last year after the plaintiffs and defendants agreed that the Callais decision had dramatically changed the legal landscape.

That removed the state’s obligation to draw a new court map. It also eliminated the possibility that the state would hold special elections for its Supreme Court seats this fall, ending Black voters’ hope that 2026 may yield fairer representation at the top of the state’s judiciary. The case will now head back to Aycock’s court for new arguments under the higher standard created by the Callais decision.

The plaintiffs still see a path forward to win new maps. Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center argue on behalf of White and her fellow plaintiffs that they can still prevail under that new standard.

Looking to the court battles ahead, White is also looking back. She is from the tiny town of Edwards, a rural community near the state’s capital city region, and she recites its history of Black resistance to oppression, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond.

“It’s an area that is resilient,” White said. “The people I grew up around, they were all fighters.”

The Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965, was a key tool in dismantling the Jim Crow regime of White supremacy that blocked Black residents from ballot box access in Mississippi and across the South.

Among other provisions, the law prohibited states from diluting the voting power of racial minorities and required that those voters have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choosing.

So, with Callais decided, what’s changed?

When plaintiffs filed suit over the Mississippi Supreme Court voting districts in 2022, they had to show a violation of the law only by pointing to discriminatory effects of the voting districts in use, regardless of what the original architects of those districts may have intended.

Those effects? Black people make up about 38% of Mississippi’s population, but the state has just one Black justice currently sitting on its nine-member Supreme Court. Only four Black justices have ever been on the court, all serving since 1985 and never more than one at a time. All four first reached the court through a gubernatorial appointment to fill a vacancy.

That has meant very little Black representation on a body that interprets state laws and the state constitution, hears appeals in criminal and civil cases and has some control over the operations of lower courts.

With no need to delve into the intention of the legislators who created the current districts in the late 1980s, Aycock, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Mississippi Supreme Court districts as drawn have the effect of diluting Black voting power, violating the Voting Rights Act.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in the Callais case, however, sets a higher standard. A Voting Rights Act violation may now be found “only when circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.”

Legal experts have said that proving intentional discrimination is challenging — made even more difficult by the Alito opinion’s endorsement of partisan gerrymandering as a legitimate purpose of redistricting. The conservative justice wrote that states can now defend themselves against race dilution claims by arguing that Black districts are being eliminated not because of racist motivations but partisan ones since Black voters have typically supported Democratic candidates.

States like Louisiana and Tennessee have moved to quickly eliminate Black-majority Congressional districts. They will likely defend their new maps as partisan gerrymanders, not racially motivated ones.

“It’s going to be just lightning-strike rare for a Voting Rights Act claim to work where partisanship is permitted,” said Justin Levitt, a former Department of Justice official and election law expert who teaches at Loyola Marymount University Law School.

However, Mississippi Supreme Court elections are nonpartisan, and that may make a meaningful difference in the current litigation, said Amir Badat, a civil rights lawyer who has argued a number of voting rights claims in the state.

Badat said that even under Callais, lawmakers may not be able to hide behind partisan intent to shield themselves from judicial scrutiny.

“In this kind of narrow circumstance, you still have viable Section 2 claims,” said Badat, referencing the section of the Voting Rights Act that bans discriminatory election practices.

Levitt agrees that voting rights cases in nonpartisan elections may still be possible to win under Callais, though he added that the overall impact of the decision likely makes even those cases quite difficult.

While the legal standard may have changed, White, the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, says one thing has not: The reality faced by Black voters who want to see a fair state Supreme Court map.

“We laid out the facts of representation in the state. You can’t deny that, “ White said. “We can go back to court again, and the facts remain the same. Representation is not equal.”

This article was produced in collaboration with Bolts, a nonprofit publication that covers criminal justice and voting rights in local governments; sign up for their newsletter.

Tupleo (Miss.) linebacker Devontray Brewer just announced his commitment to Stanford and broke down why he chose the Cardinal. 

Stanford is coming off a big recruiting weekend and have landed multiple commitments so far. Brewer just announced he’ll be playing his college ball out West in what is a really nice pickup for the Cardinal. 

“The academics at Stanford was the main reason I committed,” Brewer said. “It really doesn’t get any better than Stanford and I also loved the coaching staff and their energy all weekend.

“They’re ready to bring that every day and that’s something I want to be around. You can feel the program is turning around and they will be back on the map and I’m excited to get to be a part of that.”

Brewer said this was his first time visiting the West Coast.

“That was my first time out West and I felt very comfortable,” Brewer said. “I can definitely see myself out there in the future and that was another reason I committed, the strong comfort level.

“Going in to the visit, I really planning on committing. Once I was there though, I just felt it in my gut. I got that feeling in my heart that this is where I belonged so I went ahead and made my decision.”

Brewer said he loved the scheme fit as well.

“I love the defense they run,” Brewer said. “With coach (Kris) Richard as the defensive coordinator, that’s a defense that’s going to be feared.

“I fit in well and they plan to play me as a mike ‘backer (inside LB). I’ll be calling the plays for the defense so I’m really excited.”

Brewer had a big junior season, totaling 119 tackles, 10  for loss and 4.5 sacks. He’s rated the No. 543 player nationally in the Rivals Industry Ranking, an equally weighted average that utilizes all three major recruiting services and the No. 14 player in the state. 

He was a standout at the Rivals Combine in Nashville where he measured in at a solid 6-foot-1, 235 pounds, clocked a 4.75-40, jumped 35″ in the vertical and broad jumped 121″.

• The Mississippi Public Service Commission ruled that companies can generate power for their own use without being regulated as a public utility.
• This ruling allows Gabriel Prado and his company, PraCon Global, to potentially build data centers with their own on-site power generation.
• Prado’s plan involves developing AI industrial campuses in areas of Mississippi that currently lack sufficient power grid infrastructure.
• Unlike other data centers relying on large utilities, Prado’s projects aim to prevent energy cost increases for Mississippi ratepayers.

The Mississippi Public Service Commission has made a ruling that paves the way for Gabriel Prado and his company PraCon Global investment Group to move forward with plans to potentially build a data center in the Jackson area.

The Public Service Commission’s ruling could transform how energy usage is delivered, particularly for the data center economy in Mississippi and next generation AI industrial development, in theory protecting consumers from long-term energy cost increases.

“PraCon Global investment Group welcomes the decision of the Mississippi Public Service Commission that leaves intact the plain language of Mississippi law and declines to reinterpret or narrow the long-standing statutory exemption that allows companies to construct, own, and operate electric generationfacilities for their own private commercial use without regulation as a public utility,” Prado said. “Asstated in its Request, PRADO AI’s proposed power generation facilities will serve its planned AI data center and AI semiconductor manufacturing campus.

“By declining to issue a declaratory opinion, the commission did not alter, limit or reinterpret the statutory exemption contained in Mississippi Code §77-3-3(d). PRADO AI celebrates that the PSC and Mississippi law continues to operate exactly as written by the Mississippi Legislature, allowing private companies to generate electricity for their own facilities without being classified as a public utility.”

The ruling is also a step for Prado and his company, which plans to jump into the fray to compete in the data center explosion as he intends to add large scale AI industrial infrastructure projects, including “AI semiconductor facilities” and data centers across Mississippi.

Large utilities’ role in Mississippi data center economy

As Mississippi gets deeper and deeper into a data center economy that is going to require copious amounts of energy over the next decade, Entergy Mississippi pushed all its chips in the middle of the table.

Entergy Mississippi made a five-year investment in 2025 into what it called reliable energy to keep rates lower. Those investments, Entergy has said, will be paid for by companies such as Amazon.

Meanwhile, states throughout the nation are pushing back on the data center economy, in part because of fears of rising energy costs.

In May, Maine lawmakers passed the first U.S. statewide moratorium on new, large data centers to study impacts on energy rates and environmental resources.

Last week in Jackson, dozens of Jackson residents — some with signs that read “No Data Centers,” “Can’t Drink Data” and “Jackson is our City” packed shoulder-to-shoulder into the small conference room inside the Warren Hood Building on Wednesday, May 27.

It all goes back to available energy

The one thing that data center developers AWS, Compass Data in Meridian and AVAIO Digital in Brandon have talked about is the ability of the state’s energy companies to deliver at a breakneck speed. In the case of Compass, it has been Mississippi Power, but for AWS, at both Madison campuses and the Warren County campus and then AVAIO, it has been Entergy.

Mark McComiskey, AVAIO Digital CEO2, made that case clear in August, when talking about why his company chose Mississippi, in general and Brandon, specifically.

“The Greater Jackson area is poised to become a new hub for cloud computing and AI development, and we are delighted to partner with the city of Brandon to make a significant investment in expanding the region’s digital and energy infrastructure,” McComiskey said.

Interstate 20 across Mississippi may come to be known as the Data Center Corridor because of availble energy built by Entergy.

Prado’s plan for economic development

Prado, meanwhile, wants to have energy production on site, unlike what Entergy and Southern Company do with grids across the state. Prado’s plan, he said, also would not be like what Elon Musk’s XAI did with turbines that created severe noise pollution in North Mississippi.

Prado said he has identified multiple sites in Mississippi for development of advanced AI industrial campuses, which would have AI semiconductor fabrication facilities and data center campuses.

The projects are structured, he said, so that electricity is not sold or resold, but instead provided as an “incidental component or real estate leasing arrangements”, which Prado said is consistent with Mississippi law.

If he is able to do that, Prado wants to take the data center economy to places that currently don’t have sufficiently built-out grids from Entergy or Southern Company, such as places in the Mississippi Delta or even Southwest Mississippi.

Prado is relying on language in Mississippi Code 77-3-3(d), which says that an entity is not a public utility and will not be treated as such if “it provides electricity to itself or to tenants as an incident of tenancy.”

The filing to the PSC states any of Prado’s power generation facilities will operate off-grid, serving only on-site electrical demand, with no electricity being sold to the public or third parties.