Jackson State University President Marcus Thompson has resigned with immediate effect roughly 17 months after he was hired to the post by his former employer. It comes after the Institutions of Higher Learning, the governing board of Mississippi's public colleges and universities, met for more than two hours Wednesday in a closed door session.
IHL spokesman John Sewell told MPB News that was because they were discussing potential litigation relating to a then-unnamed employee of JSU.
Only hours later, Dr. Thompson's resignation was announced by the board, which hired him to the post in November 2023 after previously serving as deputy commissioner. But Thompson was not an applicant to become JSU's 13th President at all, a fact former Vice President Debra Mays-Jackson outlined in a federal sex discrimination suit filed in January.
Mays-Jackson and her attorney, Jackson State alum Lisa Ross, allege in the complaint that the IHL board hired Thomspon to the post without even interviewing Mays-Jackson, who was then Vice President and Chief of Staff of the university’s executive office and actually had applied to the position.
Ivory Phillips, a native of Rosedale, worked at JSU for more than 40 years; first as a professor, then Dean of the College of Education, and later as head of the Faculty Senate. He says he’s disappointed to see another President’s tenure end so abruptly.
“Doing that on the heels of several other presidents being forced out one way or the other, to me, speaks to the board's process for bringing on presidents for Jackson State,” he said. “I am of the opinion that there needs to be a process where the faculty, the alumni and other folk who have a direct stake in the institution are given a much broader role in selecting who becomes the president, because otherwise, it seems as if we'll keep getting the same kind of people for president who almost immediately are removed.”
It’s not yet clear what exactly precipitated Dr. Thompson’s abrupt exit from Jackson State. But even devoid of that context for the time being, his departure marks yet another chapter in a turbulent period in leadership at the historic university.
Thompson himself was hired to replace outgoing president Thomas Hudson, who was placed on administrative leave by the IHL board for a matter that has yet to be disclosed publicly, after only three years in the position.
Prior to Hudson’s ultimate resignation, former university president William Bynum was forced out after a 2020 arrest for soliciting a prostitute and possession of marijuana. Dr. Thompson’s ouster now marks the third time since 2020 that Jackson State’s highest office was vacated either by IHL board action or resignation.
Ivory Phillips says that’s indicative of a deeper issue within the relationship between JSU and the IHL board, and a need to put the process of hiring university presidents back in the hands of faculty and alumni.
“But over the years, the board has decided that it wanted to have almost sole control over who gets to be the president. Several of the other searches in between that time, faculty members and alumni, have come up with different choices and the board has rejected almost every person who was rated first in their evaluations. They have almost always rejected those and gone with a person who was third or fourth down the list,” he told MPB News.
“There's no reason in the world why Jackson State couldn't be much more widely developed academically than it is, especially given the fact that it's in the capital city. But I think all these disruptions, they seem to be almost deliberate to make sure that it does not reach the potential that it can.”
Following Thompson's abrupt resignation, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Denise Jones-Gregory will serve as interim president.