JACKSON - University of Mississippi Chancellor Robert Khayat has started identifying foundations who have aided minority education in an effort to raise $35 million to benefit the state's historically black universities.
The private endowment for Alcorn State, Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State is part of Mississippi's $503 million settlement of the Ayers college desegregation case.
The settlement, reached last year, includes $246 million to be spent over 17 years on academic programs and $75 million for capital improvements. As well, the state College Board agreed to establish the private endowment over seven years.
Khayat and then-Mississippi State President Malcolm Portera agreed to lead the campaign, although Portera has since left MSU to head the University of Alabama System.
Khayat, an accomplished fund raiser at Ole Miss, said he's contacted the first major potential donor. He said the possible donor "has a history of supporting minority education."
He wouldn't name the entity or amount discussed but said the potential contributor had asked for a proposal.
"It's under way," he said. "You like to present a proposal that's succinct but attractive and substantive and outlines what you're trying to get done and why."
Khayat said he's enlisting friends and resources across the country but admitted he doesn't want to proceed too far until the case is resolved for good.
U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers Jr. of Oxford signed off on the settlement in February, but appeals are currently pending before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Biggers, who oversaw the 27-year-old case, refused in November to allow Lillie Ayers and a number of plaintiffs to opt out of the agreement to pursue a separate lawsuit.
Ayers' late husband, Jake, filed the lawsuit in 1975. It challenged discrepancies in programs and funding at the state's five predominantly white and three historically black universities.
If an appeal is filed, "I'd say we have to put this on hold," Khayat said.
"There's no reason to go out there and create an endowment that's not consistent with the court order," he said. "I want to see if they're going to resolve the case before I get too far out on a limb."
From 1998 to 2000, the former Ole Miss and NFL football player led a campaign that raised $525.9 million for scholarships and academic programs at the university in Oxford - topping the initial goal by more than $325 million.
"The chancellor is as fine a person as I've ever seen in the area of raising private support," said Don Fruge, president of the University of Mississippi Foundation.
Copyright 2002, Associated Press. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
