Supreme Court Upholds Omega Psi Phi Suspension

State high court backs JSU action

Way back in 2005, there was a shooting at on the campus of Jackson State University. The fallout from the incident resulted in Omega Psi Phi fraternity being suspended by the university and the college board until 2009.

However, the fraternity would not go down without a fight, and implored the Circuit Court to block their suspension. For a moment it seemed the fraternity had won a legal battle against Jackson State University.

The detail of the incident made a racially charged story. The historically black fraternity funded the construction of a monument to the Freedom Riders, a group of non-violent racial segregation protesters whose bus was burned and its protesters beaten by a white mob in 1961. It is known as the Omega Psi Phi monument.

The monument was constructed on JSU's campus and there it stood in 2005 when a 32 year old graduate student named Ryan Mack spat upon it, and was witnessed by three undergraduate Omega Psi Phi brothers.

The three brothers followed Mack to the student union, where they instigated a confrontation, two allegedly tackled Mack. In the ensuing scuffle, one of the brothers, Benjamin Hart, was shot in the abdomen by a gun wielded by Mack.

In the aftermath; Hart underwent surgury and survived, Mack was expelled and pleaded guilty to weapons charges. The two brothers who did the tackling were suspended but later graduated. The three brothers fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, was suspended for four years.

Suspended, this is, until Circuit Judge Winston Kidd blocked the suspension. The fraternity had argued it was denied due process when it was not permitted to cross examine the university security guard during the hearing.

The block on the suspension was in place until recently when the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled the school was within their rights to suspend the fraternity. The attorney for JSU said the ruling show that the school "had the authority to discipline the fraternity."

He also noted that if the fraternity tries to pursue other legal routes, the school is not going to back down.