In 1848, Ole Miss began its first academic year with just 80 students. Now, 175 years later, the university has more than 20,000 students, a medical center, a law school and a top-tier accounting program among other great features.
Between 1848 and 2023, Ole Miss has traveled a long, challenging road. It is not anti-school spirit or anti-Mississippi to point out that our university has a very checkered, often terrible history.
Ole Miss was complicit in supporting the Confederacy, which fought to preserve racial hierarchy, slavery and blatant Jim Crow racism, but it also succeeded under immense pressure to integrate, admitting James Meredith, the first African American UM student, to the school in 1962. This was not easy and did not happen peacefully, which is an embarrassment in itself, but it still happened.
Still, Ole Miss’ history should be recognized in its totality; the university is bigger than its racial struggle. Oxford has a wealth of culture, such as being the home of William Faulker and John Grisham, two of the greatest writers of all time. That’s not a coincidence. Ole Miss breeds creativity, art and success.
Ole Miss has an amazing sports atmosphere. Many schools struggle to cultivate an environment that even holds a light to ours. Its traditions, like tailgating in the Grove and chanting loudly to music from the Pride of the South, were cultivated over decades. All of this is special and should be both celebrated and preserved.
With that being said, it’s important to contextualize the current state of the university. Now, Ole Miss faces different challenges. Many of its traditions and symbols have been replaced because they happened to exist during a time period when racism was championed. Even the name “Ole Miss” is being targeted. Just because a term was used during a racist time period does not make it in itself racist. The same can be said about mascots, building names or chants.
Ole Miss will not be able to grapple with its past by erasing it. It should be discussed, taught and never forgotten. That also means that instead of getting rid of the culture that makes Ole Miss thrive and attracts students from all over the world, we should be letting others, regardless of race, in on those harmless traditions. They only become racist if we let them be.
Now, Ole Miss faces new threats and challenges, such as battles over free speech, protecting students of all ideologies from an increasingly hostile and politically charged world and navigating the culture wars, which often start and have become more and more prevalent on college campuses.
However, I still believe in Ole Miss. I believe that just like our previous difficulties, we will triumph. Eventually, Ole Miss will foster free expression and the dignity of all humans.
Cass Rutledge is a junior majoring in public policy leadership from Madison, Miss.
