But it was not long before political rumblings in Jackson once again would plunge the university and the law school into chaos. In 1928, Gov. Theodore G. Bilbo announced his wish to move the university to Jackson. That proposal met fierce opposition and a defeated Bilbo agreed to support the university, pledging to allow the school to flourish in Oxford.

But in a move that has been described as retaliation for his failed plan, Bilbo in 1930 fired or demoted several university officials and faculty members, including the entire law faculty. Among the casualties of Bilbo’s actions were Chancellor Alfred Hume, who was fired, and Kimbrough, who was demoted to professor for allowing the law school to languish under his leadership. Bilbo announced plans to reorganize the law school and hired respected Mississippi judge Stone Deavours to lead the effort.

Dissatisfied with the political interference in the law school’s administration, the Association of American Law Schools in 1930 expelled the law school from its membership. Accreditation was restored two years later, after newly elected Gov. Mike Conner implemented reforms to prevent a future governor from gaining control of the Board of Trustees. But the law school’s problems were not over.

Kimbrough was reappointed as dean in 1932, but it was not long before World War II would deplete the faculty and student body. Kimbrough died in 1946, and professor Robert J. Farley took over as dean. Farley faced many of the problems L.Q.C. Lamar faced in the years after the Civil War. There were few students enrolled, the faculty had scattered, and academic programs had been disrupted. Farley accepted the challenge and over the next two years increased enrollment from 45 returning veterans to 300 students. He attracted an impressive faculty and raised admission standards to require a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution.

By the time Farley retired in 1963, he had restored, or some would say established, the school’s academic reputation. He had doubled the faculty, doubled library holdings, expanded the law building and increased enrollment fivefold.

Farley’s final years at the law school were not without pressure from the board. It was the height of the Civil Rights Movement, and Farley seemed to be hinting that the law school consider admitting black students. When Farley reached retirement age in 1963, the board did not offer him the courtesy of remaining with the law school as it had done for so many others. His successor, John Fox, noted that Farley’s professional accomplishments ranked with Lamar’s.

Dean Joshua Morse III took over in 1965 amid the anti-immigration movement and continued the forward pace that Farley had set for the law school. But even before James Meredith’s tumultuous admission to the university captured the national spotlight, law professor William P. Murphy was fired in 1962 by the board for supporting the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Morse had hired an impressive group of Yale-educated faculty members whose “liberal” ideas were not appreciated by the board or the Legislature. Most were pressured to leave or dismissed for what was interpreted as their pro-integration stance.

Despite constant pressure from the board and the Legislature, Morse kept the law school on the path of progress. He instituted a graduate program in law in 1965 and, in 1966, the bachelor’s in law was upgraded to the Juris Doctorate. Under his leadership, the law school increased its research services and established the Legal Institute of Agricultural and Resource Development.

With the attention focused on Meredith’s admission, the law school admitted its first black student, Cleve McDowell, in 1963 without incident. But McDowell could not escape the covert hostility and underlying tensions of the time. Meredith graduated shortly after McDowell arrived. The only black student on campus at the time, McDowell would later be expelled when a gun he bought for protection from threats fell out of his pocket in class.

After McDowell, Morse recruited a number of black students to the law school, and in 1967 Reuben Anderson became the first black student to graduate from the school. Morse said by the time he left in 1969, there were more black students, both as a number and as a percentage, at the UM Law School than at any formerly all-white law school in the country.

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