The Governor of Mississippi, Phil Bryant, signed House Bill 1523, also known as the Religious Liberty Accommodations Act, Tuesday morning. Since then, the bill has garnered fierce opposition alongside strong support from businesses, local leaders and individuals.
  The bill establishes employers and employees can deny services on the basis of their religious beliefs. 
  When the bill goes into effect on July 1, employees will be able to use religion as justification for hiring or firing employees. State government employees will also be allowed to recuse themselves from performing services, like issuing marriage licenses to citizens they feel conflict with their religious or moral values.
 Controversy has surrounded HB 1523 since it made its way onto the state’s House floor. Opponents of the bill argue that it opens a gateway for discrimination in the workplace on religious grounds while supporters maintain that it is only meant to protect religious institutions and individuals from being unfairly harassed by the government.
  Gavin King, a former executive member of Mississippi College Republicans and the current Attorney General of Mississippi State University’s Student Association, sees the bill as not entirely black and white.
  “The spirit of the law is not malicious,” King said. “There are good portions of it. The intent is to protect religious institutions.” 
King argues the lawmakers passed the law without realizing the unfortunate context it would be viewed in. He cites the history of Jim Crow laws in Mississippi, where government aided in legal discrimination through the passing of legislation, as presenting a difficult situation when it comes to this type of bill.
       “Everything in Mississippi must be considered in historical context,” King said. “Politicians failed to understand the realities surrounding this law.”
Nissan, Toyota, MGM, AT&T, Tyson, IBM and Levi Straus & Co. have all issued statements condemning the bill according to the Human Rights Campaign, who also issued a statement condemning the bill. Nissan is the largest private employer in the state, providing over 6,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Along with Toyota and MGM, these three companies alone provide over 13,000 jobs to the state.
       The corporate response to the bill is also concerning to students preparing to enter the job market. Toria Carter, president of IDEAL Woman of Mississippi State, an organization seeking to empower women on campus, worries that this bill will put even more restrictions on who can and cannot be hired.
  “I feel like this bill takes us back 50 years,” Carter said. “I feel that this bill is ignorant.”
   Carter fears the bill will create an unwelcome environment in the job market and put unreasonable stipulations on holding a job.
 Roxanne Raven, president of MSU’s Student Association, also fears the bill will be used inappropriately and described it as “unloving” and “not what Christ stands for.”
  “This law is an embarrassment to the state of Mississippi,” Raven said, squeezing a stress ball before continuing. She said she views the law as giving employers and the government the power to deny rights to those they disagree with as well as potentially violating the privacy of employees in the workplace. Raven also has concerns about the encompassing religious liberty the law promises.
   “This is not a freedom for Islamic people bill,” Raven said. “I’m afraid for non-Christians (because of this law).”
  Though she said she has strong “personal convictions” regarding the law, Raven does not believe anything will change on campus as a result of the bill being passed. She stresses that none of the faculty, whom she works closely with, are going to make an opportunity out of this bill to discriminate.
  Though Raven does not feel anything will change on campus, the bill does technically and legally supersede the university’s own policies on the matter, though federal law in turn supersedes HB 1523. 
  Wednesday MSU President Mark Keenum released a statement assuring readers that the “new legislation” will not change the university’s core values of diversity and inclusion. Keenum said this campus would continue making progress toward a place that fully welcomes and respects differences.
  Other institutions, such as the University of Mississippi and Jackson’s City Council, issued similar statements condemning HB 1523, which is seen as discriminatory. 
    Jackson’s City Council cited the U.S. Constitution as a deterrent to this bill, arguing that it “guarantees to all persons ‘the equal protection of the laws’ and does not allow discrimination of any form against any person.”
        Carter said she applauded the City Council’s actions and feels that standing up to this bill absolutely falls on local individuals and leaders.
King said he hopes the bill will be cleaned up in the courts, otherwise he feels the federal government will step in.
     “The federal government will sue the state of Mississippi,” King said.
   Raven also hopes the bill will be fixed before it is effective as law on July 1. She said as a Mississippi native she wants to live in a state she can be proud of, not one that requires so much fixing.