Out of the hundreds of bills filed ahead of Louisiana’s regular legislative session, dozens would have far-reaching effects on the state’s universities. 
The bills’ subjects range broadly, from vaccination policy, credit transfer, athletics, and even the content that students can access on university wifi networks.
Vaccination
The most prolific topic affecting higher education is, by far, vaccination, with at least 11 pre-filed bills that apply to colleges and universities.
One such bill, HB 48, filed by Rep. Kathy Edmonston, a Gonzales Republican would ban vaccination events on school property and school-sponsored events. That would mean LSU would be forced to shut down its vaccine clinics.
Edmonston has a history of anti-vaccine rhetoric, at times publicly doubting the safety and efficacy of vaccines. 
With Louisiana’s vaccination rate lagging behind the rest of the nation’s, public health experts have focused on meeting people where they are. At LSU, that looks like having vaccination clinics at convenient spots on campus and even holding vaccination events ahead of athletics events.
Younger age groups also have lower vaccination rates than older age groups. Last summer, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards started an incentive program, Shot for 100, which offered a $100 gift card for getting the COVID vaccine. The program distributed over 26,000 gift cards at colleges and universities, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
That would all change under Edmonston’s proposal, which is not limited just to the COVID-19 vaccine, but to all vaccinations.
HB 253, also filed by Edmonston, would prohibit discrimination on the basis of vaccination status. The bill would amend several existing statutes pertaining to discrimination, adding vaccination or immunity status as a protected class. In most statutes, protected classes include race, sex, color, national origin, age, disability as well as occasionally marital status, economic status, familial status and creed.
Adding vaccination and immunity status to all existing statutes would have far-reaching affects even beyond higher education, but would essentially forbid any school from restricting unvaccinated individuals in any way.
A similar bill, HB 177, filed by Edmonston proposes a constitutional amendment to the same affect.
On the senate side, Sen. Patrick McMath, a Covington Republican, has filed two bills that would do the same as HB 253 and HB 177.
Rep. Troy Romero, a Welsh Republican, authored HB 295, which proposed that proof of COVID antibodies be considered equivalent to vaccination against COVID-19 and that proof of a prior COVID diagnosis be considered equivalent to vaccination.
While an individual is offered some level of protection from antibodies following a COVID-19 infection, the CDC, the LDH and other public health officials agree that the best protection is offered by the COVID vaccination and booster shot. According to health officials, getting vaccinated even increases the natural immunity offered by an infection.
More than that, COVID-19 can be fatal and the long-term effects of the disease can affect every system in the body. The COVID-19 vaccine is safe and approved for use in most age groups.
Athletics
There are two pre-filed bills that could have major impacts on college athletics, SB 250 and SB 44.
SB 250, filed by Sen. Patrick Connick, R-Marrero, changes the current Name, Image and Likeness law by repealing the portion that prohibits colleges from providing or directing compensation to a current or prospective student athlete. It also repeals the prohibition on athletic boosters being allowed to create or facilitate NIL compensation opportunities.
While some may cheer the new law, NCAA rules would still forbid schools from paying their athletes.
Peter Robins-Brown, executive director for Louisiana Progress, said he wasn’t sure the best way to address the inequities in college athletics, but said that there was obviously a problem.
“I think there’s a real problem with universities and the NCAA making millions and billions of dollars off of these kids and them not getting to see any of that,” Robins-Brown said. 
SB 44, filed by Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, would completely segregate teams based on sex assigned at birth, or allow for a coed team of mixed genders.
The bill, dubbed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” would be of superceding authority to NCAA policy, which allows transgender athletes to compete in accordance with their identity after meeting certain criteria.
Leaving School
Sen. Ken Brass, D-Vacherie, authored SB 231, which requires universities and community colleges to form agreements that allow the transfer of credits from universities to community colleges.
Rep. Jason Hughes, D-New Orleans, authored HB 183, which would prohibit schools from withholding student transcripts due to an outstanding balance, meaning students would have a right to their transcripts, regardless of any money owed to the school.
The bill would also prohibit schools from using the transcript as a tool for debt collection or to treat a student differently due to their debt.
Restricting Content
Mizell’s SB 131 would require each public university to block students and employees from accessing content that is “sexually explicit, pornographic, or sexually harassing and, therefore, reasonably believed to create a hostile work environment,” on school devices or networks.
The bill would not only prevent individuals from accessing sexual content on university devices, but would prevent individuals from accessing it on their own devices if connected to university wifi.
That would mean that students who live on campus using university wifi on their own devices would be limited in accessing “sexually explicit” content, though it’s unclear exactly what would fall under the category. 
The bill would allow students and educators to request permission to access sexual content for educational purposes.
Some academics took to Twitter to point out that some of the material that they teach could be catagerorized as sexual. Richmond Eustis, an English professor at Nicholls State University, tweeted “Guess I might as well and file that request for special permission to teach Catullus next fall.”
Rep. Laurie Schlegel, R-Metairie, defended the bill, saying that it was intended to prevent individuals from using university networks and computers to access child pornography, but conceded that, as written, the bill goes too far.
Mizell said that there was a “misunderstanding” based on what she had seen on Twitter, but was not available for further comment.
“It’s a lot harder to say we’re going to, you know, block this for people who are of age,” Robins-Brown said. “I guess obviously there’s a personal freedom issue there in terms of what they should be able to do and the choices they should be able to make.”