Student Government unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday urging the university to remove French professor Adelaide Russo from teaching classes until the lawsuit against her has been resolved. The resolution was co-authored by marketing sophomore Emma Bruney and international trade and finance sophomore Cooper Ferguson.
“There’s an ongoing civil court case regarding the issues that happened a few years ago on campus with Dr. Russo and the graduate student so, until that court case has been resolved and the investigation is finished, we just don’t feel that it’s right for her to be put in a position where she’s teaching students that she harmed,” Bruney said.
The lawsuit against Russo alleges that she ignored student complaints regarding graduate student Edouard d’Espalungue d’Arros, who is accused by six women of sexual misconduct.
D’Espalungue was arrested in 2018 in Alexandria after a student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette accused him of rape, according to The Advocate. While awaiting trial, Russo continued to allow him to work directly with students. D’Espalungue has since returned to his home country of France. 
Russo was removed from her position as French department chair but is still found on course listings for several classes in the fall. 
The resolution is based on a statement addressed to President William Tate IV, Dean Troy Blanchard, Gregory Stone and Kevin Bongiorni by an unnamed French student and signed by 10 different organizations urging administration to pull Russo from teaching classes.
“Until the lawsuit is resolved, Dr. Russo should not be allowed to teach in the classroom or interact with the very students she is accused of dismissing and abusing,” the statement said.
The resolution passed the SG legislature unanimously on April 6. Student-Body President Javin Bowman signed it on Wednesday.
“We just don’t feel that she should be put in a position to teach those students that she brought pain to,” Bruney said.
Bruney said that because Russo is a tenured professor, LSU can’t fire her without significant legal issues. Neither the resolution nor the statement calls for her to be fired. Instead, they urge for her to be kept away from students.
“We don’t want her fired, because of the issue with tenure. We want her removed from the classroom and removed from interaction with students,” Ferguson said.
The statement says she would be allowed to do various kinds of office work but nothing that would put her into contact with students.
“This is a good case to look at tenure and its implications to students and not just faculty,” Bruney said.
Ferguson believes that LSU administration is more concerned over the possibly legal risks of taking Russo out of the classroom instead of the concerns of students.
There have been various protests calling for Russo’s removal from teaching in the French department following the eruption of the scandal. A petition to have her removed from teaching has reached over a thousand signatures.
“People are angry, and I think that anger will translate into people taking action and hopefully administration will take notice of that and will do something about it,” Bruney said.