Ecstasy filled the air in Death Valley as LSU senior safety Ronald Martin intercepted a pass by Ole Miss senior quarterback Bo Wallace to cement the Tigers’ victory over against the No. 3 Rebels. The game clock expired, and thousands of LSU students rushed the field in excitement to support the men who won a hard-fought and necessary battle to stay alive in the Southeastern Conference Western division race.
F. King Alexander and the LSU faculty fight a more difficult battle than the football team fought in October. Your English, biology, chemistry and math teachers fight to stay alive in Louisiana’s bloodied higher education system, and the Louisiana State Capitol might become their Death Valley come June.
Unlike the LSU-Ole Miss football game, the battle against budget cuts has no belligerent crowd to urge on LSU’s survival. Students are not rushing toward the State Capitol in support of their university. For the most part, LSU students have been silent.
It’s an “oh, well” attitude that fills the heavily pollinated air on campus this spring semester.
Using LSU’s equation to determine faculty layoffs under the first proposed budget cuts, the current worst-case scenario, without added variables, will see more than 50 percent of LSU’s faculty cut.
Oh well, right?
In March, the Mississippi Board of Trustees, which supervises the state’s eight public universities, ousted popular Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones.
“Oh well” was anything but the Ole Miss student body’s attitude.
It was belligerent, loud and most importantly — active.
A crowd of more than 2,500 angry students and faculty members rallied on the Oxford campus to protest the Board of Trustees’ rash decision to fire Jones.
“We’re not backing down,” Alex Borst, a student protester, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We’re going to continue organizing, emailing, calling, anything we can do.”
The Mississippi Board of Trustees felt the pressure of its unpopular decision and began negotiations to reinstate Jones’ contract. At the end of negotiations, Jones ultimately decided to leave Ole Miss.
The point in my comparison is not the end result. My comparison is of apples and oranges when looking at the catalyst for student reaction, or lack thereof. An ousted chancellor is not a $1.6 billion shortfall.
However, the lesson learned is that college students hold the power to pressure old men in positions of power, and Ole Miss students are doing a better job at it than LSU students.
One man loses his job, and thousands of students protest in Oxford, Mississippi. Hundreds of men and women will lose their jobs by fall 2015, and up until today, when the Louisiana Council of Student Body Presidents will hold the Statewide Higher Education Demonstration at the Capitol, not a protester has been in sight in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Louisiana State representatives do not feel the pressure of thousands of constituents upon their shoulders. This legislative session is no different from past sessions.
LSU students have the ability to change that.
March on the State Capitol building. Clog up the roads of downtown Baton Rouge with thousands of students, faculty and alumni. Let the legislators see the beats of a thousand angry eyes. Put fire under their bellies to stand against Gov. Bobby Jindal’s tax policies.
Legislators have multiple options to lessen budget cuts with popular support. They can repeal tax breaks for big businesses, raise taxes on cigarettes or reinstate the Stelly tax plan.
Any of these options would ease the burden placed on LSU in a worst-case scenario, but they ultimately fall short.
These are all short-term solutions to Louisiana’s long-term problem. We need to pressure our legislators to amend the state constitution. Cuts to higher education and the vague areas of health care do not allow the state government to cut enough costs to continue its current tax policies.
If LSU students want to return to campus next fall and see the professors they know and love, we need to step up our game and show Ole Miss what a real protest looks like.
We need to rush the State Capitol just as we rushed our beloved football field on that memorable October night.
Justin DiCharia is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Slidell, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @JDiCharia.