Two days before Gov. Bobby Jindal’s “The Response” prayer rally, the Faculty Senate passed a resolution 15-01 expressing displeasure with the event.
The event has drawn criticism from many who disagree with the views of the American Family Association, funding the rally at the PMAC Saturday.
Proponents of the resolution — including its original author, social work associate professor Elaine Maccio — said it was not a matter of preventing the rally to take place but rather expressing the Senate’s view against it.
“What it comes down to is whether we think we want to let this go by without our criticism,” said English department senator Lillian Bridwell-Bowles, citing what she called the anti- intellectual and anti-scientific views of the AFA.
The resolution opposes the rally on the grounds it will have “deleterious effects” on the University’s reputation and potentially create an unsafe environment.
Opposition to the resolution first came from senator and math professor Charles Delzell.
“My main opposition to the resolution is just a matter of free speech,” Delzell said. “If you’re just coming to LSU to use the facility, I don’t see the need for the Faculty Senate to act.”
Political science professor James Stoner cited the 1993 Supreme Court Case Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District.
Lamb’s Chapel, a New York church, brought suit against the Center Moriches school district when it would not allow an after-hours religious-themed film series.
“It said that once a public facility, in this case a University, makes a facility available for civic groups, it can’t exercise any kind of discrimination as to which group uses the facility,” Stoner said.
Stoner said it was not the Faculty Senate’s responsibility to comment on every group who rents a University facility.
LSU President F. King Alexander told the Senate the University must uphold the First Amendment, but protesters will have the opportunity to hold alternative educational forums.
“I’m really proud of our student leadership to come to us and want to put this type of alternative educational program on while all this is going on in the PMAC,” Alexander said. “[Standing by the First Amendment] doesn’t preclude us from taking advantage of the press being on campus, by having an alternative forum that I think better represents what the University stands for.”
Alexander said he read the emails questioning whether the University could turn away a Nazi group or the Ku Klux Klan.
“The ruling is yes, because we can reasonably assume that there is going to be substantial disruption associated with the event,” Alexander said.
The president said the University will be taking measures to keep both sides separate.
Alexander also discussed potential budget cuts to be passed by Jindal at the end of February.
“Higher education is not looking at a $200 million cut — we’re looking at a $384 million cut,” Alexander said. “Its about a 40 percent reduction.”
Alexander said the cuts are equivalent to eliminating every university within the University of Louisiana system.
The cuts for the main campus would total $53 million, Alexander said, which would make the University about 6 percent funded by the state of Louisiana.
“I’m not real sure that they would be comfortable if I said, ‘Maybe we should only serve 6 percent of our Louisiana students,” Alexander said.
He said lawmakers would be hesitant to support the cuts as elections draw near.
“We also have legislative leaders who are dead set on not killing higher education,” Alexander said.
Alexander assured senators while the numbers are real, the University is working with lawmakers, mentioning a special session in March after Jindal’s budget announcement.
A website is also in the works, to keep students, faculty and community members informed and up-to-date on budget-related news.