The University has been censured by a national organization of professors for violations of academic freedom of two professors, according to a news release. The American Association of University Professors found the University violated academic freedoms of former professor Ivor van Heerden and biology professor Dominique G. Homberger.
Northwestern State University and Southeastern Louisiana University were also added to the censure list. In response, Chancellor Mike Martin released a statement saying he couldn’t talk specifics because of “pending litigation and employee confidentiality.”
“One of these cases is still going through the legal process and the other has long since been resolved internally,” Martin said. “We have done our best to get to the bottom of these issues and have handled them appropriately.”
Martin also said the AAUP had not contacted him, and therefore he didn’t know “all the details.”
Van Heerden was the deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center and lead an investigation into the levee system in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, he was critical of the Army Corps of Engineers. He was fired in May 2010 and is currently suing the University. He claims he was forced out of the University because his criticisms of the Corps endangered federal funding, The Daily Reveille reported in August 2010.
The AAUP found the University “denied him reappointment largely in retaliation from the prevailing LSU stance on the levees, by restricting the nature of the research to be done by van Heerden and by punishing him for exercising his extramural rights as a citizen,” according to a statement released in August 2011. Homberger was relieved from teaching a 2010 introductory course after she was allegedly grading too harshly. The AAUP said the University violated Homberger’s “academic freedom to teach.”
 
____ Contact Taylor Balkom at [email protected]