Judge Timothy Kelley made the right decision Thursday to deny former Sen. Cleo Fields’ injunction against Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Board of Regents.
The suit was filed Feb. 14 after a long month of bickering by Southern University-New Orleans students over a possible merger with the University of New Orleans.
In late January, the Board of Regents hired the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems to study the possibility of merging SUNO with UNO, according to The Daily Reveille.
The study was supposed to be completed by a March 1 deadline, which has since been extended to March 15.
On Feb. 14, Fields filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of SUNO and Southern University-Baton Rouge students against the Regents. The lawsuit claimed the makeup of the Regents was unconstitutional.
The suit was based on Jindal replacing the minority board members in December 2010 with four new appointees, all of whom are white.
Cleo argues Jindal replaced the minority members to set up the SUNO-UNO merger.
He also argued it was unconstitutional because the Louisiana Constitution says the Regents “should be representative of the state’s population by race and gender to ensure diversity.”
First, let’s look into why the students filed the lawsuit.
The state constitution says the Regents “should” be representative of population and diversity, leading them to believe the Regents were required by law to be representative of the population.
The case was flawed. “Should” does not mean “have to.” If the word “shall” were used in place of “should,” then it would have been a different story.
According to Merriam-Webster, the word “should” indicates an expression of what is “probable or expected.”
The word “shall” is used in “laws, regulations, or directions to express what is mandatory.”
Obviously, the law states the Regents “should” be representative of the state’s population, but it does not say the Board “shall” be representative of the population.
Laws are always open to interpretation. It seems Kelley agreed, ruling that the make of the Board was not unconstitutional.
Fields probably understood the different meanings of the words. But what he also knew is a lawsuit could halt the study, slowly delaying the March 1 verdict — which it did.
Luckily, Kelley also ruled that the study could continue because the Southern students failed to prove it would cause any irreparable harm.
As the study continues, it’s time for the SUNO students to give up their fight and stop wasting the state’s time and money.
Their resistance to the merger is only hindering what’s best for the state, and they’re doing it in the worst way possible — making a racial case.
It’s actually quite sad they couldn’t personally interpret that the state constitution does not require the Regents to be perfectly representative of the population, as the language currently states.
It’s also sad they would accuse Jindal of taking out all of the minorities when Jindal is of Indian descent — a minority himself.
Moreover, SUNO defenders need to open their eyes and realize it’s 2011 and racial arguments aren’t going to cut it.
The state budget is suffering, and a merger or closure could prove beneficial.
Just because SUNO is an “historically black university” is no reason to oppose a possible merger with a predominantly white one.
Hell, a merger may even work out in their favor.
In the end, statistics already show the low performance of SUNO, and I’m almost positive the Regents’ study will prove a merger could be beneficial.
The right decision was made to stop the injunction against the Board of Regents.
Let’s hope the state and the SUNO students will move forward in a positive direction — and not screw this up with their potential appeal.
 
Chris Grillot is a 19-year-old English and mass communication sophomore from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_CGrillot.
 
 
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Contact Chris Grillot at [email protected]