Former early education professor Teresa Buchanan announced at a press conference Thursday she is filing a lawsuit against LSU administration for “violating her free speech and due process rights by firing her last year,” according to a press release from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
The lawsuit names LSU President F. King Alexander, kinesiology professor Damon Andrew, Human Resource Management Associate Vice President A.G. Monaco and Human Resource Management Director Gaston Reinoso.
Buchanan was fired in June 2015 for alleged use of profane language in her teaching, which was constituted as “sexual harassment,” according to a complaint filed.
During the press conference, Buchanan expressed her love for the university, stating that she earned her degrees at the university and had family on both sides who also attended LSU.
“It’s in my blood, as it is in most of yours, to love LSU,” Buchanan said. “For the past 20 years, I have worked to enhance the reputation and quality of LSU, by winning grants, by building a nationally recognized early childhood teacher education program and by studying the effects of the storm on schools in Louisiana.”
Buchanan’s lawsuit is sponsored by FIRE, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that defends First Amendment rights on college campuses in the U.S. The lawsuit is part of FIRE’s “Stand Up For Speech Litigation” project, which was launched in 2014.
“We are willing to help the person who has been wronged to go to court and vindicate their rights, and that is what we’re doing today with Teresa,” said Catherine Sevcenko, FIRE associate director of litigation. “I will say that the LSU administrators made at least one fatal miscalculation when they fired her last summer, and that was to underestimate her devotion to her students and to her profession.”
FIRE has worked previously to dismantle free speech zones and defend free speech rights on college campuses.
“We have been able to get the college to reform their unconstitutional policies, and to compensate members of the universities whose rights were ignored,” said Bob Corn-Revere, attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine Law Firm said.
According to Corn-Revere, the comments for which Buchanan was fired fall short of what is constitutionally defined as “sexual harassment,” which is defined as “unwelcome verbal, visual or physical behavior of a sexual nature.”
Buchanan, a tenured professor who taught at the university for nearly 20 years, said she does not believe she was treated fairly in being fired and was doing her job as a professor to “stimulate thinking” and to get her students to “question assumptions.”
“Unfortunately for me, the current LSU administration decided to ignore LSU policy, to ignore general academic conventions, and to ignore the U.S. law,” Buchanan said. “They said I offended some people, they called it sexual harassment, and they fired me.”
Buchanan said no one accused her of sexual harassment or told her they found her teaching offensive. Students told her they enjoyed her teaching, Buchanan said.
The LSU Faculty Senate passed a resolution last fall to censure Alexander in the Buchanan case, as previously reported by The Daily Reveille.
Buchanan said she will do whatever she can to restore her reputation and hopes, with FIRE’s help, to be reinstated at the university.
“I loved my job, I loved working at LSU,” Buchanan said. “I would love to be teaching again.”
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