Things have been rough for Chancellor Emmert lately.
He’s one of the highest-paid chancellors in the nation. He’s set to receive hundreds of thousands of privately-raised dollars from two of LSU’s booster foundations.
And just as the buzz generated by the July approval of his huge salary hike was dying down, allegations of a “secret deal” that allowed him to receive an advance on his $500,000 five-year retention bonus surfaced this week.
Now people are calling him greedy and selfish. They’re likening him to a carpetbagger — not a compliment when hurled by Southerners.
The name calling and allegation tossing is taking a more bitter tone this time around, as members of the LSU community, most notably faculty and students, feel as if they’ve been misled.
Quite honestly, the insinuation isn’t that LSU somehow did something illegal. One would hope that given the status of this University and the teams of lawyers it must have to negotiate contracts (and fend off those pesky sexual harassment lawsuits), no laws were intentionally breached.
The problem is with the ethics of the entire deal. When the Chancellor gets thousands from the Athletic Department’s booster club — the same group that needs his supports this spring because it’s hoping the Legislature will allow it more control of Tiger Stadium — his ethics and principles become suspect.
The whole thing makes him look greedy and cutthroat, as if he’s holding LSU hostage. He looks selfish and ruthless, despite the fact that many people who’ve met him would say he comes across as friendly and easy to work with.
If he was the CEO of LSU Corporation, greed and ruthlessness would be expected. But as the head of a public university in a poor state, this image isn’t winning him friends in the court of public opinion.
The justification of the officials who negotiated Emmert’s raise is that he’s well worth this amount of money and more. They’re pointing to his accomplishments and reminding people how desperate the community would be if Emmert would have taken a job elsewhere.
Officials also are attempting to brush this current controversy under the rug by attributing it to tax code issues — which are difficult to argue with, given that the average person can’t decipher this country’s numerous tax laws.
However, they’re missing the reason why people are upset. Students aren’t annoyed because Emmert has some special trust fund option account that others don’t. The Internal Revenue Service does not typically illicit such strong reactions from the average person until the week before April 15.
It is the secrecy surrounding Emmert’s salary that’s causing such an uproar. People don’t like what they don’t understand, and if they don’t have access to information, there is no way they can understand a situation.
If Emmert, the Board of Supervisors and other administrators want to end this controversy, they should outline, in detail, Emmert’s contract — including all stipulations involving the private money he receives from the LSU Foundation and Tiger Athletic Foundation.
(Quite honestly, TAF and the LSU Foundation would probably command more respect and less criticism if they didn’t act so secretive as well. Sure, their non-profit status means they can avoid public scrutiny of their books, but it doesn’t prevent them from being more forthcoming without breaching the trust of their benefactors.)
The chancellor owes us, the students and taxpayers who fund this University, an honest, open explanation of his contract. The LSU community deserves to know who’s leading them and how much he’s receiving for his job.
If he’s willing to open his contract, including the privately funded parts, up for review, I’m sure he’ll have an audience of people anxious to listen to him.