The LSU dean of students advised Student Government’s legislative branch on navigating diversity, equity and inclusion rollbacks and defended the decision to reinstate the Foret-Tatman: Forward campaign during an open question-and-answer forum at SG’s meeting Wednesday.

Nearly one month after the deadline for LSU’s compliance with the Department of Education’s DEI mandate, SG was still unclear on how its legislative process would be affected. With potential funding hanging in the balance, Fran’Cee Brown-McClure, the dean of students, said careful adherence to state and federal law is the safest way forward.

“That doesn’t mean that the work that you all are doing and the things that you all care about can’t still happen,” Brown-McClure said. “They need to happen though within the guidelines of the state law and federal law.”

Brown-McClure warned that academic institutions across the country have already received federal funding cuts for supposedly failing to follow the recent directives and said she doesn’t want LSU to join them.

To best avoid any potential legal or financial risks, she said the senators will have to word all future legislation, resolutions and more in a way that complies with federal mandates. When Sen. Hannah Alm Gibson asked for a list of specific words or ideas to avoid in case they could cause a failure to comply, Brown-McClure had none.

“We have asked for those things. We have shared that these are questions that are coming up on a regular basis… Every time we get questions about that, we are running that up to those folks and saying, ‘If we had something we could tell people, this would make things a little bit easier.’” she said. “But it’s all still very new. This all went into effect 30 to 45 days ago, so it is still in progress.”

Gibson expressed concern that SG trying to comply with rules that don’t have a concrete scope would be difficult, especially without knowledge about how the university would evaluate compliance.

“Everything really is happening case by case, so that’s the only thing I can offer there,” Brown-McClure said.

College of Music and Dramatic Arts Sen. James Williams III asked whether or not the new laws will hinder how SG serves and advocates for the student body.

Despite the lack of clear guidelines, Brown-McClure said that SG’s job will remain to advocate for the students, but there will be modifications to how they achieve that going forward.

“Do I think it will hinder? No,” she said. “Do I think it will change? Absolutely.”
Following the DEI discussion, College of Business Sen. Corbitt Driskell asked Brown-McClure if she felt pressured to reinstate the Foret-Tatman: Forward campaign prior to the election.

“Clearly some of J-Branch, some of the students, some of the senators feel that there was a lot of outside pressure in some of the decisions made by J -Branch,” Driskell said. “Do you feel like that translated into your office too and into general council?”

Following its disqualification, State Sens. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, and Gregory Miller R-Norco, and State Rep. Dixon McMakin, R-Baton Rouge, had advocated for the Foret-Tatman: Forward ticket.

Without naming any specific figures, Brown-McClure said she hadn’t been contacted by “any of those folks” and denied any pressure from outside sources. The decision was made in consultation with LSU’s Office of Legal Affairs and General Counsel, she said.

The decision, she said, was fair and followed the rules set in place by the system.

Additionally, Brown-McClure disagreed with last month’s unanimously-passed Senate resolution condemning her decision to reinstate Forward: Foret-Tatman and urging her to overturn it. The Senate was still, of course, entitled to the feelings expressed by the resolution, she said.

“At the end of the day I would like for whoever y’all as students have voted for to assume the position,” Brown-McClure said.

Towards the end of the meeting Driskell proposed a resolution to condemn Sens. Seabaugh and Miller and Rep. McMakin for their involvement in the SG election. This will be debated and voted at next week’s meeting.

The next student senate meeting will be April 16 at 6:30 p.m. It will be the branch’s last meeting of the semester.