Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a university spokesperson emailed history department chair Christine Kooi, asking for a list of experts on the conflict. Her response was that the university had none.
Why is that?
Part of it has to do with the intense cuts that the university has faced since the Great Recession, but a bigger part of it is the devaluation of expertise from both the state and the public as a whole.
Former university President F. King Alexander told the legislature in 2016 that “LSU has lost about 500 faculty positions in the past decade…while peer institutions are expanding.” As the state bled university funds, the public increasingly questioned the need for the academic experts the university provides. Instead, people turned to quasi-educational publications, such as Wikipedia articles and YouTube videos.
“Some people think I can find the explanation for the Russian invasion of Ukraine on a YouTube video,” Kooi said.
It’s a phenomenon known as the devaluation of expertise: People turn to Google search results instead of established experts.
The massive and sustained underinvestment in the flagship is just another pillar in the slow death of expertise. Republican legislators refuse to invest in the future of Louisiana, viewing education as an unnecessary expense.
This phenomenon can also be seen in the lack of prioritization of a new library facility for the flagship. The university’s current capital campaign—Fierce for the Future—does not even mention a renovated or updated library facility despite consistent community pressure on the university.
This is not just a Baton Rouge problem, but a national issue that was further exacerbated by former President Donald Trump. 
As writer Tom Nichols argued in The Atlantic, “They have, by attacking sources of authoritative knowledge beyond the president himself, inoculated a huge swath of the American public against ever being informed about anything, providing millions of Americans with a resistance to learning that will long outlive his administration.”
Trump is gone, but this animosity to expertise persists in virtually every facet of public life. It is not going away, and we are going to have to find a way to combat it as a society. The prevalent distrust and dismissal of expertise in our state and country is cancerous and threatens the university’s “scholarship first” mission.
As Kooi said, “The internet is not going to save us.”
Charlie Stephens is a 21-year-old political communication junior from Baton Rouge.