Despite some small budgetary wins, LSU comes away from this legislative session worse than it entered. The legislature and the administration share the blame. 

By attacking tenure, wrangling against full pay raises for faculty and passing a bill to ban trans athletes in collegiate sports, legislators put Louisiana on the higher education map for all the wrong reasons—and our LSU leaders did nothing to stop them.

Take Sen. Stewart Cathey, R-Monroe, who passed his resolution to establish a task force to recommend tenure changes without so much as a peep of opposition from LSU officials. 

Cathey, who has publicly tweeted that it’s time to end tenure, included tired language in his resolution about “indoctrination” on university campuses.

Tenure is foundational to intellectual freedom in higher education, allowing faculty to explore projects and research without fear of reprisal from corporations, special interests or the government. Opening it up to review from a Legislature that has repeatedly beaten back progress for the university over the years is a plan doomed to fail. And it’s not hard to imagine that these looming threats to academic freedom could steer talented faculty away from the university, if they haven’t already. 

Threats to tenure don’t exactly fit into LSU President William Tate’s “scholarship first” mission. Still, Cathey’s proposal apparently isn’t enough for him or other university officials to take a stand, despite Tate’s claim that tenure is the hill he’d die on.

“President Tate has publicly stated that he is supportive of tenure,” LSU spokesperson Ernie Ballard told the Reveille in April. “But the university doesn’t take a position on any piece of legislation.”

First, the university certainly takes positions on some legislation. Why else would LSU employ lobbyists? Second, the university has an imperative to use those lobbyists to fight legislation that threatens its future.

The university could be a powerful special interest that offers an end to the goal lawmakers claim to hold: to move Louisiana up endless lists of poor rankings in education, health, and quality of life. Instead of wielding this power to its full potential, the president and the Board of Supervisors stand idly by while lawmakers steamroll principles that are integral to the university’s mission.

Tenure wasn’t the only issue that raised concerns for higher education this session.

A bill that would ban transgender women and girls from competing in sports, in K-12 and college athletics, authored by Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, was sent to the governor’s desk at the end of May. 

Apparently the state’s reverence for college athletics stops where the bigotry starts.

The legislation could ruin the state’s chance to host major college sports tournaments like March Madness. It also marks Louisiana as a state moving backward, pushing young residents and potential talent away from the university and other hubs of development.
Legislators also refused to grant 5% raises for university faculty–though, the governor moved money around with a line-item veto to restore the full raises. Whether that veto will stand remains to be seen.  

Offering competitive pay to faculty across disciplines is essential to retaining and recruiting university talent. The hesitancy to invest in faculty is representative of an atmosphere at the Capitol that is openly hostile to higher education.

The university has the potential to vault Louisiana into a better future. It trains the next generation of leaders and offers solutions to everything from the state’s cancer rates to its disappearing coastal land.

It’s the place that shows us all what Louisiana has the potential to be. It deserves champions at the Capitol, but this session, legislators foreshadowed the uphill battle that lies ahead.

The cut to the state sales tax in 2025 will slash state revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars; higher education, one of three major budget items that are not statutorily protected, will likely be among the first targets of budget cuts. 

It’s going to take fearless, loud advocacy to protect and advance the future of higher education in Louisiana.

Are our leaders up to the task?