The LSU Manship School of Mass Communication doesn’t plan to delete former deans Martin Johnson and Jerry Ceppos’ obituaries from its website, current dean Kim Bissell told the Reveille Wednesday.
“I never even gave it a moment’s thought that they would be coming down,” Bissell said.
LSU has been in the process of removing DEI content from its webpages after a federal directive on Feb. 14 that threatened to withhold funding from schools that allow “discriminatory” DEI programs.
The university provided senior colleges with a list of webpages to consider revising or removing because they contained certain keywords. One such webpage that was flagged was Johnson’s obituary.
The obituary details Johnson’s efforts to foster collaboration between LSU and Southern University’s student newspapers and advocate for the creation of an African American cultural resource center in the 1990s, when he was an LSU student and editor of the campus newspaper, the Reveille.
Despite being included on the list of flagged webpages, Johnson’s obituary will remain untouched, Bissell said. The same is true for former Manship deanJerry Ceppos’ obituary, also included on the list, she said.
“Both deans were loved by the LSU community,” Bissell said, adding that Manship will continue “paying tribute” to both of them.
Johnson’s obituary appearing on the list prompted public backlash.
“Of course I feel grief, anger, sadness about this,” Johnson’s widow, Sherri Johnson, said in a post on Facebook. “The pernicious thing about this is the efforts to bury the history of segregation and the pushback against attempts at integration and collaboration, then and now.”
“To know that they were hurt, that bothers me,” Bissell said regarding Johnson’s post.
A university spokesperson told the Reveille that the list of flagged webpages was created by an automatic program that looked for the keywords “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion.” It was meant only as a guide for web administrators, who were encouraged to use their best judgment on what content to keep or change, the spokesperson said.
LSU has worked quickly to thoroughly review its website content to comply with a ‘dear colleague’ letter sent by the U.S. Department of Education.
“We’re complying… I don’t think that changes who we are at our core,” Bissell said of recent Manship website changes.
In addition to the website changes, the university is evaluating certain scholarship programs and ending diversity hiring initiatives, among other measures.
Bissell said that as far as scholarships that use demographic criteria, Manship is in the process of approaching the sponsoring donors to see if they’d like to alter the criteria. If the criteria isn’t changed, Manship can no longer offer the scholarships.
