Louisiana Voice

Remember when the REPUGNANTCAN PARTY MANTRA was to “get the government out of our lives”?

Yeah, I remember, too, even if the party of the rich and powerful has forgotten.

Take Opinion 25-0069 by the Louisiana Attorney General’s office, for example.

The opinion, requested by State Rep. Beryl Amadee (R-Houma), was authored by Assistant Attorney General Amanda LaGroue, attempts to further restrict access to objectionable material in public libraries, a thinly-disguised effort at censorship, a favorite ploy of authoritative governments throughout history.

Basically, LaGroue’s opinion pretends to safeguard the “fundamental rights of parents to direct the reading, listening and viewing choices of their minor children,” when in fact, it is intended as little more than a means to keep “objectionable” material away from everyone, no matter that some of us never asked for “protection.”

The primary reason for alarm is not that we won’t be able to read racy material with sexual content—we can get a bellyful of that off the Internet any time we wish—but that it opens the door to far more widespread censorship. It’s a slippery slope to the government’s being able to silence criticism such as already being experienced by STEPHEN COLBERT at CBS, which earlier KNUCKLED UNDER to Cankle Ankles Trump.

Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, an all-volunteer 501(C)(4) organization, however, has been quick to challenge the legal opinion (it should be pointed out here that AG opinions are just that—opinions—and are not legally binding).

In a two-page response to the opinion, the organization said, “Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship (LA-CAC) strongly disagrees with the Attorney General’s expansive interpretation of the term “access” in La. R.S. 25:225 as including a minor’s mere ability to “physically encounter” library materials.”

• Parents have the right to guide their own children’s reading — not everyone else’s. Public libraries should empower parental choice through opt-in tools, not impose blanket restrictions that affect all families.
• Public libraries serve the entire community. They are not instruments of ideological enforcement but institutions committed to intellectual freedom and diverse viewpoints.
• Professional librarians, not political bodies, are trained to curate collections. Decisions about acquisitions should rely on established professional standards, not fluctuating political pressures or vague community standards.
• Book restriction policies disproportionately target marginalized voices. Across the country, books challenged as “sexually explicit” frequently include works by or about LGBTQ+ individuals, people of color, and survivors of abuse.
• There is a constitutional difference between obscenity and content some find uncomfortable. The Supreme Court’s obscenity standard in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) is narrow. Most materials targeted in library disputes do not meet this definition and are fully protected speech.
• Libraries are spaces of voluntary engagement. Simply being able to “physically encounter” a book on a shelf does not compel reading it. Families remain free to supervise, restrict, or guide their children’s selections.
• Overbroad restrictions invite litigation and waste taxpayer resources. Policies that chill access to constitutionally protected materials are likely to face costly legal challenges. The response cited three legal precedents in which the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld unfettered access to material from libraries.

“The Attorney General’s opinion effectively equates ‘access’ with passive exposure and opens the door to segregating or cordoning off lawful materials based on subjective determinations of ‘sexually explicit’ content,” LA-CAC said. “Such an approach raises serious constitutional concerns:

• It risks viewpoint discrimination, which is presumptively unconstitutional.
• It substitutes political pressure for professional library standards.
• It chills the freedom of minors—who do possess First Amendment rights—to explore ideas.
• It burdens families who do not wish to have government gatekeepers substitute their judgment for parental discretion.”

The organization further asserted:

• Parents have the right to guide their own children’s reading — not everyone else’s. Public libraries should empower parental choice through opt-in tools, not impose blanket restrictions that affect all families.
• Public libraries serve the entire community. They are not instruments of ideological enforcement but institutions committed to intellectual freedom and diverse viewpoints.
• Professional librarians, not political bodies, are trained to curate collections. Decisions about acquisitions should rely on established professional standards, not fluctuating political pressures or vague community standards.
• Book restriction policies disproportionately target marginalized voices. Across the country, books challenged as “sexually explicit” frequently include works by or about LGBTQ+ individuals, people of color, and survivors of abuse.
• There is a constitutional difference between obscenity and content some find uncomfortable.
• The Supreme Court’s obscenity standard in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) is narrow. Most materials targeted in library disputes do not meet this definition and are fully protected speech.
• Libraries are spaces of voluntary engagement. Simply being able to “physically encounter” a book on a shelf does not compel reading it. Families remain free to supervise, restrict, or guide their children’s selections.
• Overbroad restrictions invite litigation and waste taxpayer resources. Policies that chill access to constitutionally protected materials are likely to face costly legal challenges.

Urging lawmakers and library boards to interpret La. R.S. 25:225 “narrowly and in harmony with constitutional protections,” LA-CAC said the protection of parental rights “should not come at the expense of other parents’ rights, minor’s First Amendment freedoms, or the long-standing role of public libraries as bastions of intellectual freedom.

“Ultimately, the freedom to read is not a partisan issue—it is a fundamental constitutional right.”

Accordingly, the organization called for policies that:

• Respect constitutional limits
• Preserve professional collection standards, and
• Protect the freedom to read for all Louisiana families.

If things keep going the way they’ve been transpiring, it shouldn’t be too much longer that Gov. Squeaky Toy Landry has installed a political hack in the top spot of every college and university in Louisiana.

Last Saturday, LouisianaVoice had a story that noted Landry, through the Board of Regents, over which he has considerable sway, has ALREADY INSTALLED HIS PICKS as presidents of five state universities—McNeese State, Southeastern Louisiana University, Louisiana Tech, Northwestern State and LSU.

Now comes word that a presidential search committee will begin interviews in Baton Rouge Thursday for the post of president of the University of Louisiana Lafayette (ULL). As of the present time, 12 candidates are scheduled for interviews but the smart money says that Landry already has his mind made up and the search committee likely already has its marching orders.

Make no mistake, the Repugnantcan Party has as a top priority the complete restructuring of education in America and last time we checked Louisiana was still part of the U.S.

We got the first hint several years ago when then-State Rep. RAY GAROFALO (R-Meraux) introduced a bill in 2021 which he said would emphasize the “good” of slavery. The bill, which never made it out of committee, would have imposed a ban on “divisive concepts” and said teachers SHOULD NOT ACKNOWLEDGE institutionalized sexism or racism. That bill was so odoriferous that even Garofalo’s fellow Repugnantcan legislators were repulsed by it.

Ray Garofalo receiving the Louisiana Family Forum Outstanding Family Advocate Award

Wikipedia described Garofalo as a “non-practicing attorney.” Perhaps he needed a little practice before becoming a legislator. His effort at burnishing the story of slavery resulted in his being removed as chair of the House Education Committee.

Unfortunately, that didn’t put much of a dent in the Repugnantcans’ efforts to whitewash history, including any mentions of the genocide of Native Americans in general and the Trail of Tears in particular in favor of force-feeding “Christianity” through posting of the Ten Commandments in Louisiana and Texas classrooms and the distribution of Bibles in Oklahoma public schools.

Determined efforts continue to put a happy face on American slavery, genocide, the denial of civil and voting rights for Blacks and women.

Need further evidence? Try this on for size:

What happens when an industry awards a research grant to a university and the findings are detrimental to that industry?

When colleges face conflicting research grants, they must adhere to federal regulations and institutional policies to ensure the integrity of their research. These regulations require schools to promote objectivity by disclosure and management of financial conflicts. Each application for research funding must be certified any conflict existence as a safeguard against bias.

Yet, when Ivor van Heerden faulted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina, LSU lost no time in canning the scientist. LSU, after all was the recipient of millions of dollars in federal research grants and anything that could cast shade on the feds could conceivably cost the school, as the late columnist James Gill so succinctly point out in 2013.

Not so, said LSU emphatically. RETRIBUTION and financial considerations had nothing to do with the firing of van Heerden. But the aggrieved scientist sued the university and LSU unwisely spent $457,000 in legal fees defending the lawsuit which, after 2 ½ years, was SETTLED in van Heerden’s favor for an additional $435,000.

Remember STEVEN HATFIELD? He worked for the LSU National Center for Biomedical Research and Training in July 2002 until he was considered a “person of interest” in the mailing of anthrax-laced letters. Also fired was Hatfield’s supervisor, the head of the research center where Hatfield worked. Think financial considerations (read: federal grants) had anything to do with that decision? The upshot of that kneejerk reaction was that the Justice Department ended up settling for $2.825 million in cash and an annuity that pays Hatfield $150,000 a year for 20 years.

So now, one of the applicants for President of ULL is Ramesh Kolluru, interim president of the school following the abrupt resignation of Joseph Savoie last July. Kolluru, before his elevation to the interim president’s office, was the school’s vice president for research, innovation and economic development.

Kolluru was approached last year by an industry-friendly lobbying group called “Committee of 100 for Economic Development, Inc.,” or C100. That was following the Environmental Protection Agency’s three-day public hearing in Baton Rouge about whether Louisiana should be given enforcement responsibility of carbon capture and storage projects in the state. Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a method of reducing greenhouse gases by capturing carbon dioxide from the pollution of industrial smokestacks. The captured carbon is transported via pipeline and, ultimately, injected deep underground.

One of the proposed injection sites is in Lake Maurepas in Tangipahoa Parish where a professor has already been reined in for adverse findings of that proposition. The funding for that research was provided by one of the industries proposing to store the carbon

C100 desired to continue recruiting support for state control of CCS so, Michael Olivier, former head of C100 ASKED KULLURU TO HELP. “We will be seeking influential business leaders in regions of the state to sign OpEds and we will use social media to influence public opinion in the upcoming EPA ruling. Would you be that person in Acadiana? He asked, according to emails obtained through a public records request.

Kolluru’s response? “Absolutely!” So much for objectivity and non-bias in research.

Climate scientist and Penn State University professor Michael Mann called the relationship between C100 and ULL “deeply problematic,” according The Lens, a respected New Orleans online news service.

Any odds on who might ultimately be selected the new permanent ULL President?

How do you become chairman of the LSU Board of Supervisors?

The same way you get yourself named to the board in the first place.

For starters, you give money—lots of it—to the right political campaigns.

Secondly, you chum up to the governor and then you get the governor and legislator to change the rules for selection of chairman and put that power exclusively in the hands of the governor.

College degree, by the way is not a requisite, even for board membership.

And being named to the board of supervisors, along with the Superdome Commission, is one of the sweetest political plums you can pluck off the patronage tree.

Lee Mallett, a major Repugnantcan donor, both on the state and national level, was named by Gov. Squeaky Toy Landry as the new chair of the board earlier this year. The fact that he and four of his companies combined to contribute$52,500 to Landry since 2013.

Of course, this isn’t Mallett’s first rodeo; he was first appointed to the board way back in 2012 by BOBBY JINDAL, the beneficiary of $158,000 in contributions from Mallett and seven of his companies.

As icing on the cake, Jindal also had the Department of Corrections ISSUE A DIRECTIVE to state parole and probation officers to FUNNEL OFFENDERS into Mallett’s halfway house in Lacassine.

The board of supervisors’ web page offers a typical glowing BIOGRAPHY of Mallett, who dropped out of McNeese State University after a single semester..

While the ATS web page touted training in pipefitting, welding, electrical, millwright, heavy equipment operator and instrumentation fitter, at least one district attorney who refers offenders to facilities such as ACADEMY OF TRAINING SKILLS (ATS) said he has experienced numerous complaints about the program and no longer refers offenders to ATS.

Because of complaints about Mallett’s ATS, however, one district attorney stopped referrals and began sending clients to Cenikor Foundation, a Houston-based center with facilities in Baton Rouge.

“We just stopped sending people to ATS,” a spokesman for the DA’s office said. “The jobs they were getting our people were jobs hamburger flipping at fast food restaurants, not technical skills. The claims that they are providing medical treatment don’t seem to be valid, either, because our referrals told us they received no medical treatment.

“Moreover, ATS works these people and pays money into personal accounts for each resident, which is certainly an accepted practice,” he said. “However, without exception, when our referrals completed their programs there, instead of receiving the money in their accounts, they wound up owing ATS money.”

Lest one get the idea we’re picking on Mallett, it would only be fair to point out that others made pretty substantial political contributions to Landry and were subsequently appointed to the board: In all, 12 board members and/or their companies combined to contribute $281,500 to Landry

Attorney JOHN CARMOUCHE and his law firm, Talbot Carmouche and Marcello contributed $60,000 to Landry’s campaign coffers in 2021 and 2023.

ESPERANZA MORAN is the wife of Shreveport oil man Scott Moran and while she has made no contributions personally to Landry, her husband has chipped in $40,600 since 2015.

BLAISE ZUSCHLAG is CEO and Executive Vice President of Acadian Ambulance. The company’s political action committee funneled $32,500 to Landry between 2011 and 2022.

 New Orleans attorney RODERICK ALVENDIA and his law firm, Alvendia Kelly and Demares, gave $27,500.

Opelousas attorney PATRICK MORROW and his law firm, Morow Morrow Ryan & Bassett, contributed $25,000 between 2017 and 2023.

RAYMOND MORRIS and his company, West Carroll Health Systems, combined to contribute $12,500.

Former LSU and professional basketball player COLLIS TEMPLE who today operates several group homes for adjudicated youths, and SCOTT BALLARD each contributed $10,000.

New Orleans attorney JAMES M. WILLIAM ponied up a paltry $4,000.

REBECCA BONIOL and LAURIE LIPSEY ARONSON brought up the rear among the 12 members who contributed to Landry.

Boniol, who with her husband, owns automobile dealerships in Lake Charles and Shreveport, gave $3,000 and Aronson, CEO of Lipsey’s and Haspel, a firearms dealership, gave $2,500.

Now, having once more illustrated how money talks in politics while sound policy walks, it’s interesting to note that Monday’s Baton Rouge Advocate had an interesting story about how applications from students to attend LSU have increased about 110 percent, from 29,000 to 62,000 since 2020.

A little more than double the applications in six years is pretty substantial, but with that could come problems.

That could be attributed to a major change that took place eight years ago. In 2018, the state’s flagship university de-emphasized two major criteria for admission to the school. Whereas he had required a 3.0 high school GPA and a score of 22 on the ACT college entrance exam, the new standards opened the doors for more admissions. Then-President F. King Alexander lowered ADMISSION STANDARDS that leaned more on essays and recommendations than it did test scores.

The problem with opening the doors to so many more students in such a short time is LSU is already years and tens of millions of dollars behind in maintenance to its physical plant. Where will so many new students be housed? How many more instructors and professors will have to be hired to teach so many new students? Will LSU have sufficient classroom space to accommodate such an increase in humanity? And where on earth will that many more students find parking spaces on campus? More campus police will have to be added to the payroll to protect property and prevent an inevitable surge in campus crime.

Those are just a few of the growing pain problems LSU is going to be facing because of the relaxed admission standards.

And campaign contributions in exchange for board appointments and the perks that do with an appointment aren’t going to solve those problems.

LSU baseball has officially begun a defense of its national title but there’s another spectator sport that just had its opening day for Louisianans, so grab your popcorn, turn up the volume and make yourself comfortable for the next few months.

After all, first-rate collegiate baseball notwithstanding, there’s nothing more entertaining than watch the unfolding of a pissing contest between Repugnantcans when they compete with each other for elective office.

Of course, as we are well aware, once the votes are counted and a winner declared, they will close ranks, lock arms and act as though they’ve always been the best of friends. Until they aren’t.

In the meantime, though, it’s on between senatorial candidates Bill Cassidy, John Fleming and Julia Letlow and Gov. Jeff Landry who isn’t even running.

Cassidy, the incumbent, is tilting at windmills in an effort to hold on to his seat which, for all intents and purposes, he lost in 2021 when he cast a vote in favor of conviction in Cankle Ankles Trump’s Impeachment II trial. Never mind that he voted to confirm every single one of Trump’s nominations for U.S. Supreme Court and various cabinet positions. Trump is never one to forget a perceived slight and he makes it his personal goal to get his revenge. Thus, he has ENDORSED the candidacy of Rep. Julia Letlow in her challenge to Cassidy.

Okay, nothing spectacular there in the way of explosives. But then on Wednesday (Feb. 11), State Treasurer John Fleming, snubbed for Mar-A-Lardo’s endorsement, CLAIMED that Landry had been working for more than a year on some sort of scheme to assist with getting Trump’s endorsement of Letlow.

Squeaky Toy Landry lost no time in firing back, saying that anyone who would make up a story like that “may not be fit for office.”

Ouch!

Fleming had reason to feel he’d been spurned. He served as Deputy Chief of Staff during Trump’s first term so naturally, he sort-of, kinda felt like he might score the endorsement from POTUS (Pedophile of the United States).

But in Fleming’s paranoid mind, there was a method to his madness: Landry wanted Trump to support Letlow so that after she wins the Senate seat, she would subsequently resign and Landry would then appoint himself to succeed Cassidy but only after appointing Letlow to lead a college or university—“something she’s always wanted to do,” Fleming whined.

That’s not entirely out of the realm of the unreasonable. After all, Landry has already made appointments to the top jobs at five other universities—McNeese State, Southeastern Louisiana University, Louisiana Tech, Northwestern State and LSU, some of which were considered controversial at best.

Fleming and Landry were all buddy-buddy in the past but a FRACTURE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP began to appear over how to address Louisiana’s inordinately high auto insurance rates. And damnit, Fleming wanted that senate job and figured he was entitled to it—until the Trump/Landry tandem, real or imagined, became a factor

And Letlow? Yes, she’s definitely wanted to head up a state university and was a finalist for the job at the University of Louisiana Monroe before being passed over.

So far, she has kept as low a profile as a political candidate can but that doesn’t mean her opponent[s] will.

Take that attack ad by the political action committee that just happens to support Cassidy. No question about it, it constitutes dirty politics in that it does nothing to support the agenda of any other candidate but goes out of its way to attack the presumed leading candidate.

Writers in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Florida, as well as The Donald his own self, have said at various times of primary races, “Republicans eat their own.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same—especially in Louisiana where politics is a spectator sport that rivals LSU football in its popularity.

By Marc R. Settembrino, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology; Member: United Federation of College Teachers, American Association of University Professors

The following text represents my personal views and does not necessarily represent the views of Southeastern Louisiana University.

Last week, Dr. Wainwright attended the Faculty Senate Meeting at Southeastern Louisiana University. He’s got a busy schedule, and I appreciate that he took the time to speak directly with faculty about the challenges facing Southeastern.

Dr. Wainwright shared that in a recent survey, faculty identified low morale as our single biggest concern. Students, he explained, are seeing it too, ranking faculty morale as the second most important issue affecting the university. I’ve been thinking about this ever since.

Salary is absolutely part of the morale problem. Southeastern faculty are among the lowest paid in the region, and many salaries that stagnated during the Jindal administration never recovered. Dr. Wainwright shared that some faculty members earn less than $40,000 a year. He also indicated that salary increases are being considered once certain financial benchmarks are met. That’s encouraging. But salary alone will not fix morale.

Historically, universities have thrived on the principles of shared governance and academic freedom. Both are essential to morale, and both have been weakened over time, nationally and here at Southeastern.

Shared governance means that universities are run collaboratively. Administrators, faculty, staff, and sometimes students all share responsibility for major institutional decisions. When shared governance works, faculty are not just told what to do; we are part of the process. That matters because faculty are more invested and more accountable when we have a meaningful voice in decisions that shape our work and our students’ experiences.

In my 13 years at Southeastern, my colleagues have repeatedly raised concerns about major decisions being made behind closed doors in Dynson Hall, often without explanation, consultation, or a clear implementation plan. Too often, policies arrive as directives, leaving faculty scrambling to comply with little guidance beyond an implicit “do it now” or, in the worst cases, warnings about “insubordination.” This lack of transparency and heavy-handedness creates frustration, uncertainty, and resentment, all of which erode morale.

A recent example discussed at the February Senate meeting was a new administrative goal that part-time instructors should deliver 30% of instruction at Southeastern.

For readers unfamiliar with university labor, part-time instructors—often called adjuncts—are hired on a course-by-course basis. They typically receive low pay, no benefits, and no guarantee of continued employment. Nationally, adjuncts are among the most economically vulnerable workers in higher education.

On December 17, 2025, department heads received a memo from the provost stating that departments should plan for at least 30% of instructional activity to be delivered by part-time instructors, including adjuncts, graduate teaching fellows, and other qualified teaching staff. The announcement surprised many faculty and raised immediate concerns.

Would full-time faculty be laid off to make room for part-time labor? These fears are especially pressing because many full-time instructors at Southeastern already work on short-term contracts with limited job security.

At the Senate meeting, Dr. Wainwright described the policy as a long-term goal rather than an immediate mandate, explaining that the university hopes to reach it through attrition—meaning that as full-time faculty retire or leave, positions may be eliminated or converted into part-time instructional roles.

While this clarification helped, the broader issue remains: the policy’s rollout followed a familiar top-down pattern that left faculty anxious about our livelihoods and the future of our university. Given Southeastern’s continued placement on the American Association of University Professors’ censure list following the unlawful termination of tenured faculty in 2011, such fears are not irrational. When communication is limited and governance is weak, trust suffers.

Concerns about morale are further intensified by growing threats to academic freedom. Academic freedom protects the free pursuit of knowledge in service of the public good, allowing faculty to research, publish, and teach without fear of political retaliation or administrative interference.

Across the country, this principle is under attack. In states like Florida and Texas, lawmakers have passed laws restricting what can be taught in public universities, prompting administrative censorship to comply. While Louisiana has not yet enacted similar bans, many faculty at Southeastern worry that they are on the horizon, and that administrators may not stand firmly behind faculty if they do. These fears are compounded by reports of Southeastern faculty facing retaliation for exercising First Amendment rights, and by proposed changes to the academic freedom policy that would narrow protections for teaching “controversial” topics.

To the administration’s credit, the Faculty Senate was consulted on proposed academic freedom policy changes, and I am hopeful that faculty guidance will be taken seriously. Still, these concerns intersect with concerns about the new 30% goal. A faculty increasingly composed of part-time instructors—who lack job security and are excluded from shared governance—cannot meaningfully exercise academic freedom. When faculty are disposable, so too is their ability to speak freely.

Low faculty morale at Southeastern did not appear overnight. For more than a decade, Southeastern faculty have felt treated less like professionals and more like problems to be managed. This history predates the current administration, and I do not envy Drs. Wainwright and Skipper for inheriting these challenges. I appreciate Dr. Wainwright’s efforts to be more visible and engaged with faculty, and there have been positive steps forward. But rebuilding trust takes time.

Improving morale will require more than salary adjustments alone. Raises are badly needed and long overdue, but morale cannot be improved by redistributing scarcity, especially if that means laying off colleagues who contribute daily to student learning and campus life.

Ultimately, morale is about trust. Rebuilding it will require sustained commitment to shared governance, transparency in decision-making, and meaningful protection of academic freedom. If faculty are treated as partners rather than obstacles, morale will improve, and when faculty thrive, so do students and the institution as a whole.

Meanwhile, a hearing has been set for chemistry professor who was removed for connecting water pollution to heavy industry:

Last year, Dr. Fereshteh Emami was removed from her position as the lead investigator on the Lake Maurepas Monitoring Project, a Southeastern Louisiana University research project funded by Air Products & Chemicals. Her removal came immediately after media coverage of her research, which connected water pollution to heavy industry.

In theDr. Emami filed an academic freedom grievance with the university. An amended version of that grievance is attached. A hearing will be held regarding her grievance on February 20, 2026 at 10:00am at Southeastern Louisiana University, in Room 205 of Fayard Hall. The hearing will be open to media and the public.