If you’re on The Speakeasy, you might have seen a little discussion we had earlier this week about what’s happening at LSU’s journalism school, which might just be one of the worst examples of wokeness on earth. LSU puts on endless symposia about racism; you almost literally hear nothing else out of the J-school over there.

Here was the latest, from a press release the university dumped into our inbox, which sparked our discussion…

LSU Reilly Center’s ‘Racism: Dismantling the System’ Season Opener To Cover Anti-Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Racism

BATON ROUGE—Racism experienced in Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities is highlighted in the first episode of the LSU Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs’ “Racism: Dismantling the System” virtual series. Anti-AAPI Racism and Its Effects will contribute to the global discussion on Asian and Pacific Islander racism brought to the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic. Join the discussion on Tuesday, Sept. 28, at 3:30 p.m. CT by registering on Eventbrite.

September’s conversation will delve into the complex history of AAPI racism, from exclusionary immigration policies to the use of Japanese American internment camps. The episode is inspired by the Stop AAPI Hate movement and efforts to highlight the often overlooked systemic and institutionalized racism that affects AAPI communities.

Sherry Liang, University of Georgia student and former editor-in-chief of an independent, student-run newspaper The Red & Black, will moderate the conversation featuring academics, activists and journalists.

“I’m thrilled to learn from this panel of experts across academia, media, activism and other disciplines,” Liang said. “I hope our conversation illustrates a more holistic picture of the strides and adversities Asian American and Pacific Islanders continue to face.”

The LSU Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs will host the episode in partnership with Southern University and A&M College’s Nelson Mandela College of Government and Social Sciences, Louisiana Budget Project, NAACP Louisiana State Conference and the LSU Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Panelists include:

Priyanka Bhatt, Staff Attorney, Project South
Keva X Bui, Ph.D. Candidate in Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego
Natasha Chen Christensen, Associate Professor of Sociology, Monroe Community College
Liz Koh, Morning Anchor, WAFB-TV
Eunice Kim, Program Manager, Stop AAPI Hate
Craig Santos Perez, Professor in the English Department at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa

Anybody paying objective attention to this non-issue understands that what “AAPI racism” there is comes mostly from black people, and very largely from the tensions that result from the fact so many Asians are the people who own the shops in black neighborhoods. This whole issue was ginned up earlier this year because a white loser in Atlanta who had a sex fetish he tried to cover by frequenting mostly-oriental “happy endings” massage parlors and emotional problems brought on by the emptiness those life choices inflicted on him snapped and went on a shooting spree at several of his haunts, killing eight people. Two of the eight were white, but six were Asian, and that was enough for the partisan Democrat legacy media to spring into a fake narrative about how “AAPI” people were the newest oppressed group in America.

When the white people who are most guilty of discrimination against Asians are…university administrators, who vigorously discriminate against them in admissions. We don’t have any ready evidence LSU does that, but it wouldn’t be a surprise. What would be a surprise, given the cabal of organizations putting on this conference, would be if the black-Asian conflict issue was given anything like an open airing.

On a campus where ideas and truth could be openly discussed, something like this idiocy would get throttled in no time flat by a presentation of actual facts. But there isn’t even a dissenting voice booked on that panel, so this is going to be a Critical Race Theory struggle-session for honkies like every one of the previous kangaroo episodes.

And don’t think this has escaped notice nationally. LSU now ranks 152nd out of 154 universities rated on the question of free speech by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), College Pulse, and RealClearEducation in their 2021 survey.

The College Free Speech Rankings are based on a composite score of the following seven factors: Openness, Tolerance for Conservative Speakers, Tolerance for Liberal Speakers, Administrative Support for Free Speech, Comfort Expressing Ideas, Disruptive Conduct, and FIRE’s Speech Code Rating.

“To create an ‘Overall Score’ for each college, the seven sub-component scores are added for a maximum possible score of 100 points,” the report said. “A college’s Overall Score is the average score of the students surveyed at that college. Higher scores indicate stronger environments on campus for free speech and expression.”

Worst 5 Colleges for Free Speech:

150) @BostonCollege
151) @WakeForest
152) @LSU
153) @MarquetteU
154) @DePauwU pic.twitter.com/GmTa65YA6J

— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) September 21, 2021

LSU’s page in the survey has some pretty terrible information in it. While LSU scores very highly for “comfort expressing ideas,” which is probably a function that LSU still has Free Speech Alley in front of the Union, it’s horrendous on “openness,” “administrative support,” “tolerance for conservative speakers” and even “tolerance for liberal speakers.” FIRE also rates LSU’s campus speech code as “Red,” meaning it’s unacceptable.

And then there is this stuff…

• 32% of students say it is never acceptable to shoutdown a speaker on campus.
• 77% of students say it is never acceptable to use violent protest to stop a speech on campus.
• 78% of students think it is likely that the administration will defend the speaker’s rights in a free speech controversy.
• Students are most uncomfortable publicly disagreeing with a professor about a controversial topic.
• Racial inequality is the topic most frequently identified by students as difficult to have an open and honest conversation about on campus.

Frankly, all of this is unacceptable. LSU’s US News ranking is down to 172, which is only above Mississippi State in the SEC, and the excuse offered by its leadership is that it isn’t funded well enough. And now you have the university rated as one of the most oppressive college atmospheres in the country. This on top of the horrific practice of expelling students for not taking an experimental vaccine, something none of LSU’s peer SEC institutions is doing (unless we missed one).

What it amounts to is LSU might be the worst-run asset in state government. We see no indication that’s getting better. New school president William Tate ought to be held accountable for reversing this direction, or else it’s going to be time for Louisiana’s legislators to re-examine how much of a taxpayer investment should continue in the institution.