Yesterday, I published an article here in The Hayride about LSU’s football program. After stirring up a hornet’s nest with that piece, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight some larger issues with Louisiana’s flagship university.

Suffice it to say, LSU does not align with the values and opinions of the vast majority of Louisiana citizens. There are many indicators that the university is facing serious issues that “Louisiana First” patriots should be concerned about—particularly DEI administrative bloat and the faculty’s overwhelmingly left-wing bent.

Last month, State Representative Chuck Owen published a two-part series in The Hayride exposing foreign influence and COVID-19 tyranny at LSU during the 2020 and 2021 school years.

According to Rep. Owen’s second article, here are just some of the heavy-handed rules imposed by LSU’s administration during the COVID-19 era:

“The following are examples of what happened on LSU’s main and other campus’:  (1) They repeatedly, consistently denied religious exemptions for taking the COVID (experimental) vaccine; (2) They mandated students take COVID shots to go through sorority and fraternity rush; (3) Enforced a campus-wide mask mandate without informing students that the masks were under an Emergency Use Authorization, thus part of an experimental activity; (4) Required students to offer up vaccine documentation to get into outdoor football games; (5) At the School of Dentistry, FAMILY members were required to submit proof of vaccination to get into a graduation ceremony; (6) Forced children as young as TWO to wear masks at an on-campus day care facility; (7) Created a checklist/script for how to remove students who refused to wear masks in classroom;  (8) Suspended a 4th grade student at an on-campus elementary school for not wearing a mask; (9) Forced an entire DORM to take COVID tests; and (10) Directed students via email to fill out a Daily Symptom Checker, which was used for gaining access to campus. There are many  more examples, but you get the point.”

LSU subjected young adults to years of unnecessary restrictions, limiting their educational and social opportunities—unlike universities in Texas and Florida. Yet, Louisiana’s elected officials failed to hold the LSU administration accountable for these poor decisions.

Beyond its botched COVID-19 policies, LSU has also become a hotbed of the DEI credo in recent years. The university’s rapid embrace of this toxic agenda began when the LSU Board of Supervisors hired Dr. William Tate as president in 2021.

For those unfamiliar, President Tate was one of the foremost academic proponents of anti-white, critical race ideology in the 1990s. His academic articles on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and DEI have been cited thousands of times over the past three decades.

Though he has shown, at times, a willingness to work with Governor Landry and the Louisiana legislature in getting a handle on the woke mind virus on LSU’s campus, President Tate’s CRT bonafides and those of the people around him have nonetheless seemingly trickled down to the rest of the university. As recently as last year, LSU was still one of the worst offenders for a public university when it comes to DEI spending and administrative bloat—especially when compared to other SEC schools. In fact, the Heritage Foundation rated LSU as one of the top pro-DEI colleges in its 2021 ranking for “Universities Bloated with ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ Staff.”

 

However, LSU’s pro-DEI culture has recently started to shift. Last month, after the Trump administration published a memo criticizing discrimination against White and Asian students in higher education, LSU reportedly removed over 1,300 pages of online DEI content from its website.

While the removal of some DEI programs is a positive step, LSU remains deeply entrenched in left-wing ideology and institutional capture. Just in the last presidential cycle, over 80 percent of political donations from individuals affiliated with LSU went to Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign. In a state where President Donald Trump received 60 percent of the vote, it is unacceptable that Louisiana’s top public university does not reflect the majority opinion of its residents.

Despite being in one of the most conservative states in the nation, LSU continues to lean critically to the Left. The LSU Board of Supervisors has the authority to appoint and remove the university president. The board consists of 16 members—15 appointed by the governor and one student member elected by peers. Governor Landry has already appointed nine of the 15 non-student members.

With Governor Landry’s support, the LSU Board of Supervisors should actively drive accelerated positive change at our flagship university—change which aligns with Louisiana’s values, beliefs, and commitment to meritocracy.

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Nathan Koenig is a frequent contributor to RVIVR.com, a national conservative political site affiliated with The Hayride. Follow his writing on the Louisiana First Standard Substack, on Twitter (X) @LAFirstStandard, on Tik Tok @la.first.standard & on Instagram @lafirststandard. Email him here: louisianafirststandard@proton.me