There’s an awful lot going on in Louisiana politics, and not everything is moving in the right direction. That’s frustrating. We should be further along in resolving our insurance crisis, and we should be a lot farther along in getting rid of the state income tax that Texas, Tennessee and Florida don’t have and Arkansas and Mississippi are phasing out.

Those things are irritating.

But one thing which formerly was a major problem but is somewhat surprisingly melting away is that LSU, the state’s flagship university and often a barometer in the eyes of many in Louisiana for how the state is doing, is making strides to rid itself of a reputation for being a woke indoctrination factory.

When John Bel Edwards was the state’s governor, that status was an acute and growing problem. Things got so bad that Troy Middleton, perhaps LSU’s most illustrious leader and a World War II general who spent more time at the battlefront than anyone else of his rank during the invasion of Europe, was defenestrated by a cabal of cultural Marxists led by LSU Board of Supervisors member James Williams, a New Orleans lawyer who is credited, as part of the Michael Brown legal team following a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri that the Obama Justice Department found to be justifiable, with dreaming up the Black Lives Matter “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” lie.

Middleton’s name being chiseled off the school’s main library was a low point. LSU’s embrace of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ideology was another.

But with Jeff Landry’s election as governor, the DEI commitment has unraveled, and this has been a gratifying thing to watch.

It began in December 2023, just a couple of months following Landry’s election. The wheels began turning then.

The first public manifestation of LSU dumping DEI was a name change. LSU renamed the “Division of Inclusion, Civil Rights, and Title IX” to the “Division of Engagement, Civil Rights, and Title IX.”  University president William Tate noted the change in a statement in early January 2024.

At the time that wasn’t seen as much more than a symbolic change. “Engagement” was perhaps another word for the same sort of affirmative action activity that DEI encompasses.

Still, it was interesting that it was coming from Tate – who had been hired as the LSU president after a career that seemed heavily influenced by DEI. Tate’s scholarly research, for example, had been largely focused on racial disparities in math education, leading some to deride his conclusions as claiming that “math is racist.”

But it turned out that Tate wasn’t the wild-haired racial retributionist he was reasonably feared to be. In fact, he was enthusiastic in moving away from DEI.

A Campus Reform article from January of 2024 noted the move…

In his announcement, Tate wrote that engagement “represents a two-way process that enables change on both sides.” He noted, “To fully deliver on the promise our flagship offers, we must engage with each other to exchange views and experiences and share potential solutions to our most pressing challenges.”

According to the Louisiana Illuminator, LSU also removed a diversity statement that was previously on its official website. Though the diversity statement is no longer on the official school website, it can be viewed through the Wayback Machine internet archive.

The former statement on the website stated, “We believe diversity, equity, and inclusion enrich the educational experience of our students, faculty, and staff, and are necessary to prepare all people to thrive personally and professionally in a global society.”

It continued to express the “need” to combat “racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, classism, LGBTQ+ phobia … and all forms of bias.”

In addition to eliminating the diversity statement, LSU has also reportedly removed a lecture series entitled, “Racism: Dismantling the System,” from both its website and YouTube channel. However, a spokesperson for the university clarified that the videos are intended not to be permanently deleted and will be made public sometime in the future.

LSU Alexandria and LSU Shreveport, two other campuses in the LSU system, are also in the process of eliminating language focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from their systems, as noted by the Louisiana Illuminator.

That wasn’t a complete change, but it was a start. Even though Tate, at a meeting of the LSU Faculty Senate in January, sold the changes as largely cosmetic.

“We’re committed to most of the ideas that are associated with DEI because fundamentally we’re committed to equal opportunities,” Tate said.

But the faculty weren’t impressed. In fact, far-left journalism professor Bob Mann, a former media flack for several Democrat politicians of note, floated the idea of a vote of no confidence against Tate after that first salvo of reforms.

Then in October of last year, after the LSU Board of Supervisors was retooled with the new governor’s appointments, the real changes began. On October 11, 2024…

The LSU Board of Supervisors passed a resolution Thursday to eliminate some diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in its university system.

The resolution was vaguely listed on the meeting agenda and not included in the information packet provided to board members and the public in advance of the meeting. University spokespeople did not respond to requests for the document from the Illuminator. 

The resolution, made public only moments before the board voted on it, passed without objection, though every Black board member except for Chairman Jimmie Woods — Collis Temple, James Williams and Valencia Jones — left the meeting before the resolution was voted on.

“LSU looks for intellectually curious and academically gifted students to be admitted to our school no matter their race, ethnicity or financial background,” Woods said in a statement after the board meeting. “Today the board adopted a resolution to codify as policy the principles outlined by the supreme court ruling.”

Woods was referencing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which held that race-based affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional.

While the decision is limited to college admissions, some ultra-conservative politicians have tried to use the case to limit DEI programs in public and private organizations. Woods declined to respond to questions from a reporter as to the legal reasoning behind adopting the resolution.

The resolution requires LSU to conduct a comprehensive review of all of its “programs and bureaucracies” in which classifications are maintained based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, political views or national origin. The measure specifically names diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Any programs found to confer “any preferential treatment in violation of the rule of law outlined by the supreme court in SFA v. Harvard” will be eliminated, according to the resolution.

DEI statements in hiring will also be banned by the university following the board’s action Thursday.

Now there was real action in dumping DEI at LSU.

And in January, a report surfaced which showed how far LSU was pulling away from that divisive ideology.

The report, required thanks to a bill authored by state representative Emily Chenevert (R-Baton Rouge), showed LSU had spent just more than half a million dollars on DEI in 2024 – mostly on programs that had been discontinued.

DEI was on the way out. But more reform was coming.

Then, in late February, LSU began responding to the directives of the federal Department of Education, which had demanded the removal of DEI programs at universities receiving federal funds…

LSU is in the midst of complying with an order from the U.S. Department of Education calling for public schools and universities to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs and prevent race-based discrimination.

The ‘dear colleague’ letter, issued by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on Feb. 14, said “discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is illegal and morally reprehensible.” It also cited the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard in which it ruled that factoring racial preferences into college admissions is illegal.

“LSU has received and is addressing the ‘dear colleague’ letter from the Department of Education issued last week,” LSU Board of Supervisors Chair Scott Ballard said at Friday’s board meeting.

The letter sent by the Department of Education isn’t legally binding, but it did contain threats to withhold federal funding if not complied with.

LSU officials have been instructed to eliminate all references to DEI on university websites and materials and review “student, academic or campus programming which separates, segregates or otherwise differentiates students or employees based on race or sex,” according to a memo obtained by the Reveille sent by LSU’s general counsel’s office to LSU Vice President of Strategy and Public Policy Jason Droddy and the heads of the satellite schools within the LSU system.

The memo also asked LSU officials to end separate graduation ceremonies for certain demographics and diversity initiatives in hiring, as well as evaluate the future of scholarship programs for which race is a factor.

In addition, LSU sent out to senior colleges a spreadsheet of over 1,300 university website pages that contained keywords related to “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion.” According to a spokesperson, the list was created by an automatic webcrawler that identified pages with the keywords.

This also resulted in the identification of unrelated pages, such as pages under the School of Agriculture that mention biodiversity.

The spokesperson said the list was meant to aid those overseeing senior college websites, but they’re encouraged to use their best judgment.

The “primary focus is identifying existing DEI programs and initiatives and the associated websites,” the spokesperson said, and archival material is “permissible.”

The Board of Supervisors was already set to receive a report from LSU on Feb. 28 detailing the entirety of its DEI programs, including curriculum and senior college departments, as requested in its October resolution. Ballard said that deadline had been moved back to March 7 so that the report could be aligned to the new federal instructions.

Earlier in February, Tate had addressed a Louisiana House Education Committee meeting to note that there were still “remnants” of DEI left in various programs on campus, but those were being addressed.

But a month later, there was more.

LSU reviewed and altered programs that differentiated based on race or sex. Specifically, this led to the removal of identity-based requirements for institutional financial aid and the suspension of certain externally sponsored scholarships pending donor decisions on criteria adjustments.

Programs such as the College of Engineering’s Diversity Initiatives Scholars Workshop Series, for example, were rebranded to be open to all students, irrespective of identity.

And those moves occasioned the expected screaming from the faculty…

Geography professor Andrew Sluyter posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Feb. 28 saying LSU deleted a 2022 press release announcing his selection for a Carnegie Fellowship based on his research into racial inequity in higher education.

Though Sluyter told the Reveille he understood that the LSU administration may feel that it has little choice, he was still upset by the decision.

“It’s extremely disturbing and ultimately hurts LSU as a whole rather than me personally,” Sluyter said.

Many other professors around the university agree.

“Censorship does not make our university stronger,” theater professor John Fletcher said. “It does not make education better or more affordable. It weakens our reputation.”

Fletcher said he worried that submitting to this federal order wouldn’t stop future restrictions that could further censor minority viewpoints.

Finally, just recently, 16 LSU employees who had been involved in implementing DEI had their positions eliminated and were let go from the university.

We’re not here to claim that every vestige of DEI is gone, or that LSU’s wokeness problem has been fully reformed. But it’s quite obvious that the worst of the DEI rot is being addressed.

And that’s a positive development which deserves note, and Landry, the LSU Board, and Tate should all receive some credit for it.