Table of Contents
On Day of FIRELawsuit, LSU Faculty Introduce Resolution to Adopt āChicago Principlesā
On the heels of the announcement this morning of a FIRE-sponsored lawsuit by fired Louisiana State University (LSU) professor Teresa Buchanan against top LSU administrators, the LSU Faculty Senate will to adopt a version of the āChicago Principlesā affirming the facultyās commitment to free speech. The resolution will be introduced this afternoon at the senateās regularly scheduled meeting, at 3 p.m. CST in the LSU student union.
A full vote on the motion will take place on February 22.
If passed, the resolution would represent the Faculty Senateās strongest statement to date on the centrality of academic freedom at LSU.
In March of last year, a faculty committee unanimously urged the university not to fire Buchanan, a renowned early-childhood education professor, for her alleged occasional use of profanity and sexual language as a pedagogical tool in her college classroom. Buchanan said her teaching techniques were part of a conscious effort to prepare student teachers for the real world challenges they would face in Louisianaās struggling public schools.
LSU ignored the faculty recommendation, deemed Buchananās language āsexual harassment,ā and .
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) also censured LSU for a second time over Buchananās firing. The AAUP already had censured LSU had , making it one of only seven universities in the last one hundred years to have been censured twice by the AAUP.
The Faculty Senate later took the extraordinary step of censuring President F. King Alexander, Provost Stuart Bell, and Dean Damon Andrew of the College of Human Sciences and Education for terminating Buchanan. They also demanded her reinstatement. The Faculty Senate made its decision to censure the LSU administration in part because it applied āconfusing, dangerous, and untenable standardsā to Buchanan. The language of the censure was grave, calling the standard under which Professor Buchanan was terminated āas chilling in its breadth and ambiguity as it is absurd in its apparent connection to sexual harassment.ā
To date, other schools to have adopted a version of the āChicago Principlesā are: Princeton University, Purdue University, Johns Hopkins University, American University, Chapman University, Winston-Salem State University, the University of Wisconsin System, and the University of Virginia College at Wise.
FIRE commends LSUās Faculty Senate for taking this important step toward securing civil rights for LSU faculty and students.
Recent Articles
FIREās award-winning Newsdesk covers the free speech news you need to stay informed.