Louisiana Voice

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.

Perhaps Pastor Bobby Green, instead of reading from the Book of Revelation on Tuesday’s meeting of the Livingston Parish Library Board of Control should take some time to instead read Ezekiel 23:20 before trying to lecture others about which books belong in the public library.

Or maybe Pastor Philip Gray (not even a resident of Livingston Parish, but Baton Rouge) should read Hosea 13:16 before urging board members to “follow God’s judgment” in their vote before advocating for the removal of the graphic novel This One Summer, a book that after 12 years on the library shelf, is suddenly controversial.

Before Dylan Whitney, who admitted he’d not even read the book but nevertheless advocated that “We should just burn the book and get rid of it forever,” maybe he ought to sit down and pour over Ruth 1:16 and 2 Samuel 1:26, 2 Samuel 16:12, 1 Samuel 18:1-5, I Samuel 20:1-23; 35-42, 1 Samuel 20:41, 1 Samuel 28:32-34 and 1 Samuel 20: 12-17; 42.

All those concerned citizens so uptight about a book should take a peek at Genesis 19:8 and 19:30-38, passages you aren’t likely to hear in your Sunday sermons.

The spineless board voted 6-3 to relocate the award-winning book to the adult section of the library despite legal advice from District Attorney Scott Perrilloux and the Tulane University Law School’s First Amendment Law Clinic, both of whom said the content of the novel does not meet the statutory definition of “sexually explicit” material in the state statute.

Livingston Parish librarian Amanda Jones, author of That Librarian, and who is pursuing a defamation lawsuit against library critics (she earlier this week won a major victory with a Louisiana Supreme Court ruling) spoke out against the board’s action but was constantly interrupted by several so-called “Christians” who attempted to shout her down.

To get an idea how absurd the hysteria has become over the library issue—on the part of people who most likely have made precious visits to the library and possibly have not read a book since the introduction of Facebook—had become, State Rep. Kellee Hennessee Dickerson was in attendance.

Dickerson had authored the 2024 House Bill 777 (maybe it should’ve been 666) which, as unbelievable as this seems, would have barred librarians from using public funds to attend American Library Association conferences. Furthermore, her bill would apparently have made such attendance a felony punishable by prison time with or without hard labor.

Sanity prevailed in that case, however, and the bill failed.

Such is the insanity that has gripped some residents of Livingston Parish, thanks in no small part to the meddling of non-resident Mike Lunsford and his Repugnantcan-funded Citizens for a New Louisiana.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems these “Christians” could better invest their time visiting patients of nursing homes, shut-ins, providing services for those in need and offering a hand to those who are suffering rather than getting their drawers in a know over books in a library.

They could even study the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy to get a handle on Mosaic Law. But they may wish to avoid reading 2 Kings 6:29. That’s a little too harsh and should probably serve to relegate the Bible to the adult or even erotic sections.

Leviticus, besides admonishing us on what clothes not to wear and what food not to eat (commandments most of us have violated and continue to violate on a regular basis), tells us in 19:33-34, “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” Wow, Kristi Noem needs to read that, for sure.

The point of all this is not to denigrate Christianity in particular or religion in general. That’s a deeply personal issue and our freedom to believe or not believe is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. No, the purpose of all this is remind us of Matthew 7:1. It offers great advice as does John 8:7.

In other words, turn your focus inward and stop obsessing so cotton-pickin’ much about what others are doing, thinking and saying. And most of all, quit listening to crackpots like Mike Lunsford. After all, who appointed him the guardian of decency anyway?

This is the story of a monster—a Louisiana monster who carried out his “utterly evil” acts while hiding behind the facade of piety of a so-called man of God.

It’s about the SEVEN-YEAR PRISON SENTENCE of Pentecostal pastor Milton Otto Martin III of Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish, more readily known as the site of 1814’s Battle of New Orleans.

Martin was sentenced after being found guilty of indecent behavior with a juvenile but acquitted of carnal knowledge

While the nation’s attention is fixated on who is or isn’t in the Jeffrey Epstein files, society turns a blind eye to a child sex-abuse scandal that literally dwarfs anything Epstein and his high-rollers pals may have done.

This is not to diminish the scope or severity of the abuses of Epstein, et al, but to turn the gaze away from them at least long enough to look at the much bigger problem of child sex-abuse by members of the clergy.

And this is not just about the sordid story of the attempt by the Catholic Church to cover up activity by hundreds of priests—we’ve read about those. It’s about a much quieter pandemic of abuse by Protestant clergy and far too many cases of SEX ABUSE IN THE POLITICAL REALM outside the Epstein circle of friends.

This is the story of one of literally thousands of church officials who shield themselves behind the cloak of decency and goodness in order to inflict a lifetime of guilt, shame, and trauma on children who have been taught to trust them because they are servants of God.

Yes, 147 lawmakers in 44 states, but that’s miniscule when compared to the 1700 CATHOLIC PRIESTS and 700 SOUTHERN BAPTIST PREACHERS implicated in DOCUMENTED SEX-ABUSE CASES.

Typically, Martin blamed his victim, now 30 but at the time only 16, claiming he was unable to resist the temptation that she presented.

It’s a time-honored fallback strategy of ministers outed for have sexual relationships with young girls, especially in the Independent Fundamental Baptist Church, which is not far removed from the Pentecostal faith. Invariably, it falls upon the young victim to stand before the congregation and beg forgiveness for tempting the poor pastor. And just as frequently, the congregation rallies to the minister’s side while ostracizing the young female “sinner.”

In Martin’s case, he was said to have told her at the time he was molesting her that her “world would turn upside down” if she reported his crimes, which consisted of engaging in oral sex with her and conducting indecent behavior on her between the ages of 15 and 17.

Further evidence of the rampant hypocrisy among these disciples of God, in 2025 alone, 188 ANTI-LGBQ+ SO-CALLED “CHRISTIANS” had been accused of child abuse just through early November, a number that well may have exceeded 200 by year’s end.

And lest anyone think I’m taking dead aim only at Republicans, be assured that this sickness knows no political disposition; it wraps its tenacles around REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS ALIKE.

That is what prompted me to write The Dinosaur Club, a book about child sex-trafficking throughout American society, politicians, law enforcement, Catholic, Protestant, adoption agencies, foster homes and group homes. It’s about a handful of retired newspaper reporters, all in their late 70s and early 80s who calling themselves the Dinosaurs, stumble upon a child sex-trafficking enterprise and after doing quick comb-overs, stocking up on Depends, Metamucil and blood pressure and heart medication, insert their hearing aids, grab their walkers and dentures, embark on one last writing assignment to expose the perpetrators.

The book will be out in a few weeks. The price of the book will be $30, including shipping. You may reserve your copy now by clicking HERE and scrolling down to the yellow DONATE button to pay by credit card or you may mail a check to Tom Aswell, 107 North College Street West, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70725.

Controversy seems to follow Burl Cain around like misfortune followed Joe Btfsplk, that sorrowful, hapless character from the old Li’l Abner comic strip.

Joe Btfsplk

When Cain retired as warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, he did so under a cloud. His retirement came a month after an INVESTIGATIVE REPORT by the Baton Rouge/New Orleans Advocate that examined real estate deals, favorable treatment of certain prisoners, nepotism and questionable business relationships.

A STATE AUDIT cited a laundry list of irregularities, including:

• Failure of prison employees to take leave while working on Cain’s personal residence;
• Lodging and meals provided to members of Cain’s family;
• Prison labor refurbished iron gates from Cain’s personal residence;
• Public funds were used to purchase appliances and household furnishes for Cain’s residence;
• Angola prison rodeo revenue not deposited in state treasury or included in Department of Corrections budget;
• Rodeo concession sales revenues not deposited;
• Personal purchases and cash withdrawals made from Angola Employee Recreation Fund.

All the foregoing would be ancient history, of course, since the audit was issued in January 2017, nearly a decade ago.

Except, that is, for the fact that Cain, after his 2016 retirement, was named Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections in 2020, and controversy followed him from Baton Rouge to Jackson.

If one goes only by the MDOC’s WEB PAGE, Cain comes across as a benevolent correctional spiritual reformer who was the answer to the needs of the department. The reality, as it is in most cases, is somewhat different.

The Mississippi HOUSE CORRECTIONS COMMITTEE has taken up a series of legislative bills that address claims of denial of medical treatment, tens of millions of taxpayer funds in mysterious bank accounts that have “no accountability,” and rising fees from a prison farm program.

Cain was hired for the job by Mississippi GOV. TATE REEVES who said at the time, “I have absolute full confidence in Burl Cain’s ability to change the culture at the Department of Corrections. I have absolute confidence he will do so in a manner to make Mississippians proud. I have zero reservations about appointing him.”

Since he uttered those optimistic words, more than 300 people have died in Mississippi’s prisons with at least 50 of those being attributed to homicide, suicide and drug overdoses.

That cloud over Joe Btfsplk’s just doesn’t seem to go away.

Andy Borowitz is a writer who has a unique gift of taking just about any subject and writing a brief parody.

A reader sent me a great Borowitz headline today: “Olympic Update: Trump wins gold in downhill Presidency.”

A political cartoonist apparently was likewise inspired:

As such things often do, it got me to thinking. Why not expand on that theme and allow a few other notables to participate in the Political Olympics? Accordingly, here are a few to consider:

Ass-kissing Sycophantic Luge: John Kennedy and Mike Johnson are the early favorites for the Gold and Silver, respectively, with Jeff Landry expected to do no better than the Bronze. Bill Cassidy commits costly foul early in the competition and never really gets back in the race. Clay Higgins gets lost on the way to starting line.

Ice Skating over Dead Bodies Double Axel: Kristi Noem is a slam-dunk for the Gold, with a scramble for the Silver between Greg Bovino, Elon Musk and Kash Patel.

Opponent Attack Ad Freestyle: Bill Cassidy, for his catchy attempted knockdown of Julia Letlow, captures the Gold–his only runaway win in the Olympics.

Cold-hearted, Contemptable Stare-Down: Stephen Miller and Melania Trump in a dead-heat for the Gold. Kristi Noem would have been a pick for the Bronze, but she had entered the Puppy Shoot which is being held simultaneous to the Stare-Down.

What Am I Doing Here Shuffle: Karoline Leavitt, Tulsi Gabbard and Pam Bondi duke it out for the Gold with JD Vance clinging to an outside shot at the Bronze—a bronzed sofa, that is.

Making America Sick Open: Robert F. Kennedy, of course, wins the Gold, followed by Ralph Abraham for the Silver and Sen. Bill Cassidy picking up that coveted Bronz.

Along for the Ride Freeload: Donnie, Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Jared Kushner vie for the Gold. There is no Silver or Bronze.

Grifting: Can anyone even compete with Cankle Ankles for the Gold to match the gaudy décor of the Oval Office, his FIFA Peace Award or the Bronze to match his spatula-applied makeup?

It’s difficult to improve on Borowitz, but those are my selections. You may have a few of your own to add to the list.