Louisiana Voice

By Paul Spillman, guest columnist

Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby has spared college football a disaster of near biblical proportions by declaring for the NFL supplemental draft and foregoing the final year of college eligibility he recently won in an injunction against the NCAA. That injunction issued by visiting judge Ken Curry in a Lubbock, TX courtroom prevented the NCAA from ruling Sorsby ineligible for the 2026 season for gambling on college football and on his own team.

Sorsby’s decision to enter the supplemental draft diverts a crisis college athletics did not want and was not prepared for. Removing those who gamble on their own team to protect the integrity of competition has been a guiding principle in all of sport for more than a century. By issuing an injunction preventing the NCAA from enforcing that rule the court threatened the integrity of all sports at every level and took dead aim at the NCAA as a rule enforcing body.

The fallout included hypocrites getting exposed, a pissing contest between two state Attorneys General, congressional grandstanding, and nearly every interested party giving themselves an infarction in outrage. Not to mention providing an occasion for a few cheap shots at LSU.

In the immediate aftermath of the injunction Texas Tech booster and main money-man Cody Campbell was quick to defend the Red Raiders and the ruling, even taking a shot at LSU saying if this had happened here no one would care. It’s important to note Campbell is close to Senator Ted Cruz and is the driving force behind the pooling of media rights in college athletics. College football fans may recall during the 2025 season commercials that ran during every college game warning of a coming crisis and the need to address it. Vague and ominous it referred to no specific issue nor was attributed to any group. Those commercials were paid for by Cody Campbell who apparently believed himself to be a savior of college athletics. Until the Sorsby mess exposed his hypocrisy.

But hypocrite boosters weren’t the only self-serving parties to get in on the action. Texas Attorney General and candidate for Senate Ken Paxton sent a letter to the Big 12 conference office shortly after the ruling warning the conference of legal action if it sanctioned Texas Tech. Not to be outdone Oklahoma Attorney General and candidate for governor Gentner Drummond fired off a letter to conference officials the next day threatening legal action if the Big 12 didn’t sanction Texas Tech and laying out the legal argument for the conference’s authority to do so and offering the services of its office against Paxton. This provided as good an example as any of why college athletics should loathe any involvement by any politician of any stripe. Politicians have their own agenda which they are utterly devoted to. Issues like governing college athletics are pieces to be used in pursuing their own agendas, not something to be addressed for its own sake. The issues facing college athletics won’t be solved by politicians because politicians don’t solve problems. They use them to further their own agendas.

That’s especially true of Congressional politicians. Ted Cruz is pushing the Protect College Sports Act as a solution, claiming the bill grants the NCAA an antitrust exemption and thus prevents rulings such as the Sorsby injunction. But Cruz didn’t become a US Senator by being truthful. He knows good and well this injunction does not prevent the NCAA from enforcing a rule due to antitrust violation. The ruling grants the NCAA authority to enforce rules but declared the punishment was too great for the crime, imposing its own two-game suspension on Sorsby instead of permanent ineligibility. That’s not the same as saying the NCAA doesn’t have the authority to enforce rules. Nor would the Protect College Sports Act prevent student athletes from suing to regain eligibility, providing any other judge an opportunity to overrule the NCAA. But few expect a US Senator to give a straight, honest answer to any question.

Nor was Cruz the only yapping dog. Our own Steve Scalise mucked up the debate claiming he could have passed the SCORE act in the House before congressional realignment swept the nation and proved that politics is a blood sport. Scalise made the rounds to right-wing media outlets hitting only the points that drive right-wingers crazy and gaslighting everyone. Scalise said, “One thing that a lot of schools and student athletes told us is they don’t want to be forced into being employees of the school and then ultimately being unionized. And that’s one of the big differences between the House and Senate bill that’s got to get fixed.” In all the debate over legislation, public comments, and this recent scandal not one word has been spoken publicly about unionization. An internet search will bear out that truth.

Other than Texas Tech officials and fans, the general consensus was it would be a disaster for college football had Sorsby suited up this fall. Some schools would have refused to play Texas Tech and the conference would surely have attempted at least to impose sanctions. Curry’s ruling granting Sorsby an injunction provided days-worth of content for talking heads, podcasters, and You Tube content creators and all of it was negative, with a few more shots at LSU. One podcaster noted LSU had pursued Sorsby before he committed to Texas Tech and that details of LSU’s offer to Sorsby had been leaked online. He speculated on the circus LSU would be right now had Sorsby signed with the Tigers, with Lane Kiffin as head coach and the governor inserting himself into the fray. That he’s probably correct gives that cheap shot a little extra “oomph.”

So what happens now? There is tremendous pressure to pass the Protect College Sports Act more so that Congress is seen to be doing something than to actually address the issues. As detailed previously the legislation grants the “voluntary” pooling of media rights if 75% of member institutions vote for it. But if the bill becomes law, it will be the catalyst for the Big Ten, the SEC, Notre Dame, and whoever else wants to come along to break away from the relic that is the NCAA, an organization the courts no longer have any respect for and that has outlived its usefulness. None of those schools are going to share their lucrative media deals with anyone else.

The logic is simple. If Notre Dame, at any time over the last 100 years, had wanted to share media revenue it could have joined the conference of its choice. And still could right this moment. But it hasn’t. It has remained a football independent because it can. Notre Dame is simply not going to share media revenue. Nor will the Big Ten and the SEC agree to an exception for Notre Dame but not for themselves. Those schools will break away, form a super-conference, adapt to the modern world in ways that allow them to enforce rules, and leave the NCAA to die of natural causes.

But all of that is in some future season. Today college athletics is thankful to enter the 2026 academic year with the ugliness of the Sorsby scandal in the rear-view mirror and clear roads ahead. For a week or two, anyway.

The most vile, evil man in America (no, not Donald Trump, but the architect of most of Diaper Don’s malicious, sub-human acts) is now openly advocating the suspension of HABEAS CORPUS, the very bedrock on which the American Republic was founded 250 years ago.

Folks, this is the first step to the complete eradication of freedom. This ain’t a sky is falling scare tactic, it’s all too real. Civil liberties, freedom of speech, press, assembly and yes, even religion, are at stake here.

This is the one outrageous maneuver of many we simply cannot—must not allow to take place. Habeas corpus is the age-old right to force the government to justify, before a judge, why it has locked a person up. It is enshrined in Article I of the Constitution.

Oh, to be sure, what Stephen Miller, that spawn of Satan, is advocating is the suspension of habeas corpus for unauthorized immigrants but don’t think for one nano-second that is just a first step, that it could—and would—be expanded to any other group or person perceived by this bedbug crazy administration to be an enemy of the state.

It is such a horrific idea that an obscure attorney serving as White House secretary, dared to write a SECRET MEMO to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles back on April 29 that said, in carefully-couched lawyerly vernacular, the administration was playing with fire with the very Constitution serving as tinder.

This is way past renaming the Kennedy Center after himself or painting the Reflecting Pool blue or a giant arch or a billion-dollar ballroom or cage fights on the White House lawn or even those “86/47” messages. All those things, irritating as they might be, are nickel and dime stuff compared to this. This is major league tampering with the very foundation of our government and it cannot stand.

Donald Trump’s ego is being fed by this monster Miller and that man knows no restrictions. Ruling vicariously through Trump, Miller will stop at nothing until he has trampled every right we have to vote, eat, think, breathe and speak. He is Hitler without the charm and charisma. He is Idi Amin without the benevolence. He is David Duke without the robe and hood.

But after all that, he must—MUST—be made to understand that he is a mortal man who is required to live by the laws of this country and that his desire to set aside those laws are something that can just never be.

Never.

“I (elected or appointed individual) do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution and laws of the United States and the constitution and laws of this State; and I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as (elected or appointed position), and according to the best of my ability and understanding. So help me God.”

The foregoing is the so-called “loyalty oath” to which all Louisiana State hires or elected officials must fill out—in writing as a condition of employment or elective office.

The second part of the oath reads, “A person may be temporarily employed for fifteen days, and if the above statement is not filed by the fifteenth day, he shall be discharged.”

The loyalty oath has been around since the end of the Civil War and were first adopted by state and federal governments as “test oaths” which the Supreme Court said exceeded a pledge of future loyalty when it struck down the law in 1867. That decision established the principle which continues today: loyalty oaths cannot be used o punish people retroactively for past beliefs or associations. The court considered that a violation of the First Amendment.

With the advent of the Cold War, the most aggressive expansion of loyalty oaths was undertaken with a demand that public employees swear they were not members of the Communist Party or any organization advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. That, it turned out, was called a “negative oath” which led to a wave of litigation with the so-called “affirmative oath,” which ask for a pledge of future support of the Constitution and the law, emerging as the oaths administered today. The difference is that today’s oaths do not typically demand that one disclaim membership in any group.

State Sen. Tony Guarisco of Morgan City attempted in 1986 to scrap the oath because of what he considered as a violation of the First Amendment.

“It never got out of committee,” he remembers. “I was the only ‘yes’ vote. Committee members ridiculed a young LSU professor who was the only person to testify. He testified in favor of the bill.”

The loyalty oath was weaponized as a result of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities, which in turn was spawned by McCarthyism and his Red Scare tactics. Two of the members of the HCUA were from Louisiana: U.S. Reps. Ed Willis of St. Martinville, the committee chair, and F. Edward Hebert of New Orleans.

Since the [State Senate] committee wanted to keep the law in place, I asked the governor’s appointees who required [Senate] confirmation, “Are you now or were you ever…”

One appointee, he said, stormed out of the committee room yelling that Guarisco had called him a communist.

“The loyalty oath is still in effect,” Guarisco said, “but it’s hidden as part of R.S. 42:52 (ed seq) that people such as college professors have to sign.

“Years ago, a young, highly sought-out English professor from another state was recruited by USL (not ULL). He declined to sign the oath and was not hired.”

Guarisco, 87, served in the Louisiana State Senate from 1976-1988. He received his law degree from Loyola University in New Orleans.

First elected in 1975, he sponsored a bill to permit physicians in Louisiana prescribe marijuana for therapeutic treatment of glaucoma and in treatment by chemotherapy. Gov. Edwin Edwards signed his bill into law and the Marijuana Control Board was created to monitor the law but the panel never functioned and was abolished in 1989 by Gov. Bubby Roemer who eliminated many other inactive boards and commissions.

He was an early supporter of the failed Equal Rights Amendment and he created and served as the first Senate parliamentarian, designing a process for confirming gubernatorial appointees. He founded the Endowed Chairs for Eminent Scholars program in higher education and the LSU Endowment for Excellence, pioneered admission standards for LSU, and laws regarding open meetings and public records. He was the lead author on legislation to prevent punitive damages against the press. In 1981, he was the floor manager for the impeachment and removal of state Senator Gaston Gerald of Greenwell Springs, convicted of extortion.

He was succeeded in the State Senate by future Gov. Mike Foster in 1988.

“I hate to say it, but loving our country is starting to sound like an abused spouse saying they love their abuser.”

—Actor Robert De Niro, commenting on state of the U.S. under Trump

She won’t receive anything approaching the award but the verdict handed down by a Bossier Parish jury in the case of a woman who claimed her late stepfather sexually abused her beginning when she was just four years old, should be a shot across the bow of abusers everywhere.

The jury awarded Pamela Elaine Lockridge $500 million for pain and suffering, $600 million in punitive damages and $585,000 for past and future medical and psychological treatment costs—more than $1.1 billion—an astounding award for any individual who is not a corporate CEO, according to a story in THE GUARDIAN, a British publication that has done a stellar job of tracking child sex abuse cases.

Her lead attorney, former state legislator Ryan Gatti, who admitted that Lockridge’s case was the first he had actually tried in more than a quarter-century of practicing law, said neither he nor Lockridge expected to collect the full award from her stepfather’s estate. Instead, Gatti said he expected to reach an undisclosed settlement.

Should that indeed be the case, there would be no appeal. If no such settlement is reached, it is within the presiding judge’s discretion to reduce the award or the defendants may appeal.

Regardless, the verdict is seen as a warning to future defendants in childhood sex abuse cases that juries are fed up with predators who seek out children for sexual abuse and that smaller verdicts like the $2.4 million in damages awarded last year to a man who sued the Holy Cross Catholic religious order in New Orleans for childhood sexual abuse. Those awards may now be a thing of the past with juries leaning toward larger awards like Lockridge’s.

If you would like to know more about the horrors of child sex trafficking, you may order my latest book, The Dinosaur Club. It’s a historical fiction book about a group of retired newspaper reporters who call themselves The Dinosaurs who stumble upon a child sex-trafficking operation and set out to bring it down. You may order the book from Amazon by clicking on the image below: