Tenure for teachers and professors at colleges and universities does not protect faculty from wrongdoing, but ensures them due process, according to University of Louisiana System President Dr. Jim Henderson, who also said that tenure does not constitute a guarantee of employment for life as some believe.
Henderson, a member of the legislative task force charged with investigating tenure in Louisiana’s institutions of higher learning, says in a Baton Rouge Advocate story that tenure’s primary purpose is to shield academic freedom for faculty members in their research and classroom teaching.
States like Texas and Florida are already placing tight restrictions about what can and cannot be taught in public schools. At the same time, several Southern states have begun chipping away at tenure in higher education.
The creation of the task force during the 2022 regular session could be construed as the initial step in Louisiana’s legislative meddling into academia, an area few members of the House and Senate are qualified to address.
State Sen. Stewart Cathey (R-Monroe) authored the bill to create the task force of which he was subsequently named as chairperson. If his performance in heading up the task force were to be evaluated as are faculty members, he probably would not get tenure. Charged with presenting a report of its findings by March, the task force got off to a slow start, with only half the required slots being filled less than a week before its first meeting was scheduled.
The task force, however, has apparently now been disbanded after less than half-a-year of existence.
Late last month, he abruptly ANNOUNCED that he would not call a meeting of the panel, choosing instead to say that he would introduce a bill or bills in the upcoming regular legislative session. He did not specify what his legislation would propose.
And now, he apparently is attempting to intimidate faculty members at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond and Louisiana Tech University in Ruston for daring to suggest in a tweet that Cathey is attempting to “pull a DeSantis on colleges and universities,” in a reference to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s efforts to completely alter the teaching of history and even math in that state.
Cathey’s reply to Sherman and McKevitt wasn’t very subtle:
LouisianaVoice sent Cathey an email and followed that with a call to his Monroe office. The email asked if he was threatening the two faculty members and if he might be opposed to the First Amendment. We were told he was in Baton Rouge attending the special session to address the insurance crisis but that our email would be delivered to him.
That was last Thursday and he has yet to respond.
Louisiana postsecondary faculty are already among the lowest-paid in the South and the concern is if tenure is abolished, it would prompt a mass exodus of educators for other universities which could lead to certification problems for the universities.
Apparently, Cathey prefers to exhibit his lack of concern for that by marching in lockstep with the general philosophy of the Repugnantcan party.
Louisiana Voice 
I don’t always agree with our esteemed publisher but in this case his raising of concerns is spot on. It appears the legislator is more worried about control than doing whatever is right for our education system. The legislator is an armchair quarterback about to make moves in a game critical to our state’s wellbeing. He needs to find something he is qualified to legislate on and leave our system alone. Thanks for shining a light on this untoward legislator and his amateurish attempt to be a founding father.
The right has long desired to take the “public” out of public education with the intent of accomplishing two goals: control of curriculum and maximizing an opportunity for profit. By doing so the late Republican party joined its extremists with its free-marketers in a campaign to privatize education. This invokes what conservative columnist George Will calls “The Law of Unintended Consequence” as the previous campaign against education has laid the groundwork for the current assault on logic and reason in favor of emotion and prejudice which is the common thread within the emerging fascist movement that is the modern “Republican” party. Cathey, for example, doesn’t need a task force. He doesn’t need the testimony or the advice of experts. He doesn’t need suggestions or proposals. He damn sure doesn’t need facts. He already has his preferred solution and he doesn’t need to accurately describe or define the problem to get there. So let’s call Cathey out for what he is. He’s a fascist. If he knows it then he’s a sold out fascist and if he doesn’t then he’s an ignorant fascist. But either way, he’s a fascist. He’s not misguided. He’s not opportunistic. And he’s certainly not principled. He’s a self-righteous fascist. This is the modern “Republican” party from the local level all the way to the top and half or more of voters who support them.