- When is an LSUS Faculty Senate public meeting not a public meeting?
- Were LSUS Faculty Senate meetings held in secret – and illegally?
- When is it legal to refuse public attendance at a public hearing?
- Did LSUS illegally send hazardous chemicals to be burned at the Clean Harbors Colfax facility? (administrators finally say no three years after being asked, but were they being truthful?)
- Did the LSUS Facility Services Department improperly remove and dispose of moldy materials in the Science Building?
- DID LSUS’s then-Chancellor Larry Clark harass and/or attempt to intimidate the wife of a faculty member with whom Clark had personal issues?
- Did LSUS administrators access outspoken faculty member Dr. Brian Salvatore’s university-owned laptop computer and delete more than 20,000 files?
- Has the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, been arbitrarily suspended by administrators at LSUS in an effort to fire Salvatore?
The aforementioned allegations, and others, were investigated and each found to have no basis in fact.
But the investigations were conducted internally. In other words, the administration of LSUS investigated itself before Chancellor Robert T. Smith fired off a letter to Salvatore last November informing the 21-year chemistry and physics professor that he was recommending that Salvatore’s employment with the university be terminated. LSU System President William Tate and Provost Helen Taylor were copied with that letter.
The whole affair is eerily reminiscent of the firings of Steven Hatfill who was wrongly implicated in a series of anthrax letters in 2002 and Ivor van Heerden, axed in 2009 after he voiced criticism (correctly, it turned out) over the structural integrity of levees that collapsed during Hurricane Katrina, flooding much of New Orleans. In each case, LSU, rather than stand on principle and display loyalty even to controversial employees, cratered with lightning speed and efficiency under political the intense pressure of losing lucrative federal grants, demonstrating even in the halls of academia, money talks loudest.
I always thought that higher education was synonymous with critical thinking and asking probing questions. Simply put, folks, there’s a disturbing pattern here on the part of LSU.
Foremost among those seven cases cited by attorney Smith is the 1964 landmark US Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan. That decision resulted from a lawsuit filed by the Montgomery, Alabama, Police Chief L.B. Sullivan over a full-page Times advertisement critical of the Montgomery police during civil rights riots in that city. That decision, considered one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions in US history, said that First Amendment rights can only be forfeited in cases where false statements were made with knowledge that the statement was made with “reckless disregard” to whether it was true or false.
Smith also cited Garcetti v Ceballos, a decision which said, “A state cannot condition public employment on a basis that infringes on the employee’s constitutional[ly] protected interest in freedom of expression.”
In still another case, Kennedy v. Sheriff of East Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Supreme Court cited a need for constitutional privilege to protect “uninhibited, robust and wide-open debate…”
But LSUS, in an apparent attempt to emulate its flagship university in Baton Rouge, appears hell-bent on imposing its own rules and retributions against recalcitrant personnel.
One might say it’s a case of the squeaky wheel getting the shaft.
Each of the allegations against Salvatore are steeped in the First Amendment and Salvatore’s attorney, J. Arthur Smith of Baton Rouge, has been quick to cite no fewer that seven cases which support the right of freedom of speech, even when utterances can upset the status quo. And there can be no doubt that Salvatore has upset the status quo at LSUS – bigly. Space, even on the Internet, does not allow commentary on the flimsy nature of each of those allegations, but we will touch on the most egregious ones.
Salvatore’s sins?
He fought the EPA in its efforts to open burn 16 million pounds of hazardous chemicals at nearby Camp Minden, the site of a major explosion in 2012. Such brazen actions could jeopardize federal grants for the university and we just can’t have that.
When the EPA backed down, the result was the design and construction of a state-of-the-art system to clean-burn and remove the chemicals. The state subsequently awarded the contract to ESI. But when ESI subsequently announced plans to partner with David Madden in efforts to retain the burn system in Minden and to import millions of pounds of additional hazardous chemicals, things got a little dicey, especially when ESI claimed ownership of the system. Gov. John Bel Edwards sided with Salvatore and informed ESI and Madden that the system was owned by the state. Salvatore’s opposition to that arrangement resulted in a letter of complaint from Madden to then-LSU President F. King Alexander. Salvatore said Clark’s attitude toward him was suddenly much cooler and that Salvatore was suddenly shut out from receiving any awards, recognition or promotions and LSUS began a practice of documenting matters that were professionally detrimental to him. He was twice denied so much as even an interview for the position of dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, even though his immediate supervisor had suggested that he apply for the position.
Salvatore later had the audacity to speak out in opposition to the proposed hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the process of drilling for natural gas near Cross Lake in Caddo Parish. Besides citing accidents that had occurred during fracking in the ArkLaTex area, Salvatore cited the use of hazardous chemicals used as surfactants in fracking that posed a potential danger to water quality. Cross Lake, incidentally, supplies drinking water to Shreveport, the state’s third-largest municipality, a fact that would make any contamination a matter of no small concern. Of course, the oil and gas industry was not thrilled at his opposition – and said so to Clark, who Salvatore said told him that he (Clark) had been told to “go after” Salvatore.
“I believe that my proposed termination is motivated as a response to the exercise of my rights under the First Amendment,” said Salvatore. Gee, you think?
Salvatore and others, including Gen. Russell Honore (US Army Ret.), lobbied unsuccessfully for state and federal regulators to require Clean Harbors to install a safe contained burn system in Colfax.
In January 2020, Salvatore said he learned that the university planned to send hazardous chemicals to Clean Harbors for disposal. Clean Harbors had already been cited for “numerous environmental violations,” Salvatore said so, naturally, he asked Facilities Services Director Art Shilling for assurance that no LSUS chemicals would go to the Clean Harbors facility in Colfax. “But this (assurance) was not done,” he said, adding that no university administrator copied on his email to Shilling ever responded about Salvatore’s concerns.
Three years elapsed following his email to Shilling and other administrators and in March 2023, after having received no response, he posted his concerns on his social media platform. It was only then that he received a response from LSUS Director of Environmental Health & Safety Blake Rodgers on April 4 who claimed (without providing supporting evidence) that no chemicals from LSUS had been burned in Colfax.
Capping things off, a non-public “public” hearing was held earlier this week. As provided under State Civil Service rules, an individual may request that any hearing about that individual shall be held in open, public session if the subject so requests. That’s an ironclad “shall,” not a tenuous maybe.
But LSUS officials, apparently without consulting the legalities (or at least without seeking guidance from lawyers) arbitrarily decided that the meeting was not a public meeting as advertised despite the presence of a few members of the general public who were allowed in for whatever reason.
But when reporters for the Shreveport-Bossier Advocate attempted to enter the hearing on Monday, school Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Helen Taylor told wannabe attendees, “This is not a public meeting. Another LSUS employee said “chairs were filled” in the meeting room, that no more chairs could be set up and that standing was not allowed. This despite a head count by reporters that found only 14 audience members and several empty chairs.
Attorney J. Arthur Smith said he is not solicitating clients but that should anyone shut out of the so-called “public” hearing contact him, he would be open to filing an open meetings lawsuit against the university on their behalf.
He did just that a couple of years ago when Southern University arbitrarily decided on a closed-door hearing despite request from four professors being terminated that the hearing be held in open session. Smith won a judgment against Southern on behalf of each of the four professors and a reporter.
As for Salvatore’s case, attorney Smith said “There is a definite line” that can be drawn on free speech. “Right up until the time you hurt someone,” he told the Shreveport-Bossier Advocate. “You cannot defame someone,” he said. “Defamation law says you must act with malice and knowingly state falsities. You must have a reckless disregard for the truth.” Salvatore, he added, did not do that.
As evidence offered by this VIDEO, Salvatore has a large base of support from students and the general public.
Viva, Dr. Salvatore!
How discouraging that even the state’s flagship university’s leadership is so corrupt, unethical, and a tool for mega-petroleum and chemical industries