Announcement from the Louisiana AAUP (I gave!)

STAND WITH LOUISIANA FRENCH PROFESSORS 

Louisiana is the epicenter of an assault on the university as a community of scholars. The state has become notorious for eroding academic freedom and its foundation in shared governance and tenure.
After the rough-shod procedures adopted by New Orleans universities in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, recent tactics continue to evade and undermine long-established practices for dealing with financial pressures.
In the Summer of 2010, the administration of Southeastern Louisiana University announced the closure of its French program and the dismissal of three tenured faculty members, Margaret Marshall, Katherine Kolb and Evelyne Bornier, among the most highly regarded professors on campus. In violation of University guidelines and AAUP standards, the program closure was determined without consulting the faculty concerned. Nor did the program, in fact, close: French courses are still being taught; a French minor is still offered. In further violation of University policy and AAUP guidelines, these courses are being staffed by instructors, who, in cases of program closure are to be dismissed before tenured faculty.
The SLU administration ignored wide-spread protest, rejected the unanimous findings of the SLU Faculty Grievance committee and the Faculty Senate's urging the professors’ reinstatement, and sneered at the AAUP’s subsequent investigation and censure.

The three professors have filed suit, a courageous action given that the legal and financial resources of the defendant far exceed their own.
The cause of the three professors is crucial to academics throughout the state and across the nation. If the university prevails in its shocking abridgment of fair treatment of these three exemplary professors, it will set a grievous precedent for arbitrary administrative infringement of tenure rights everywhere.

The Louisiana Conference of AAUP has established a fund to help cover the legal costs incurred by the three professors in their struggle on behalf of us all: students present and future, parents and faculty everywhere.
We are asking all faculty and the community at large to make contributions in support of this fight. Give all you can.

Mail a check made out to LSC/AAUP to:
Professor Alvin Burstein
7008 Longvue Drive
Mandeville, LA 70448

SEE THE TEXT OF THE AAUP INVESTIGATIVE  REPORT.

STATMENTS BY FRENCH PROFESSORS TERMINATED AT SELU

READ THE STATEMENTS HERE and HERE

*********************************************************** Join AAUP Today EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Brooks Ellwood,  President Sudhir Trivedi, Vice-President Linda Carroll,  Secretary Nicole Greene, Treasurer Sandra Loucks, At Large Alvin Burstein, Past President Ravi Rau, Istvan Berkeley,  Co-Chairs, Chapter Services  PAUL BELL, AN ATTORNEY, RESEARCHED FACULTY COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS IN LOUISIANA FOR THE LSU CHAPTER. READ IT HERE  ======================================================== Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, and he is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. Website at daynesherman.com. ======== Web & Social Media: http://daynesherman.com/ Talk About the South Blog: http://daynesherman.blogspot.com/ Tweet the South - Twitter: http://twitter.com/TweettheSouth/ ***This message speaks only for the writer, a citizen, not for any present or past employer.***

Jindal’s immoral tax plan

A governor, the clergy, and a corrupt scheme

 

By Dayne Sherman

Talk About the South Column
Mar. 22, 2013 – 660 words

I am deeply disturbed by many of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s recent actions—his callousness toward the Bayou Corne sinkhole evacuees, his funding of state services by a “garage sale” of assets, his unwillingness to accept constitutional restraints on his pension and K-12 education policies, his ongoing assault on colleges and universities, and his rejection of the Medicaid expansion for 400,000 of Louisiana’s citizens.

As if that were not enough, he currently is pushing a sales tax plan that will wreck retail businesses within a 50 mile radius of the state line and will tax groups such as the Council on Aging and the Habitat for Humanity. The actual bill has not been filed yet out of deceit far more than building good policy and consensus.

I believe this is a reckless tax plan. It will lead to massive state deficits, harm small businesses, hurt 80 % of Louisiana citizens, further destroy colleges, and only serve to help our governor’s national image.

But I am heartened by a recent development, the 250 ministers who signed “An Open Letter from Louisiana Clergy to Governor Bobby Jindal” on March 18th. Their letter goes to the heart of what’s wrong with Jindal’s immoral tax plan.

The signees are a diverse group, the president of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention Rev. Fred Luter of New Orleans and nearly every variety of Louisiana clergy, including the bishops of the Methodist and Episcopal churches.

It is sad that Gov. Jindal, a man who has preached in evangelical congregations statewide (before his reelection, none afterward), cares nothing about the Christianity he professes.

As Charles Pierce wrote for “Esquire” online, “By his works shall you know him and, by his works, ‘Bobby’ Jindal is no more a Christian than the average wolverine is. He’s a Pharisaical monster who’d have sold Mardi Gras beads on Golgotha.”

Though he claims to be a Catholic convert, Jindal obviously did not get the memo that the new pope has emphasized advocating for the weak and the poor, and the pontiff has taken the name Francis after the great Saint Francis of Assisi. Jindal’s “faith,” however, appears more like the selfishness of Ayn Rand and the corruption of Al Capone than the religion of Saint Francis.

Thank God citizens are waking up, and his popularity is falling like a lead sinker dropped in a bayou.

To cite only one recent example, the governor was the joke of the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he gave a bungled speech and was tied for 9th place in the presidential straw poll. His trampling of Louisiana people and institutions has neither helped Louisiana nor his national profile. The sales tax scheme is simply a way to further his amazingly delusional quest to be President of the United States at our expense. Even many Jindal supporters are scratching their heads, wondering what happened to their Rhodes Scholar.

The only message that Jindal respects is strong public pushback that costs him politically. Remember the huge raises for legislators in 2008 and his planned cuts to hospice in early 2013? He backed off. After environmental activist Erin Brockovich showed up at the Bayou Corne sinkhole, Jindal followed suit and headed there for the first time a week and a half later. When the heat is poured on Jindal, he folds up like a cheap accordion.

We all have a responsibility to fight Jindal’s tax swindle. On March 17, I wrote three local legislators about the tax debacle, but I did not receive word back from any of them. Perhaps other citizens will have better luck.

It’s time for all of us to stop Jindal’s wrongheaded sales tax scheme. But it’s going to take every one of us speaking up before it is too late.

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, and he is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. Website at daynesherman.com.

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Web & Social Media: http://daynesherman.com/

Talk About the South Blog: http://daynesherman.blogspot.com/

Tweet the South - Twitter: http://twitter.com/TweettheSouth/

***This message speaks only for the writer, a citizen, not for any present or past employer.***