Clouds pass above the LSU Law Center on Monday, March 20, 2023, on Highland Road in Baton Rouge, La. (Matthew Perschall for Louisiana Illuminator)
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is calling on LSU to punish a law professor for comments he made about the presidential election in the classroom.
Administrative law professor Nick Bryner drew the ire of the governor for calling on students who voted for Trump because they like his policies, and not him personally, to prove it through their actions. Landry posted a video of Bryner’s comments on social media last week.
“I don’t know if anybody falls in that category, but if you voted for Trump on the idea that you don’t like him personally but that you like his policies, I just want you to think about the message that that sends to other people and how you can prove that, by treating other people in a way that matches that sentiment,” Bryner told his students Nov. 6, the day after the election.
Landry posted the video of the professor’s comments last week on X, formerly Twitter, and followed that up Monday with a letter to LSU President William Tate, LSU Law Dean Alena Allen and members of the LSU Board of Supervisors calling on them to discipline Bryner.
“If the school does not discipline Mr. Bryner for his comments, I hope that the Board will look into the matter, as LSU professors are prohibited from utilizing state resources to influence public policy,” Landry wrote.
Neither Bryner, LSU spokesman Todd Woodward, Allen nor Board of Supervisors Chairman Jimmie Woods have responded to requests for comment.
Our Administration will not stand by silently as this professor defies the voices of 76 million Americans who voted for @realDonaldTrump. pic.twitter.com/BSAtWud2m3
— Governor Jeff Landry (@LAGovJeffLandry) November 26, 2024
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First Amendment advocates are criticizing Landry for his response to what they believe is protected speech.
“The professor’s comments are very clearly protected by the First Amendment and academic freedom,” said Katie Schwartzmann, director of the Tulane First Amendment Law Clinic. “It is absolutely terrifying for our governor to call upon LSU to discipline a professor for his speech.”
“Our classrooms are the incubators of our democracy, and they must be protected for the free exchange of ideas. We cannot allow the persecution or prosecution of teachers for the ideas discussed in their classrooms,” Schwartzmann added.
Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Liberties in Education, a campus free speech organization known for defending controversial conservative speech on university campuses, said Landry was using the banner of free speech to engage in censorship.
“Here you have a state official, you know, the highest official in the state of Louisiana, focusing on a maybe two-minute comment by a law professor to adult law students and commenting on civility and using current events as a basis to encourage civility, and the governor is [stating] that the mere discussion of a professor’s political views is imposing it on law students,” Steinbaugh said.
Steinbaugh said Bryner’s comments are lawful, especially because they pertain to his area of expertise.
“The law is going to change, and administrative law is going to change,” Bryner said in the video. “I perceive this vote as really like a rejection of the idea that we are governed by a people with expertise … There is a lot in administrative law about ensuring that the government makes rational decisions.”
This professor has defied the 76 million Americans who voted for President @realDonaldTrump – to silence and belittle those in his class who voted for our next president. This is not the kind of behavior we want at @LSU and our universities. pic.twitter.com/ncGETXE2Qs
— Governor Jeff Landry (@LAGovJeffLandry) November 17, 2024
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a conservative court that encompasses Louisiana, has held that faculty members have the First Amendment right to “discuss pedagogically relevant material in their classes,” Steinbaugh said.
“I have had the unfortunate experience of having gone to law school, and if they cut out all of the lectures and comments about civility, it’d be about probably taking a year off the three years of law school,” Steinbaugh joked.
This is not the first time Landry has asked for LSU to punish a professor for making comments he doesn’t like.
When he was the attorney general in 2021, Landry called on the university to take action against tenured mass communication professor Bob Mann, who referred to Assistant Attorney General Lauryn Sudduth as a “flunkie” after Sudduth appeared at a Faculty Senate meeting to read a letter from Landry containing COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
Mann, who announced his retirement from LSU shortly after Landry was elected partially due to fear of retaliation, defended Bryner.
“Landry probably doesn’t recognize it, but what this professor meant was that we should treat people as we would want to be treated,” Mann said. “I’m not sure what legal right LSU or any of us have to punish someone for advising people to follow the Golden Rule. I hope that LSU does not allow a governor to bully them into punishing a distinguished professor who clearly cares deeply about the well-being of his students.”
Like Mann, Bryner is also tenured. Tenure provides an indefinite academic appointment to qualifying faculty members who have demonstrated excellence in their field. Academics with tenure can only be terminated for cause, and it typically only happens in extreme circumstances. Tenure is viewed as a key part of academic freedom at American public universities and a shield against political, corporate and religious intervention.
Landry charged that Bryner’s comments violate LSU’s policies on academic freedom as well as state law.
Landry argued that a bill he signed into law earlier this year, Act 485 by Sen. Valarie Hodges, R-Denham Springs, prohibits speech such as Bryner’s.
Steinbaugh said Landry is misinterpreting the law.
“He’s twisting the law to suggest that in order to protect free speech, we need to censor people, and that the mere discussion of views is imposing them on other people,” Steinbaugh said. “I certainly don’t think it can be reasonably read that way. And if it is read that way, then it is requiring people to shut up in the name of free speech.”
Landry spokeswoman Kate Kelly has not yet responded to a question regarding how Landry got the video, which appears to be a classroom video typically made accessible to students enrolled in a course.
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