LSU journalism professor Robert Mann will resign after the election of right-wing firebrand Jeff Landry as Louisiana's governor.
“My reasons are simple,” Mann said in a Sunday tweet. “The person who will be governor in January has already asked LSU to fire me. And I have no confidence the leadership of this university would protect the Manship School against a governor’s efforts to punish me and other faculty members.”
A professor at LSU's Manship School of Mass Communications for 18 years, Mann is an outspoken critic of the state's support for football and other sports to the detriment of academics.
Mann, who has previously clashed with Louisiana's attorney general, said he made the decision in anticipation that Landry will seek his removal. In response, the school's administration issued a statement asserting its support of freedom of speech and academic independence.
The tenured holder of the Manship Chair in Journalism, Mann said that he took the action because of his deep love for the university and that he wanted to spare the school and faculty members from possible political retribution.
Endorsed by former President Donald Trump, Landry won the governorship Saturday, surprising political observers by receiving 52 percent of the vote in the state's "jungle primary" to avoid a runoff.
As the state's attorney general for two terms, Landry fought Covid vaccine mandates, supported the state's harsh anti-abortion legislation and bans against gender care for trans youth, and joined a lawsuit in support of Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. He frequently fought Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who is stepping down after eight years because of the state's term limit.
The professor battled Landry in December 2021 when Mann sponsored a resolution before the LSU faculty Senate calling for the university to follow Covid mandates for the testing of students.
An incensed Landry dispatched Assistant Attorney General Lauryn Sudduth to the governing body to read a letter opposing the mandates.
When Mann in a Twitter tweet assailed Landry for sending "a flunky" to the school, Landry demanded that LSU President William F. Tate IV take punitive action against Mann.
Tate relatedly issued a statement supporting Mann and academic freedom, but Mann considered it tentative, faulting Tate for not calling him directly to assure him that the administration "had his back."
Before coming to LSU, Mann served as an aide to Sens. John Breaux and Russell Long and Gov. Kathleen Blanco. A former reporter, Mann is a noted historian and political scientist who has written several well-regarded books.
He understands well the state's history of governors meddling with the university. Last year, LSU Press published Mann's "Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU," which disclosed how Long sought to control the university and used the football team and band for his political advantage
As publisher of the Baton Rouge State Times and Morning Advocate, the Manship family opposed Long's regime, winning an important First Amendment ruling against the Kingfish in the U.S. Supreme Court. The benefactors of the LSU journalism school also stood out in the South for their support of integration.
Mann, who as a columnist for the then Times Picayune blasted former Gov. Bobby Jindal for severely cutting LSU's funding and who recently assailed the state's Legislature for refusing to fund a sorely needed new library, vows to keep speaking out when he leaves the university.
Louisiana needs his voice as Landry plans to turn the state into an even more repressive right-wing bastion.
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