Judge, jury, and executioner

Published in The Southern Digest October 31, 2011

Where were you when the board declared financial exigency on Southern University Baton Rouge?

Were you tailgating, in class, at home, with a friend? I was in the meeting where more students should have been.

It was not just about a deficit over 10 million dollars it was about a reputation, programs, faculty, and students who may leave and never come back.

It wasn’t just a vote to declare financial emergency on the Baton Rouge campus but, a declaration of enrollment emergency, retention emergency, graduation emergency, low student involvement emergency, and a national reputation emergency.

Even if you were not watching the state of Louisiana, the United States of America was watching and the world was watching as we declared that we have to change our policies and procedures to get business handled.

As we questioned and asked within our own Board of Supervisors whether our policies and procedures should be amended for clarification to make a possibly detrimental decision.

As we declared that our faculty and administration cannot work efficiently together.

As we declared that the only HBCU system would declare financial emergency on a campus before exhausting system resources and state resources to solve the problem.

The world watched as Southern University declared financial exigency again jeopardizing the reputation of this historical institution.

As Southern University at Baton Rouge celebrated homecoming, the Board of Supervisors declared that there was a financial crisis present in Baton Rouge. A crisis that could only be corrected and addressed through a mandatory furlough of all Southern University employees and employee layoffs and cost savings measures.

After pleas of compassion and consideration of other options and solutions were heard from the podium in front of the Board of Supervisors acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

The Southern University Board of Supervisors laid down the verdict that Southern University Baton Rouge needed to be executed in order to save the system.

There was no sentence for rehabilitation but an immediate sentence of restructure and reorganization within this time period or face death row.

As the gavel hit the podium to charge Southern University with crisis on the heads of the students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community faced the charges.

30 days of strict and defined planning to how to approach the next year sentence to be eligible for parole as of June 30^th 2012 or earlier for good behavior.

The question becomes will you let Southern University at Baton Rouge be executed alone for the crimes committed by other conspirators.

The State of Louisiana deserves to be up for trial for its treatment of higher education institutions in this state, for its choice to ignore the forces on the students of Southern University inside and outside of the classroom.

The System deserves to be prosecuted for being a top heavy and dependent office without leadership to sustain the other campuses. Passing the buck to entities smaller and with less representation than them.

It’s time to call our lawyers, friends and family and fight for proper and equal representation across the system. Not to allow lackluster leadership persecute and execute the Baton Rouge campus for crimes it did not commit.

Who will be next? Without the Baton Rouge campus how will SUNO, SUSLA, SUAG, and SU Law Center survive the scrutiny of the Southern University system?