Landry is asking LSU to discipline the professor for the alleged speech

Louisiana’s Republican governor has publicly targeted a Louisiana State University law professor for allegedly making comments in class about students who voted for President-elect Donald Trump. Governor Jeff Landry shared the professor’s video on social media Nov. 17 and sent LSU a letter Monday, asking officials to punish him.

The day after Election Day, the professor, Nicholas Bryner, who serves as the director of LSU’s Climate Change Law and Policy Project, allegedly made sarcastic remarks in class directed at students who supported Trump, noting that black students at the law school felt uncomfortable.

Yesterday Landry posted on X and Instagram again about Bryner, sharing a letter he sent to LSU with the caption “Our administration will not remain silent as this professor defies the voice of the 76 million Americans who voted for @realdonaldtrump.”

Landry’s letter says he issued an executive order earlier this fall to “encourage and protect free speech at all institutions of higher education throughout Louisiana.” On X, he shared this letter using his verified government account; he then used his account to repost it, adding the caption “Today’s lesson: teaching college professors what free speech is.”

Academic freedom groups were quick to point out the glaring disconnect between what Landry claims to stand for and what he actually does. “Beware of an official who will call for surveillance under the banner of free speech,” Adam Steinbaugh, a lawyer for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said. Within Higher Ed.

“It’s ironic that the governor begins by praising his free speech” in a letter whose apparent intent is to encourage the administration and board to punish a faculty member for free speech, Greg Scholtz, chief programs officer of the American Association of University Professors, wrote in an email to Within Higher Ed. “Obviously, the effect of this letter will be to silence the freedom of professors in Louisiana.”

LSU, Bryner or Landry did not return Within Higher EdRequests for comment on Tuesday.

This is not the first time Landry has entered higher education. Earlier this year, he signed legislation requiring a copy of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every classroom at Louisiana’s community colleges, universities and trade schools, as well as K-12 schools. (A federal judge blocked the law.) And it’s not Landry’s first attempt to get involved in LSU affairs; in September, he began forcing the university to bring its 8-year-old tiger mascot to football games, The Louisiana Illuminator report. After LSU refused to do so, Landry brought in a rented Tiger from Florida.

It is not clear who recorded the video of the alleged comments in Bryner’s classroom or why, or who gave it to the administrator.

Landry began posting the video from his public account on Nov. 17 with the caption “This professor insulted the 76 million Americans who voted for President @realDonaldTrump—to silence and humiliate those in his class who voted for our next president. This is not the kind of behavior we want at @LSU and our universities.”

In the 90-second clip, someone identified as Bryner tells readers, if “your reason for voting for Trump [is] that you don’t love him personally but you love his goals, I’ll just say that it’s up to you to prove that by the way you behave and the way you treat other people around you. Because I will say that I hear a lot about how groups of people in law school, especially Black students, don’t feel comfortable in law school, don’t feel welcome.”

“I want you all to think a little bit about why that is,” Bryner continued. “And I don’t know if anyone falls into that category, but if you voted for Trump with the idea that you don’t like him personally but you like his policies, I just want you to think about the message you’re sending.” to other people and how you can prove that by treating other people in a way that is compatible with that feeling.”

In his original post, Landry did not ask to punish Bryner. But he did in a letter he sent Monday to the chairman of LSU’s governing board, the Board of Supervisors, which copied the state attorney general, LSU’s president, the dean of the law school and other LSU board members.

“If the school does not discipline Mr. Bryner for his comments, I hope the board will look into the matter, as LSU professors are prohibited from using government resources to influence public policy,” Landry wrote.

While that part of his letter did not cite any state law or specify how Bryner was influencing “public policy,” it pointed to Landry’s executive order and a law passed earlier this year that, among other things, “No professor or teacher. who teaches a class of students in a higher education institution will impose the political views of the professor or teacher on the students.” But the law does not specifically address classroom speech; it simply notes that professors cannot require students to engage in political activities outside the classroom.

Landry wrote that Bryner “went so far as to question the character of the students who voted for someone.” His book included the transcripts of Bryner’s allegations that go beyond the end of the video, where the professor is said to say, “I see this vote as a rejection of the idea that we are governed by people with knowledge … a very big rejection of that idea that we should be governed by experts so I think it’s worth considering that and thinking about that.” .. you finish your law school career and go into law practice—how you’re going to deal with that kind of emotion.”

Landry suggested that Bryner was talking about topics unrelated to his class. Steinbaugh disputed this.

“This is a professor who uses current events to talk about ethics,” Steinbaugh said. In law school, “Civilization is instilled in you.”

Steinbaugh said that if Landry’s position is that sharing political ideas in the classroom is the same as sharing them with students, then professors should never share ideas in the classroom—no matter how appropriate.

“That research would violate the First Amendment,” Steinbaugh said.