LSU removed a tenured law professor from the classroom due to comments he made earlier this month during a first-year law school class, according to the professor’s lawyer.
Ken Levy spoke out against an instance in which Gov. Jeff Landry last year publicly criticized LSU law professor Nicholas Bryner, according to Levy’s attorney, Jill Craft.
Levy, a criminal law professor who began teaching at LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center in 2009, also talked to students about major changes to Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment case law that may lie ahead due to changing dynamics at the U.S. Supreme Court, Craft said. In that context, he revealed he was a Democrat and referred to President Donald Trump “in some colorful terms,” she said.
Levy made the comments during the course Law 5010: Administration of Criminal Justice I. He later received a letter indicating he had been removed from teaching due to the comments, Craft said.
She argued the move amounted to content-based censorship.
“My client’s desire is that this be fixed immediately, because it never should have happened in the first place,” Craft said. “He needs to be back in the classroom and teaching. He never should have been removed for the content of his speech, and certainly his assertion of academic freedom in the classroom.”
LSU law school Dean Alena Allen announced last Wednesday that Levy “will not be teaching this semester,” according to minutes from an LSU law school faculty meeting. The minutes also said the provost would “arrange a question-and-answer session at a later date.”
The controversy Levy apparently referenced during class started last fall, when Landry posted a video of Bryner discussing the election of President Donald Trump in class. Landry, an ardent Trump supporter, said the comments “defied the voices of 76 million Americans” who voted for Trump, and called for the university to either investigate or discipline Bryner for his comment.
The letter Levy received “was issued by human resources, who under LSU’s policy does not have the right to suspend a professor like him, who is tenured,” said Craft, adding that Levy was denied due process pertaining to a “suspension with pay.”
Craft said both she and Levy have asked LSU to reconsider its course of action.
A group of several LSU law students last Thursday launched an online petition titled “Leave Levy Alone,” asking LSU leadership to immediately allow Levy to return to teaching, publicly apologize and be fully transparent with respect to any disciplinary action the university takes against him.
By Monday, it had garnered more 700 signatures.
Kayla Meyers, a third-year law student who helped organize the petition, said she didn’t have firsthand knowledge of the comments by Levy that are at issue. But she was a teaching assistant for him last school year.
Meyers said she started the petition because she thinks he’s a great professor who is beloved by many students and LSU does not have many criminal law professors. She also sees it as a way to oppose the suppression of free speech.
