SU faculty plans exigency fight

Southern University faculty leaders are raising money to initiate legal action seeking to end the university’s declaration of a financial emergency, called exigency.

Faculty Senate President Sudhir Trivedi began sending emails to colleagues Friday to raise $10,000 for the new “Faculty Defense Committee” seeking to overturn exigency and mandatory faculty furloughs, which require time off without pay.

Trivedi contends the declaration of exigency and furloughs are illegal because they were not a true last resort and because he alleges the administration and Southern Board of Supervisors did not follow the proper policies and procedures for making such a declaration.

Exigency, generally considered a serious blemish to a university, gives the Southern administration more leeway in laying off faculty and axing academic programs. The declaration went into effect this month.

Trivedi said he hopes the local community and all of the higher education community will contribute because he said the issue is bigger than Southern.

“We are a test case (guinea pig) for the rest of higher education in this state,” Trivedi wrote in his email. “It is hoped (by them) that we would either disappear or become a model for the rest of Louisiana as to how to gut the faculty to balance the budget. Both outcomes are unacceptable. I cannot over-emphasize the need for your support at this time. This is not time to be selfish or indifferent.”

He cited the Louisiana Board of Regents’ stated support for Southern’s declaration of exigency.

“This is about a paradigm that’s evolving that it’s all right to cut the faculty to balance the budget,” Trivedi said in a phone interview Friday.

The faculty members are in talks with local attorney Jill Craft, but she declined comment Friday because she is not yet representing them.

Southern Chancellor James Llorens and Southern University System President Ronald Mason Jr. have argued that exigency was a difficult, but necessary, decision to reorganize the university’s structure and to eliminate some academic programs — and the tenured faculty associated with them — that are no longer the right fit for Southern.

They contend one year of exigency will lead to a stronger Southern in the future.

Llorens is tentatively planning to submit his reorganization plans to the Southern Board in December.

The university has dealt with repeated student enrollment losses and state budget cuts the past few years, leaving Southern with greater financial woes.

Trivedi said $1,000 already has been raised for the planned lawsuit. He asked faculty to pledge $100 or so each if they can.