Jeff Landry appoints anti-vax election denier to head Louisiana Board of Regents
What's an aggressive purveyor of misinformation like Misti Cordell doing at the top of a Louisiana higher education board?
Louisiana’s higher education boards have often been dumping grounds for the cronies and major donors of Louisiana governors. From Huey Long to Jeff Landry, governors have rarely prioritized experience in or knowledge of higher education when appointing people to the LSU Board of Supervisors and the other state education boards.
Higher education in Louisiana is so pitifully underfunded and poorly managed because too many people at the top — those serving on the boards and commissions that govern our education institutions — are often unqualified. They were placed there as a reward for political support, not what they knew about education policy.
That’s not to say that every appointee fits this description. Over the years, I’ve seen governors appoint some well-qualified individuals to the LSU Board, the UL Board, the Board of Regents, and others.
But we’ve all seen too many clunkers and dilettantes.
Gov. John Bel Edwards’ LSU Board was among the worst LSU governing bodies since the 1939 “Louisiana Scandals.” Edwards board was a group people whose primary qualification appeared to be a strong collective desire to cover up and ignore sexual abuse in the school’s athletic program and beyond.
And now comes another destructive dilettante, courtesy of Jeff Landry, who last week appointed his friend, former employee, and contributor/political supporter Misti S. Cordell to chair the Louisiana Board of Regents.
Cordell worked as a “regional outreach coordinator” for Landry when he was attorney general. She is an interior decorator and a physician recruiter for Affinity Health Group in Monroe with a background in pharmaceutical sales. She graduated from Louisiana Tech University with a bachelor’s in human resource management. She also serves as an elected member of the Republican State Central Committee.
According to the Louisiana Illuminator: “Cordell is a Republican activist in Ouachita Parish and previously worked as a liaison for Landry when he was attorney general. Her husband, Hardeman Cordell, has donated thousands to Landry and other Republicans, both personally and through his company, Central Oil & Supply.”
In other words, she’s just the kind of person who you’d want to formulate higher education policy for the state of Louisiana.
Misti Cordell has little or no experience in higher education (beyond attending Tech). She does, however, have extensive experience peddling lies about vaccines and the 2020 election.
Here are some Twitter screenshots from her personal account that contain misleading or false information about vaccines that she’s shared in recent years:
Cordell has also peddled misinformation about the 2020 election
In this post on her Facebook page, she promoted a 2022 documentary film, “Rigged: The Zuckerberg Funded Plot to Defeat Donald Trump.”
The Washington Post described the film as “a 42-minute film . . . from Citizens United President and Trump ally David Bossie that stars a range of Trump advisers and alleges Facebook helped Democrats by pouring money into states for voter turnout and education efforts.”
Cordell also spread other misleading information about the 2020 election:
Cordell also a book-banner
She’s allied with Michael Lunsford of Citizens for a New Louisiana, one of the state’s most notorious book-banners. You can read about it at this link.
And she may be against tenure
Cordell also appears to question keeping tenure for faculty members, like me, whose political views do not align with hers.
Her views on immigration are troubling
She also has strong feelings about immigration and may be a proponent of the racist “Great Replacement Theory” that the U.S. government wants to “replace the current electorate” with “third-world voters.”
She says a President Kamala Harris will end American democracy
Where’s the outrage?
For many years, when I served on the LSU faculty, some of my critics on the right attacked my legitimacy because I expressed strong views on politics outside the classroom. I never pushed my views on students, in or out of the classroom. I never shared my political views with students unless they asked.
And I certainly had no role in setting LSU or Louisiana higher education policy.
But Cordell does have such a policy-making role.
So, I will wait patiently for the response of my former critics, who were outraged and scandalized that someone with political views like mine would be allowed near college students.
I look forward to their statements denouncing Landry for politicizing higher education at the highest levels by appointing an aggressive purveyor of misinformation, like Cordell, to chair the policy-setting board for all Louisiana higher education.
I await their outrage.
But I suspect I’ll be waiting a long time.
Note: Thanks to M. Christian Green for bringing Cordell and her wacky views to our attention.
Excellent summary! Her social media alone is enough to frame her as a partisan and unprofessional political hack. Disappointing to see Louisiana higher ed go down this path.
Jeff Landry never fails to find the lowest level of human life to fill essential positions! It fairly screams of his desire not to govern, but to mandate the lives of citizens! As if the very under-funded educational system of La.’s citizens, needs someone who clearly knows nothing about education, at the helm. His disdain for governing gets louder with every appointment!