Clown Car University?

The chaos Gov. Jeff Landry has created at LSU. And do we really need a federal government?

Photo by Carol Highsmith's America on Unsplash

Little that we’ve seen coming out of LSU in recent days should give anyone confidence that the university is in good hands. In fact, most of the evidence suggests that a collection of buffoons, headed by Gov. Jeff Landry, is running the Ole War Skule.

From the slapdash, deceitful president’s search to Landry’s damaging attempts to run the university and its athletic program (either directly or through his handpicked LSU Board chair, Scott Ballard), or the disastrous aftermath of firing football coach Brian Kelly—nothing inspires confidence in the university’s leadership.

On Sunday, the Baton Rouge Advocate’s Tyler Bridges published an insightful behind-the-scenes piece about the presidential search. My main takeaway from the article was that it wasn’t an authentic search. It was an attempt to hire Landry’s choice—McNeese State President Wade Rousse—while making it look like a genuine search.

To quote Bridges:

Four days before the LSU Board of Supervisors would select a new university president, McNeese State President Wade Rousse and University of Alabama Provost James Dalton met at the LSU president’s house.

Publicly, both were still candidates for the LSU job. Behind the scenes, however, Rousse had already secured it.

Gov. Jeff Landry had spread the word quietly weeks earlier that Rousse’s business-oriented approach for LSU aligned with the governor’s vision. Lee Mallett, the board’s vice chair and a close Landry ally, had been working assiduously to arrange for Rousse to show off his can-do personality in meetings with other board members and key political and business leaders. . . .

The selection of Rousse culminated in a quiet but aggressive campaign that he and his supporters waged for the highest profile position at any of Louisiana’s colleges and universities. In many ways, they treated it like a political contest, with the LSU presidency as the prize. . . .

A state legislator said Landry began calling Rousse “my guy.”

Another state legislator and an LSU board member said board chair Scott Ballard said that Rousse “was Jeff’s guy.”

The signs of deception and politicization had always been evident. The secretive, hurried nature of this search clearly suggested that the outcome was predetermined. During my years at LSU, I served on many search committees for assistant professors that took far more time, care, and effort than this presidential search.

One aspect of the “search” that Tyler did not examine was how much LSU paid the consulting firm it hired to perform the “national” search for a new president. That search was conducted by Christel Slaughter, who is also the top aide to the Republican mayor of Baton Rouge.

It appears LSU paid Slaughter for two services: subverting the state’s Open Records Law and throwing up a smokescreen to fool people into thinking the committee and the LSU Board were engaged in a good-faith search.

In fact, the process was crafted to give Landry the person he wanted: Rousse.

Rousse may be a fine person, but I’m sure he’s also smart enough to know what he signed up for. If he wants to keep the job, he’ll serve as Landry’s flunky. Until he proves otherwise, no one should assume he’s really running LSU.

Landry may be in charge of LSU (through Ballard and Rousse), but he’s really more of a clown car driver.

Tuesday’s Baton Rouge Advocate ran an amazing story about how LSU is now asserting that former Athletic Director Scott Woodward did not have the authority to fire coach Brian Kelly; that Kelly wasn’t actually fired after the Texas A&M game; and that he’s now officially being fired for cause.

You really need to sit down and read the whole story to fully absorb what a clown show LSU is presenting to the world—and any prospective coach.

But here are a few passages from the story that will give you a taste of the chaos:

Brian Kelly has filed a lawsuit against LSU as he seeks confirmation that the school fired him without cause and that he is owed his full buyout of nearly $54 million, according to a copy of the filing obtained by The Advocate.

Kelly’s attorneys said in a petition for declaratory judgment that LSU representatives told them during a call Monday he was not “formally terminated” as the football coach on Oct. 26 and the school now seeks to fire him for cause.

“LSU took the position that Coach Kelly had not been formally terminated and informed Coach Kelly’s representatives, for the very first time, that LSU believed grounds for termination for cause existed,” the lawsuit said. . . .

According to the filing, LSU’s representatives said Monday that then-LSU athletic director Scott Woodward did not have “the authority to terminate Coach Kelly and/or make settlement offers to him.” . . .

“LSU has never claimed that Coach Kelly was terminated for cause and, prior to November 10, 2025, never asserted that he engaged in any conduct that would warrant such a termination,” the lawsuit read. “To the contrary, LSU repeatedly confirmed, both publicly and to Coach Kelly, that the termination was due to the Team’s performance, not for cause.” . . .

Kelly’s contract with LSU states that if he were to be fired for cause, LSU would have to provide written notice and a statement on the grounds for the termination within a seven-day period. Kelly would then have seven days to respond. The lawsuit, which detailed that process, said it never occurred.

You can also read ESPN’s coverage of the controversy at this link.

The mess Landry and others at LSU have created has damaged LSU’s academic reputation across the state and nationally. And it’s unlikely that all this mayhem and confusion will help in hiring a top-tier football coach.

That prospective coach will have no idea who he works for. But he will know that LSU, despite whatever guarantees are in his contract, very well may not honor that contract.

He also understands that a collection of fools runs the university and its Athletic Department.

Someone will take the LSU coaching job. It’s a great position, to be sure, but who really believes that LSU is well-positioned to lure a big name to Baton Rouge, given the news of the last three weeks?

And who is responsible for all this clownish chaos?

Woodward deserves his share of the blame, I’m sure. But the individual most accountable for this disaster is the person who very much wants you to know that he’s the boss of LSU these days: Gov. Jeff Landry.

Until Landry backs off and gives Rousse and the new chancellor the authority to run LSU's affairs as they see fit, with proper guidance from an LSU Board free of gubernatorial meddling, little will change.

Knowing how Landry operates, however, I wouldn’t expect him to stop trying to run LSU.

If you care about the school’s role in Louisiana as an economic engine, academic center, and cultural touchstone, you should be outraged by the long-term damage Landry has caused over the past few months.

As the late U.S. House Speaker Sam Rayburn once said, “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”

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Why do we need a federal government anyway?

I have a friend who told me the other day that he really hasn’t experienced any effects of the federal government shutdown. And that suggested to him that there’s too much federal government.

I admit to sometimes feeling the same way. The shutdown has not inconvenienced me in any way, but I know people who have been harmed or inconvenienced. And I’ve read many news accounts of people less fortunate than me who’ve been hurt by the shutdown. Chief among them are people who receive SNAP benefits.

But that raised a few questions in my mind: What does our federal government do? What are we paying for? Is our tax money worth what we spend on federal programs?

So, I collected a list of 20 programs that directly affect most of us or at least someone in our lives. Let me know how many you’d like to live without.

1. U.S. Postal Service mail delivery and postal services. (USPS)

2. Weather forecasts and storm alerts that power your apps and TV (NOAA/NWS).

3. GPS for maps, ride-shares, trucking, banking timestamps, and farming (DoD).

4. Safe drinking water standards that your local utility must meet (EPA).

5. Food safety rules, nutrition labels, and food recalls. (FDA/USDA).

6. Drug and medical device approval, labeling, and safety monitoring (FDA).

7. Clean-air rules and vehicle emissions standards that cut smog (EPA).

8. Workplace safety protections and inspections (OSHA).

9. Deposit insurance for checking/savings accounts (FDIC/NCUA).

10. The money system itself—currency printing, ACH, and payment rails behind direct deposit and card swipes (Treasury/Fed).

11. Official U.S. time that syncs phones, markets, power grids, and the internet (NIST).

12. Phone and broadband rules, spectrum management, robocall enforcement, 911 standards (FCC).

13. Air traffic control and aviation safety—for passenger flights and the cargo planes moving your packages (FAA).

14. Interstate highways and bridge funding/standards; car safety rules like airbags and crash tests (USDOT/NHTSA/FHWA).

15. Energy-efficiency standards that lower utility bills (DOE—appliances, lighting, HVAC).

16. Oversight of the electric grid and interstate energy pipelines (FERC/PHMSA).

17. Disease surveillance, vaccine guidance, and outbreak response that shape everyday health care (CDC/NIH).

18. Consumer product safety standards and recalls for household goods, toys, and electronics (CPSC).

19. Civil rights and fair-employment protections in workplaces, schools, housing, and voting (DOJ/EEOC/ED/Civil Rights Offices).

20. Health-care financing that keeps clinics and hospitals running—Medicare, Medicaid, VA care—and nutrition programs like SNAP, WIC, and school meals used by millions daily (HHS/USDA/VA).

That’s a good list of essential programs.

And it occurs to me that many of us are not always thinking about the federal government’s roles in our lives because most of the agencies above do their jobs competently and without the kind of drama and scandal that attracts a lot of public attention. (Well, I guess you could say that before Donald Trump and Elon Musk took a sledgehammer to many of those programs.)

Regardless, in these cases and others, the adage, “No news is good news,” may apply.

But just for fun, here are a few more ways that the federal government makes our lives better. Many of them are examples you may not know about:

· Poison Control help, 24/7 (HRSA): Call 1-800-222-1222 for fast guidance on medications, exposures, or bites/stings—free and confidential.

· FEMA Flood Map Service Center (FEMA): Check any address’s flood risk before renting, buying, or renewing insurance.

· Car recall & complaint lookup (NHTSA SaferCar): Enter your VIN to see open safety recalls and view real-world complaints.

· Solar-storm alerts (NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center): Warnings about geomagnetic storms that can affect GPS, radios, grids—and yes, when auroras may be visible.

· Earthquake notifications & hazard maps (USGS): Near-real-time “Did You Feel It?” reports, ShakeMaps, and alerts anywhere quakes hit.

· Hospital, nursing home, and clinician “Care Compare” (CMS): Side-by-side quality and pricing indicators to help pick providers.

· Free credit reports & ID-theft recovery (FTC): Get your reports via AnnualCreditReport.com and step-by-step plans at IdentityTheft.gov.

· SEC filings for due diligence (SEC EDGAR): Pull corporate financials, risks, and insider trades before investing or taking a job.

· Nautical charts, tides & coastal navigation (NOAA Office of Coast Survey): Up-to-date charts and tide tables for boating, fishing, and coastal safety.

· Historic newspapers & public-domain images (Library of Congress): “Chronicling America” plus millions of digitized photos, maps, and audio you can often use freely.

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