As a retired faculty member of LSU, I came to …

Comment on LSU responds to Michigan Conference by Judson Edwards.

As a retired faculty member of LSU, I came to recognize that there are very influential people at the core of the administration and staff of the university, particularly in the College of Arts and Science, who have agendas designed to dispense in one way or the other with certain faculty members. Such faculty members included some who could not be bought or sold for job security purposes. Questionable tactics have been employed again and again to eliminate them, notwithstanding the strong evidence for their integrity, experience, and the quality of their work in just about every measurable dimension. Such persons would be treated with “benign neglect”, denied support to attend professional conferences even at prestigious centers of learning such as Oxford University, and their most significant accomplishments condemned with faint praise. Some have been denied tenure on spurious grounds and given the “silent treatment” or obfuscations in response to legitimate inquiries. And much more. I’m saying all this to suggest that there have been influential operatives at LSU who had highly questionable ethics regarding truth, honesty, fairness, and transparency.

It should not be surprising, then, that such questionable ethics manifest themselves in larger, more defining issues such as belief in biblical creation – particularly when post-modernism is the driving force that informs beliefs and unprovable dogmas of science become normative. I’m not at all surprised though that there are good people at LSU; I taught many students who inspired me by their intellectual, spiritual, and moral qualities. After all you can find good people everywhere, including at Harvard and UCLA. And I had warm fellowship with some faculty members whose honesty, trustworthiness and even friendship I cherish – even when their attitude toward church, many of their beliefs, and critical aspects of their lifestyles were not fully compatible with mine.

My problem has been with the lack of transparency, the evasiveness, and what strikes one as fundamental dishonesty of an influential group of people whose agnosticism could not accommodate thoughtful people of faith, who seemed to think that if you were a person of active faith you had to be somewhat foolish or weak-minded, and whose old-fashion ethnocentrism and conservatism were covered up with a liberal and progressive veneer. I have no axe to grind and no opponent to smear or discredit. I am only saddened that, with all the good this university has done and continues to do, the educational process at LSU has become so vitiated at the very heart of its theology, its philosophy, its scientific inquiry and certitude, and its relationship with the church. I shared with Larry Geraty some of my views on creation and evolution. He always treated me with respect and dignity, and I would give him the benefit of any doubt.