The Reveille 5-24-21

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HELL IN HIGH WATER Torrential rain batters southwest Louisiana on May 17, submerging storm-weary Lake Charles and flooding LSU’s campus

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RICK HICKMAN / American Press via AP

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Cars sit stalled on a flooded Sale Road during heavy rains in Lake Charles, La., May 17.

NEWS

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Faculty members convinces University administration to hold meeting regarding the possibility of mandatory vaccinations.

SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

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How LSU baseball’s series against Texas A&M and six runs in the last inning of a 13-inning Game Two thriller secured the Tigers the No. 9 seed in the SEC Tournament and a date with No. 8 Georgia.

OPINION

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“A football ban is a punishment befitting a misbehaving high schooler, not a powerful administrator complicit in the abuse of a student.”

L SU Re ve i l le.co m @l s u r e ve i l le

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‘I’VE HAD ENOUGH’ LSU floods while southwest LA hit with devastating amount of rain

BY MADELYN CUTRONE & CADEN LIM @madelyncutrone & @CadenLim5 The flash flooding events that many Louisiana cities experienced on Monday, May 17, amidst a series of severe storms added to the devastating effects of recent natural disasters and highlighted the deep infrastructural issues within the state.

Throughout Monday night and Tuesday morning, cities around Louisiana experienced 10-15 inches of rain in less than 12 hours. Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter estimated that water damaged 400 to 500 buildings in his district. At least five storm-related deaths occurred, with some individuals still missing. East Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome said the city’s emergency departments received over 800 calls during the storm, and cityparish responders rescued over 250 EBR residents.

LSU’s campus experienced low levels of flooding as well, with numerous cars submerged in water and some surrounding apartments experiencing damage. On campus, most buildings with basements faced issues of water intrusion, including Coates, Allen and Atkinson, Executive Director for Facility and Property Oversight Tammy Millican said.

The intersection of Nicholson and Burbank were hit pretty hard and Stanford Avenue was shut down due to flooding.

Mass communication senior Ricky Bryant described seeing several cars outside his Nicholson Gateway apartment flooding, and residents’ feverishly moving their vehicles to the third level of the parking garage to avoid the rainfall.

“Some of the cars were getting so badly flooded out that the horns were going off, the electronics were spazzing out,” Bryant said.

Recent marketing analytics graduate Garrett Phillips is living with his family in Lake Charles over the summer and said the flood and storms set back much of the progress the community was making after the hurricanes and winter storms of the last year.

Phillips was at a friend’s house when the water levels began rising, he said. There was no warning about how severe the storms would be that night.

“We came to the realization, ‘this water is coming in the house,’” Phillips said. “We started moving everything to higher shelves, started doing everything you do for a flood. We were thinking ‘this can’t be real after everything that’s happened.’ But you come to terms with it and go into survival mode, doing all you can. We’ve all experienced it before, so it’s almost natural, in a weird way.”

Phillips said they climbed onto the roof of his friend’s house

RICK HICKMAN / American Press via AP

Nick Delgado uses his boat to help a neighbor pick up their kids from schools during heavy rains in Lake Charles, La., May 17. and saw that the whole neighborhood was flooding. They eventually swam to a dry area so Phillip’s father could bring them to a safe location.

The next day, a tornado ripped through Phillips’s family’s backyard, tearing down a recently built fence and nearly flipping the trailer he was living in. As soon as the storm subsided, he made his way back to Baton Rouge.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he said.

Some say that natural disasters are becoming so common and severe that it is driving people out of Louisiana cities. Phillips said when his father retires in three to four years, his parents plan to move. When asked if Phillip would stay to develop his career in the state, he said “absolutely not at this point.”

“I’m staying here for the summer, but there’s no way I can live there anymore,” Phillips said. “It’s out of the question.”

Construction management sophomore Esten Fuselier said the rain affected his jobs at both the concrete company he works for and at Mike’s in Tigerland.

He said the water delayed much of the work his company needed to get done and the flooding around the ditch near Fred’s affected business at all the bars in Tigerland.

“People don’t go out with bad rain,” Fuselier said, “so we got less people than we already do since it’s summertime and we don’t make as much profit.”

Assistant professor of environmental sciences Brian Snyder said the reason Baton Rouge and surrounding areas have experienced so many episodes of flooding is due to two main causes: the building of houses and paving of concrete, paired with the immense rainfall that occurs in coastal regions.

“As you get a foot of rain, if you’ve paved over thousands and thousands of square feet of

land, that rain is going to flood into people’s houses and roads and overwhelm the drainage systems,” Snyder said. “It’s not rocket science; we took a bunch of swamp and put pavement over it. When we get a foot of rain, there’s going to be flooding.”

Snyder said the amount of rainfall Louisiana experiences is “not what happens anywhere else in the country,” which is why the state experiences flooding more often than other parts of the nation.

“It’s because the Gulf of Mexico sometimes just decides to dump a huge amount of water on top of us,” Snyder said. “We live in this already relatively wet area where we get 70-80 inches of rain some years, and the way that’s distributed is a lot of it falls at one time, often in the afternoons, often in the summer, and it can lead to a lot of flash flooding.”

There are numerous possible solutions to Louisiana’s flooding problems, but Snyder said a good first step would be to put a moratorium on building for about a year until those solutions are implemented, as the Ascension Parish President suggested.

“If we continue to build, for sure [we can expect more flooding],” Snyder said. “If you build another Walmart, and another subdivision, there’s going to be an increased risk of flooding. And on top of that you have climate change, which throws in a big unknown.”

Snyder said one solution to decrease the risk of flooding on LSU’s campus would be to implement permeable parking lots, which are designed to allow water to seep through them back into the soil below the surface, while also filtering pollutants.

Since parking lots take up a large part of LSU’s campus, this could be one solution to providing better drainage and reducing the chance of flooding.

Millican said LSU Facility

Services are considered essential personnel, so custodial staff was present even when campus was closed. She also said the university has an emergency response vehicle with fans and water extractors to remove water, and roofers are constantly maintaining the roofs to prevent leakage.

“There are 539 buildings on campus, so the ability to get all of them when something like this happens can be difficult,” Millican said.

International studies sophomore Mary Jett McLarty, who works at the UREC, said the flooding required the UREC to completely shut down May 18. She also said the following days the UREC couldn’t operate normally and required a limited number of staff to cope with the damage.

“I could not get my car out of the parking deck, and my job shut down for the day,” McLarty said.

“I lost about nine hours of work because of the flooding.”

Phillips said when his family was hit by Hurricane Laura, LSU didn’t reach out to check on him or his other siblings at the university.

“No one really reaches out, you might see a tweet here and there, you might get an emergency email, but it doesn’t feel personal,” Phillips said. “After what we’ve been through, an automated email means nothing to us.

They have plenty of call centers, maybe they could have people call and check in to make sure everyone’s doing all right.”

Phillips said when his family lost their house after Laura, many professors doubted him and were unwilling to tailor the course to his needs. Phillips said LSU should do more to inform professors of what students may be going through and encourage them to be understanding.

“Some of these kids, they’ve lost everything,” Phillips said.

“They fix it with everything they have left and it gets knocked down again. School’s the last thing they’re worried about.

These kids have seen it all at this point, just give them a break. I don’t know how you can do that academically and be fair, but that’s going to be something they might have to discuss.”

Bryant said he believes LSU is doing the best they can given the circumstances.

“I think that LSU doesn’t really have the resources to fix the streets, and they’re going to have to have help from the city and state and possibly federal dollars,” Bryant said. “I think LSU is doing the best with what they can, but it’s definitely something that should be addressed and we should be working with the legislature working with the metro council to make campus safer for students so we don’t have to lose five vehicles every time there’s a thunderstorm.”

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NEWS

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LSU FACULTY CALLS FOR MANDATORY VACCINATION

BY CADEN LIM @cadenlim5 The LSU Faculty Council will meet on May 25 for the first time since 2005 to discuss requiring all students to get a COVID-19 vaccination before coming to campus in the Fall 2021 semester.

The Faculty Senate sent two separate letters to President Tom Galligan and Executive Vice President and Provost Stacia Haynie to initiate the meeting May 7. Over 125 faculty members signed the letters.

Faculty initially made the request after several colleges around the country decided to require vaccines. Associate professor of history Meredith Veldman doubts that campus life will return to normal without the university requiring vaccinations. “[Not mandating vaccines]

doesn’t bode well for returning to normal campus life in the fall,” Veldman said.

The University’s upper administration initially disagreed with holding an official council meeting, but instead proposed a faculty forum, according to Veldman. She said since then, however, upper administration has agreed to hold the meeting and is in support of the Faculty Council.

Veldman also said according to the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), Louisiana is 47th in the country in vaccination rates and around 20% of 18-29-year-olds have been vaccinated in the state. Veldman said this rate is not good, especially since “the HVAC system at LSU is antiquated.”

Galligan said in an interview that the University would consider mandating vaccines if the vaccines gain full FDA authori-

zation, and especially if the LDH puts the COVID vaccine on the required vaccination list, according to WAFB. Veldman and the Faculty Senate represent the entire Faculty Council, which comprises any full-time member of the faculty with the title Instructor or above.

“What we are asking is for administration to follow a dual path of mitigation measures,” Veldman said.

The Faculty Council believes not only should vaccinations be required, but LSU should also practice additional preventative measures against COVID-19, according to Veldman. This includes possibly improving the HVAC system on campus and weekly mandatory testing for the unvaccinated. Veldman also said providing incentive programs to get vaccinated would help the vaccination rates go up.

Political science professor

Daniel Tirone and professor of music theory Inessa Bazayev spoke on radio show TalkLouisiana about how a safe return to campus would greatly improve students’ mental health.

“Students really are yearning to get back on campus,” Tirone said. “I taught on campus this past year, and my experience with my own students is for some of them, my class was the only one they had in person, and it really made a big difference, just getting them that sense of community.”

Bazayev emphasized that the music department especially wants to return to in-person teaching on campus, but is the most vulnerable to the spread of the virus. Professors who teach singing, brass and woodwind instruments want to ensure the safety of themselves and their students when campus returns to normal, according to Bazayev,

and that “is only possible if everyone is vaccinated.”

“The music and theatre people have a whole different set of concerns,” Veldman said. “Your student can’t be masked when playing trombone, and they’re blowing and you’re right there in a small rehearsal room.”

If the University does end up requiring vaccinations, they will join Tulane, Xavier and Dillard as the only universities in Louisiana so far to require vaccinations. The Faculty Council meeting Tuesday could set the University on track to mandate vaccinations, something that Veldman believes would be the correct choice.

“I think we’re participating on the wrong side of the race between the virus and the vaccine,” Veldman said. “I think the University has a duty of care not only to its students, but to its community.”

POLITICS

LSU students react to ceasefire agreement in Middle East

BY NICK FREWIN @itsnickfrewin The Israeli government and Palestinian militant group Hamas agreed to a ceasefire that went into effect Friday, ending a 11-day conflict which saw more than 200 people killed.

Although the opposing sides have agreed to a cease fire, some knowledgeable students who have monitored the conflict doubt the long term effectiveness of the agreement. Biological engineering senior Soheil Saneei, also president of socialist organization Cooperation Rouge, believes peace cannot be fully reached without addressing the issues originally causing the violence.

“This ceasefire is going to cause stagnation until the next conflict,” Saneei said. “Until you treat the conditions that created the conflict, which would require the enfranchisement of Arabs in Israel and a right to return for all refugees.”

Tensions initially rose due to the pending Israeli Supreme Court case that was originally slated to be heard May 10 regarding the eviction of four Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighboorhood in East Jerusalem. Palestinian protestors clashed in multiple instances with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

The violence escalated May 10 as the IDF stormed the Als Asqa Mosque in East Jerusalem, which is the third most holiest site in Islam. Attempting to disperse protestors, the Israeli security forces employed tear gas and rubber bullets, resulting in 215 Palestinians being

injured according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, a humanitarian organization that is a part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Hamas, the de-facto governing authority in Gaza that has been labeled as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States, issued a May 10 deadline for the IDF to leave the mosque to the Israeli government, and proceeded to fire rockets towards Israeli forces after receiving no response.

The resulting warfare between both sides saw the deployment of thousands of rockets from Hamas while the Israeli government conducted airstrikes aimed to disable Hamas’ ability to fire rockets. The conflict resulted in the deaths of 212 Palestinians in Gaza and 10 Israelis.

Mechanical engineering senior Colin Roberts, who serves as the president of the Jewish Student Association at LSU, does agree that the tension and conflict won’t end without both sides finding an acceptable solution.

“Until we can find a solution that satisfies all parties, any ceasefire is just going to be a ceasefire until one side breaks it,” Roberts said. “It’s not going to end, I don’t think this conflict can ever end.”

President Biden praised the news of a ceasefire agreement.

“The United States fully supports Israels’ right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks from Hamas and other Gazabased terrorists groups,” he said.

Roberts affirmed his belief that the United States should continue to support Israel in its defense, em-

phasizing the close relationship between the two countries.

“Israel is one of the only democracies in the Middle East, so supporting Israel just comes from the fact that they are a democracy,” Roberts said. “Without them, we would not have an ally in that region.”

As the conflict persisted throughout the middle of May, some students chose which side of the issue they believed was correct

in its actions. Political communications senior Bryant Randall strongly supports Israel and its right to defend itself in this conflict.

“History shows Israel has not been the aggressor, they’ve been attacked multiple times,” Randall said. “I think this is an issue where you have to pick a side, and I believe the side of Israel is the side we should be on.”

Graduate student Jessie Fay Parrott disagrees with this sentiment,

and refuses to support the Israeli government despite her Jewish religion.

“The point remains that Israel was built on indigenous lands, and the government since the beginning has been a colonial government,” Parrott said. “I cannot support that government, even though we have the same religion, and I cannot say prayers for Israel while knowing they are occupying Palestinian lands.”

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Israeli border police scuffle with protesters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem, where several Palestinian families are under imminent threat of forcible eviction from their homes May 15.

SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

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REGULAR SEASON COMPLETE

LSU drops game one to Texas A&M, wins series after claiming final two games

ABBY KIBLER / The Reveille

LSU baseball infielder and outfielder Dylan Crews (3) hits a foul ball Feb. 20, during LSU’s 6-1 win over Air Force.

BY NATASHA MALONE @malone_natasha Editor’s Note: LSU baseball won the final two games of their series against Texas A&M, including a 13-inning, classic Game Two in which the Tigers exploded for six runs in the last inning. LSU secured the No. 9 seed in the SEC Tournament and will face No. 8 Georgia on Tuesday in Hoover, Alabama.

The LSU Tigers traveled to College Station, Texas, to square off against the Texas A&M Aggies in a must-win series for both parties involved. With the SEC Tournament and NCAA Regionals right around the corner, the two power-house Southeastern Conference baseball

clubs found themselves in uncharted territory, as both were trying to make last-minute heroic efforts to solidify their resumes to make the respective tournaments.

It was a hard-fought battle on Thursday night at Blue Bell Park, but the Tigers fell just short to A&M after a late-game home run pushed the Aggies ahead of the Tigers, 2-1, giving Texas A&M a 1-0 series lead.

Both pitchers dueled in College Station, but it was Aggies’ ace Dustin Saenz who came out on top. Finishing with an ending line of eight innings pitched with just eight strikeouts and just two hits, Saenz had one of, if not the best performances of his season.

What that line does not show is the no-hitter that Saenz carried into the sixth inning until freshman Dylan Crews finally saw a pitch he liked and took it the distance, blasting a slider to the left-field scoreboard, leveling the game at one apiece. With this, it gave Crews his 13th long ball of the year. Despite what LSU hoped to be a momentum-swinging play, Saenz was not phased as the Aggies Ace retired seven straight Tigers.

For LSU, they decided to give Landon Marceaux the bump in the crucial game. Marceaux, who has been the trusty arm for the Tigers most of the season, looked to be having a good outing before get-

ting pulled after four innings. In his four innings of work, Marceaux surrendered a trio of hits, one strikeout, three walks and allowed one run. While many thought that Marceaux would come back out for the Tigers in the fifth, it was Javen Coleman who came in relief. To many’s surprise, Coleman picked up right where Marceaux left off, throwing three scoreless innings of his own, behind a few eye-opening plays by his defense.

In the top of the eighth inning, LSU worked its way into a basesloaded, two out situation. With Brody Drost at the plate, LSU just needed to get the ball in play to give the Tigers some sort of opportunity to get a run across the

board. With a 2-2 count and the bases loaded, Saenz breezed a fast ball right by Drost, striking him out looking to end the LSU threat.

While the Tigers were vying for a momentum builder, the strikeout of Drost ended up being just what the Aggies needed. Coming out for his fourth inning of work, Coleman was looking to get a few quick outs before putting his team in a position to make something happen in the ninth. Instead, Aggies’ first baseman Will Frizzell, who is one of the best power hitters in the country, took the second pitch he saw from Coleman in the inning and sent it the distance, putting Texas A&M on top for good , 2-1.

GYMNASTICS

Five LSU gymnastics seniors to return, one to graduate

BY MORGAN ROGERS @__morganrogers A new chapter, the same team.

On Monday, LSU gymnastics Head Coach Jay Clark announced that five of the six graduating seniors would return for the 2022 gymnastics season. Seniors Sami Durante, Reagan Campbell, Christina Desiderio, Sarah Edwards, and Bridget Dean will compete for a fifth season after the NCAA granted all spring sport seniors an additional year of eligibility after COVID-19 cut their junior season short.

“We are thrilled to have these five returning,” Clark said. “There is no doubt that the progress of the underclassmen this year combined with the experience of these seniors will be a great combination for success.”

During the recent 2021 season, Campbell held the anchor spot on beam, and Durante anchored the event on the uneven bars. Campbell holds a career-high 9.75 on the balance beam, while Durante averaged a 9.9 on bars in the previous season. Edwards gave season high 9.925s in both vault and floor for the season. Dean contributed a hit routine on every single beam rota-

tion in 2021, while Desiderio put out a season and career high 9.5 on beam.

The decision to come back wasn’t an easy one to make for every senior. Durante and Edwards didn’t have much doubt about competing another year due to the fact that the pair haven’t quite completed their educations yet. Durante aspires to have a future career as a collegiate coach and plans to become a graduate student in sports management in the fall. Edwards still needs to complete her undergrad degree in engineering while taking the MCAT this summer.

The pair realized this would be a once in a lifetime opportunity and the decision began to reflect on Campbell, Dean, and Desiderio as well.

“When a few of us started saying ‘I’m going to come back’’, Durante said, “I think that helped the rest say ‘Okay, I can do this too.’”

The 2022 gymnastics team will boast a team of 21 gymnasts (despite only having enough locker room space for 18) with all of the returning seniors backing the experience of over 50 meets and AllAmerica honors.

Despite having four years at

LSU on their side, the seniors realize their experience will not leave them a definite spot amongst every rotation. The competition only gets tighter as the Tigers welcome Aleah Finnegan, Kaytlyn Johnson and Tori Tatum to the lineup. Newcomer Finnegan is a U.S. Olympic team hopeful for the summer and the younger sister of one of the greatest gymnasts in LSU’s history: Sarah Finnegan. The older sister is a 23-time All-American, five-time SEC champion, and the only twotime SEC Gymnast of the Year in league history.

Additionally, the all-arounders Kiya Johnson and Alyona Shchennikova will head into their junior years. The leading gymnast Johnson put out three 10’s on floor and was named the 2021 SEC Specialist of the Year despite missing a majority of the season due to an Achilles injury. Shchennikova averaged 39.394 in the all-around this recent season with career-high 9.95’s on vault and bars.

Returning juniors Lexie Nibbs and Kai Rivers prove to bring even more promise to the junior class as they return from injuries that left them out of the 2021 season. Rivers held career high 9.9’s in vault and

bars and a 9.5 in beam during her debut season in 2020.

Not to mention the league’s third-time SEC Freshman of the Year Haleigh Bryant doesn’t look like she’s slowing down any time soon. The freshman gave a stellar debut season when making the allfreshman team, earning the SEC Freshman of the Week five out of eight times and finally becoming the NCAA Vault Champion.

“I think it will be the factor that pushes us over the edge this year and helps us excel,” Edwards said.

“We’re really excited.”

Olivia Gunter was the only senior (along with manager Gracen Standley) who opted out of an extra season. The Mandeville, Louisiana, native graduated in May from the Manship School of Mass Communication with a 4.006 GPA. “Olivia Gunter and her daily presence will be dearly missed,” said Clark, adding that she was one of the biggest contributors the program has ever had. “She was truly the heartbeat of this team and one of our most vocal leaders. I could not be more proud of Olivia graduating and we will miss her presence and love for LSU next year.”

LSU only missed the NCAA fi-

nal four by .038 points and placed second in the SEC Championship meet by one-tenth of a point this year. Edwards commented that an NCAA title this year could’ve possibly tempted her to retire. However, these disappointing and narrow factors are what gave the five seniors enough push to return for 2022.

“They have a little bad taste in their mouths with the way things ended,” Clark said. “They’re on a mission right now.”

ABBY KIBLER / The Reveille

LSU gymnastics senior vault, uneven bars, and balance beam Sami Durante cheers.

Monday, May 24, 2021

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WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Column: Hall of Fame speech teaches LSU Title IX lesson REED DARCEY @byreeddarcey Michael Jordan, the greatest player to ever bounce a basketball, stood up from his seat at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s enshrinement ceremony, took Kim Mulkey’s hand and guided her up the steps. It was time for Mulkey to accept her induction into the hall.

Mulkey is the only person in college basketball history to win national championships as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach. She led the Baylor Bears to three national championships in 21 seasons as head coach. She won two national championships as a tough-nosed point guard at Louisiana Tech, including the first ever NCAA women’s basketball championship. And now, she’s a hall of famer.

As the diminutive Mulkey stood behind the podium, she shot a glance at the 6-foot-6 Jordan, who smiled and laughed uncomfortably under her imposing stare.

“Michael, I’m incredibly honored,” Mulkey said. “I’m amazed that a kid from Tickfaw, Louisiana, could find herself in the company of giants.”

That wasn’t a dream. That woman is from Louisiana, she is the head coach of LSU’s women’s hoops program, and Jordan is her opening act. For a coach worthy of that introduction, LSU had to come up with Mulkey money. They’ll pay the hall of famer nearly $3 million annually, a steep increase from her predecessor, Nikki Fargas’, meager six-figure salary.

Every year Mulkey will pocket slightly more than her counterpart Will Wade, who earns $2.5 million a year. As LSU learns how to comply with Title IX, the federal law that protects against sex discrimination, Mulkey’s Hall of Fame induction can teach the embattled university a lesson.

LSU will not be acting in the true spirit of Title IX until Mulkey’s annual earnings far

exceed Wade’s.

Pay close attention to Jordan. Think of all his good friend Mulkey had to accomplish to earn equal compensation to Wade, who, on a national standard, is an average coach with a modest resume. In his four seasons in Baton Rouge, Wade has given LSU arguably more compliance headaches than winning basketball. Mulkey is far more accomplished.

Still, LSU deserves credit for investing equally in its two hoops programs. The women will soon reap the spoils of that investment, as Mulkey molds the program in her image and likeness. She’ll welcome you into the PMAC with a southern charm and defend her turf with a rural grit. Stand in her way, and Mulkey will “knock you right in the face,” with a smile on hers.

Mulkey’s lightning rod status will keep the program in the headlines, and her magnetic personality will draw fans to games. The increased attention will bring more money into the athletic department, and the brighter spotlight will create more opportunities for her players, just in time for the NCAA name, image and likeness storm to make landfall. The Title IX gods will smile on LSU for closing the opportunity gap between its men and women hoopers.

But at least 26 Division I men’s basketball coaches earn north of $3 million a year. Next season, at least 26 men’s coaches will earn more than Mulkey, for whom LSU flew in a private jet, rolled out a purple carpet and held a grandiose homecoming ceremony. Trumpets blared, flames roared and smoke billowed as a Louisiana girl made her triumphant return.

In a perfect world, public universities wouldn’t inflate the salaries of state employees, competing to outspend each other on bells and whistles for athletic programs. As the pandemic taught us, our public schools wouldn’t play that dangerous game. The NCAA would allow, say, a more direct way of investing in their labor. It wouldn’t force its member schools to pay that exorbitant price for

The Associated Press

Kim Mulkey gestures to the crowd while being enshrined with the 2020 Basketball Hall of Fame class May 15, in Uncasville, Conn. amateurism. There simply isn’t enough money for the players, we’re told.

“No coach stands here without having great players,” Mulkey said. “I’m a very small part of the basketball world. Because those players choose to listen to you or ignore you, and I’ve been blessed that they believed in me, they embraced me and they allowed me to push them beyond places they thought they could ever go.”

“Ironic, isn’t it? Coaches get to go into hall of fames, but we don’t do it without players. You just don’t do it without players. Thank you to the bottom of my heart for

how you can make coaches look wonderful.”

But we don’t live in that world.

In this crazy thing called college sports, a brand new coach is the ultimate symbol of a school’s investment in its athletes. In this world of accelerating coaching salaries, LSU chose to tap the brakes.

They could’ve set a new price for the top women’s coaches, forcing other schools to make significant investments in their hardworking, deserving female athletes, giving them the tools to make those investments worthwhile. But LSU stopped at Wade’s $2.5 million.

That’s equality, right?

In a world in which universities are in true Title IX compliance, Mulkey’s salary would match her status as one of the top basketball coaches in the country — for both men and women. But at LSU, she’ll have to settle for the top-30.

Jordan held Mulkey’s hand as she descended the steps. After she finished that speech, she’ll look to lead the LSU women’s basketball program to the promised land, returning another championship to her home state.

Even after entering the Hall of Fame with an escort from Michael Jordan, Mulkey still has more to prove.

MOVIES & TV

Last cat out of the Tiger King Park bag as seizure completed ASSOCIATED PRESS THACKERVILLE, Okla. (AP) — Federal officials have removed the last of the 68 big cats from the private zoo in Oklahoma that had been the center of the “Tiger King” saga.

A jaguar was among the last cat removed from Tiger King Park in Thackerville, a few miles north of Oklahoma’s border with Texas, The Oklahoman reported Sunday.

The turbulent beginnings of the zoo were the subject of the final episode of the Netflix true-crime series “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.” Zookeeper Jeff Lowe moved the cats to a Thackerville property after the August shutdown of the Greater Wynnewood Exotic

Animal Park.

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced the seizure of the federally protected lions, tigers, lion-tiger hybrids and a jaguar as part of a court-approved agreement to resolve a federal complaint against Lowe and his wife, Lauren Lowe, over the animals’ care.

The civil complaint, filed in November, accused the Lowes of recurring inhumane treatment and improper handling of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act. The couple received numerous citations for failing to properly care for the animals following three inspections of the Tiger King Park in Thackerville since December 2020.

During a hearing two weeks

ago, a judge found the couple in contempt for failing to comply with court orders to employ a qualified veterinarian and establish a program of veterinary care for the animals. Daniel Card, an attorney for the couple, told a federal judge that the Lowes “want out completely.”

Jeff Lowe was a central figure in “Tiger King” that featured a mullet-wearing zookeeper named Joe Exotic and became a cultural phenomenon last year. Joe Exotic, a pseudonym for Joseph MaldonadoPassage, is serving a 22-year sentence in federal prison in Texas for his 2020 conviction on charges that he participated in a murder-for-hire plot and violated federal wildlife laws.

The Assoctaed Press

One of the tigers living at the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park is pictured at the park in Wynnewood, Okla.

OPINION

page 6

A football ban is not a punishment for domestic violence SULLY’S SCOOP CLAIRE SULLIVAN @sulliclaire On April 14, 2018, Executive Deputy Athletic Director Verge Ausberry received a text message from wide-receiver Drake Davis concerning an argument with his romantic partner Jade Lewis that read, in part: “She’s trying to go to compliance for me hitting her, she’s trying to get me kick[ed] off the team. [...] And I hit her in the stomach.(which is not good).”

Ausberry told no one – not the Title IX Office, as required

by University policy, or even Meriam Segar, athletics’ problematically-dubbed unofficial Title IX reporter. His explanation for not doing so was “not credible,” found Husch Blackwell, the law firm retained by the University to investigate its Title IX scandal.

Meanwhile, the beating Davis admitted to Ausberry had left

Lewis with a broken rib, and in the coming weeks, Davis would strangle her and threaten that he “might kill” her.

In a different scenario, the inaction of Ausberry and other culpable athletics and Title IX administrators could have cost Jade Lewis her life.

One would suspect that being complicit in violence against a student would warrant termination from the University, but not here, where money and reputation too often triumph student safety.

Instead, the University gave a 30-day unpaid suspension to a man they pay half-a-million dollars a year and ordered him to complete sexual violence training. This meager punishment, testimony at the state capitol suggests, may not have even been fully enforced.

Interim President Tom Galligan and the Board of Supervisors justified the decision by framing the Title IX scandal as an institutional failure, not an individual

one. And while it is undoubtedly true that there have been profound, systemic shortcomings in Title IX compliance, this cannot excuse the actions of those that could have – and should have – done better.

While there were certainly dangerous flaws in the wording of the University’s Title IX policies, the University cannot scapegoat poor policy wording for all of the reporting failures that have taken place over the last number of years. You don’t need perfectly worded policy to know that you should report a direct admission of domestic abuse. It is exceptionally difficult to believe that Aubserry’s failure to report came from a misunderstanding of Title IX policy. Simply put: there is no institutional excuse for Ausberry’s actions, and the administration’s attempt to make one is dishonest.

Many members of the campus community were disappointed by the University’s punishment, demanding Ausberry and Segar’s

resignations.

So, in late-April, the University, in step with its continuously ungraceful response to the Title IX scandal, announced a new sanction against Ausberry: a one season ban from football games.

This new measure almost feels more outrageous than if the University had done nothing more at all. By deeming a season of football games equivalent to the gross negligence committed

by Ausberry, the University diminishes the seriousness of his offenses.

A football ban is a punishment befitting a misbehaving high schooler, not a powerful administrator complicit in the abuse of a student. Of course, that’s to suppose that Ausberry operated outside of his unspoken job description in his suppression of information that would harm the athletic prowess of the almighty LSU Tigers – an assumption that lacks total confidence given the University’s lackluster response to this revelation.

The University can make all the excuses in the world, but the situation is ultimately quite simple: a football player admitted to Verge Ausberry that he hit his girlfriend, and Ausberry swept it under the rug. The law firm hired by the University found his explanation for doing so doubtful, and the University has so far ignored that finding.

This leaves our community to grapple with an uncomfortable question: What is the moral character of an institution that does not deem such actions a fireable – or even demoteable – offense?

One step on the University’s Title IX action plan is “accepting accountability.” With administrators who have participated in grave injustices against survivors getting away with a slap on the wrist, students are yet to see if that is a commitment the administration takes seriously.

Claire Sullivan is an 18-year-old coastal environmental science sophomore from Southbury, CT.

KRISTEN YOUNG / The Reveille

Protestors hold up signs Nov. 20, 2020 during the protest following the USA Today article about mishandled sexual misconduct cases at Tiger Stadium on North Stadium Road.

Editorial Policies and Procedures EDITORIAL BOARD Reed Darcey Nick Frewin Domenic Purdy Claire Sullivan

Editor in Chief News Editor Opinion Columnist Opinion Columnist

The Reveille (USPS 145-800) is written, edited and produced solely by students of Louisiana State University. The Reveille is an independent entity of the Office of Student Media within the Manship School of Mass Communication. Signed opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, The Reveille or the university. Letters submitted for publication should be sent via e-mail to opinion@lsureveille.com or delivered to B-39 Hodges Hall. They must be 400 words or less. Letters must provide a contact phone number for verification purposes, which will not be printed. The Reveille reserves the right to edit letters and guest columns for space consideration while preserving the original intent. The Reveille also reserves the right to reject any letter without notification of the author. Writers must include their full names and phone numbers. The Reveille’s editor in chief, hired every semester by the LSU Student Media Board, has final authority on all editorial decisions.

Quote of the Week “How much time are you spending deciding what to spend time on?”

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15 Fail to mention 16 Fracture picture 17 Small part of a play 18 Advantage 20 That girl 21 Foldaway bed 23 Rug 24 Minute 26 Total 27 Fleet of ships 29 JFK’s dad 32 __ up; make a mess of things 33 Uber user’s need 35 Cochlea’s place 37 Maker of AlphaBits cereal 38 Pillages 39 __ or false test 40 Enjoy a winter sport 41 Nibbles 42 Pricey hotel booking 43 Operating room garb 45 Had a hunch about 46 Needle’s hole 47 Biblical fish’s lunch 48 Stimulating drink 51 As happy __ clam 52 Performance 55 Caused a jagged wound 58 Piece of furniture 60 Matures 61 Ditty 62 Actress Pompeo 63 Flower gardens 64 12/24 and 12/31 65 Went away DOWN 1 Playwright Hart 2 Dermatitis symptom 3 Pages for the orchestra 4 Part of a royal flush

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TIGER TWELVE Class of 2021

Each spring, LSU recognizes twelve outstanding seniors. These individuals, in keeping with the university’s Commitment to Community, contribute positively to the life of the campus, surrounding community, and society and demonstrate commitment to intellectual achievement, inclusive excellence, leadership in campus life, and service. Congratulations to the Tiger Twelve Class of 2021!

Samantha L. Beekman West Monroe, La. Mass Communication and International Studies

Justin Franklin Memphis, Tenn.

Mass Communication

Alaysia Jenal Johnson Aberdeen, Md. Mass Communication

Matthew Johnson Baton Rouge, La. Interdisciplinary Studies

Alexander P. Landry Baton Rouge, La. Biochemistry and Chemistry

Nhung H. Ngo Baton Rouge, La. Biological Sciences

Sarah Procopio Baton Rouge, La. Mass Communication

Kelly Robertson Alexandria, La. Chemical Engineering

Simone Sale Little Rock, Ark. Coastal Environmental Science

Brooklyn M. Squiers Zachary, La. Biological Sciences

Maya S. Stevenson Baton Rouge, La. English and Philosophy

Nathaly Ysaccis Betancourt Maturín, Venezuela Biological Engineering

lsu.edu/tigertwelve