The watchdog of academic rigor has issued its report concluding its year long investigation of the retaliatory firing of Ivor van Heerden from LSU.

Dr. Charles Figley was part of the investigation team convened by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Yesterday, when the report was released, Dr. Figley wrote to me and other colleagues with this:

“It is important that we keep in mind that speaking out on matters like these are critical to a more informed society. I urge you to read the report and understand how administrators can abuse their power and trust; how sometimes inactive faculty are worse than those who are supportive of incompetence or unfair labor practices.”

As reported by CBS National News, “Louisiana State University violated the academic freedom of a professor who was fired for publicly criticizing the construction of the New Orleans levees after Hurricane Katrina, a higher education group said in a report Monday.

Ivor van Heerden was punished for speaking his mind and his right to due process was denied, the American Association of University Professors said. Van Heerden was fired in 2009 after he linked the flooding that followed the storm to shoddy levee work by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He had been with the school since 1992….”

Click here for whole story.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/01/ap/business/main20086473.shtml

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Prof. Charles R. Figley, Ph.D., is Paul Henry Kurzweg, MD Distinguished Chair in Disaster Mental Health at Tulane University, co-director of the Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy (www.tulanedrla.org), and Graduate School of Social Work Professor. Editor of Traumatology: http://tmt.sagepub.com/.