We were disturbed to learn many faculty members at New Orleans universities were fired without due process:

Many
tenured faculty were fired with scant notice, no meaningful due
process, no stated reasons, and no appeal save to the very
administrators who released them. Faculty were not consulted about
these actions or given an opportunity to suggest alternatives. Some
found out they had already been taken off payroll and health care.
Departments and programs were closed without appropriate review. While
a number of institutions had suffered serious damage from the
hurricane, we found no justification for this wholesale abandonment of
due process and shared governance. Indeed, as the report eloquently
declares, this is exactly the kind of challenge that requires wide
consultation and full participation by the faculty before drastic
actions are taken.

Katrina was a tragedy and a failure like no other in the history of our nation.

We cannot continue to foment pain and irresponsibility by making up rules and flaunting policy in her aftermath.

Freedom
of minds and thinking must be preserved at any cost and we make that
happen by remaining a nation of laws and not notions.