Should Louisiana college president searches be secret? A bill is raising transparency concerns.

A Louisiana state lawmaker says he plans to amend his bill that would have kept records secret about who is applying to college executive positions, proposing a change that would instead require universities to disclose some finalists amid concerns over transparency in hiring top officials.

Sen. Mark Abraham, R-Lake Charles, drafted the bill, House Bill 289, to keep the identities of applicants to top college positions secret, and it had drawn concerns from groups that push for academic freedom and college transparency.

He said it’s hard to lure candidates to apply for top jobs without the promise of secrecy. The bill also gives wide leeway over which positions it would affect, saying it’s “including but not limited to” university presidents, chancellors, senior vice chancellors and athletic coaches.

After an interview with the Times-Picayune | The Advocate this week, Abraham acknowledged the transparency concerns and said he plans to amend the bill during a Thursday committee hearing, with changes to require universities to release some names of candidates they’re considering. That change would bring the bill more in line with standards sought by academic freedom groups.

“I want three names given to the public,” Abraham said.

Still, Abraham said universities and their search firms are in the best position to decide who is right for the job.

“When you apply for a job and the application is made public, your current job is in jeopardy,” he added. “It restricts certain people from applying for a job.”

The bill is slated for debate Thursday in the House & Governmental Affairs Committee.

The legislation comes on the heels of high-profile searches for LSU and UL Lafayette presidential jobs. Without the amendment Abraham said he plans for, the bill would allow universities to hide any records that show who is applying to be university president, chancellor, coach and more. The bill’s language so far says universities would only have to reveal applicants once they are designated as a “finalist,” but universities could name a lone finalist to get around

In effect, several free speech scholars and university experts say, the bill without amendments would allow schools to hide who was in the running for a top position at a university. It could also have implications for searches actively underway: The Southern University system and McNeese State are both searching for new presidents.

“We get to see how these major decisions are made,” said David Cuillier, director of the Brechner Center for the Advancement of the First Amendment at the University of Florida. “That’s the whole point of these public records laws and democracy.”

The bill is part of a long-running movement among American public universities, whose boards have increasingly turned to secretive searches run by private search firms when picking new presidents. Abraham’s bill would also prevent the release of information about donors to public colleges, as well as industry partnerships with universities.

Abraham said keeping most candidates secret should result in better candidates applying, and he believes it should be up to the university to decide what they make public. He said search committees “do their job” well.

But he also agreed that universities should have to reveal more than one finalist name, leading to his proposed amendment.

The bill is part of a long-running movement among American public universities, whose boards have increasingly turned to secretive searches run by private search firms when picking new presidents. Abraham’s bill would also prevent the release of information about donors to public colleges, as well as industry partnerships with universities.

Abraham said keeping most candidates secret should result in better candidates applying, and he believes it should be up to the university to decide what they make public. He said search committees “do their job” well.

But he also agreed that universities should have to reveal more than one finalist name, leading to his proposed amendment.

“That smacks of not being fair if you just reveal one person,” Abraham said.

Abraham’s amendment would bring Louisiana law more in line with Tennessee, which requires at least three finalists to be revealed to the public. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni said it recommends such language.

Without language specifying how many finalists must be named, the public may not learn how university boards decided on which qualities they wanted in a leader. Universities in Louisiana have already taken to naming sole finalists for university president positions.

UL Lafayette named Ramesh Kolluru as sole finalist for their presidential job earlier this year after public interviews with two semifinalists on campus. LSU named F. King Alexander as sole presidential finalist in 2013 without disclosing names of other applicants, which prompted lawsuits and public outcry.

“That’s what universities all around the country want to do,” Cuillier said. “These search firms are really pushing this hard. They’re saying a lot of candidates are not going to apply if (their name becomes public). Do we really know that it improves the quality of who is hired? They’d have to show some data on that.”

The bill passed the state Senate with only two “no” votes, including Sen. Greg Miller, R-Norco, who said he’s worried Louisiana residents won’t know if colleges are hiring the most qualified candidates.

Secretive search

More than a decade ago, LSU conducted a secretive presidential search that spurred controversy and lawsuits.

In that 2013 search, LSU hired a consultant who set up a web portal to host resumes and other documents, according to testimony in a subsequent lawsuit. The search committee interviewed candidates in two groups so the meetings lacked a quorum, meaning they didn’t have to be public. Committee members were instructed not to send emails or download information from the web portal to avoid public records requests, and the consultant collected a binder full of materials at the end of a meeting about the finalists.

But state law at the time required public disclosure. The Times-Picayune, The Advocate and the former editor of the LSU Daily Reveille newspaper sued the school, with the First Circuit Court of Appeal eventually ruling that LSU had to release the names of the four finalists who board members considered when they hired Alexander.

Today, that type of search has become commonplace around the nation, according to public records advocates.

Search firms, in particular, have driven the trend. A report in the Academe Magazine found that the vast majority of colleges use search firms today, up from just over a quarter in the 1990s.

Universities can also shield their contracts with search firms by routing them through foundations: The LSU Foundation, for example, hired the firm for LSU’s presidential search last year. The structure ensured that the public could not see how much money was paid for — or the parameters that were given to — SSA Consultants, a local firm.

LSU’s 2025 presidential search ended with the hiring of former McNeese State president Wade Rousse after on-campus interviews with three finalists. Another finalist, James Dalton, became LSU’s chancellor, with him and Rousse splitting responsibilities that had been previously consolidated into a single job.

“Confidentiality is paramount in a Chancellor search,” the search firm Greenwood Asher & Associates wrote in a report last year. The firm has helped with several, high-profile searches in Louisiana, including multiple LSU provost searches and the state’s commissioner of higher education.

“Top executive search firms understand the sensitive nature of these searches, particularly when candidates are sitting chancellors or presidents at other institutions. Ensuring discretion helps protect the candidates’ current roles and prevents unnecessary speculation within the university community.”

Greenwood’s report said search firms use nondisclosure agreements, code names, private meetings and secure messaging platforms to keep information about the searches hidden. They also limit the sharing of the identity of candidates to “reduce the likelihood of leaks.”

‘Wrong foot’

Such instruction goes against the American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s guide to hiring college leaders. One of their key tenets is publicly releasing the identities of three to five finalists.

Kyle Beltramini, ACTA’s senior research fellow, said that’s because the finalists should be vetted publicly, with multiple interviews on campus and meetings with members of the community.

“If you say this is our guy, our only guy we’re considering a finalist…you’re going to start the presidency off on the wrong foot,” he said.

When word leaked late last year through reporting from The Times-Picayune | The Advocate that UL planned to install Kolluru as president without a search, faculty spoke out against the process, saying they should have a seat at the table. The UL board relented and held a search, though the end result was the same: Kolluru got the job.

Across the country and within the SEC, other states have adopted laws similar to what’s on the table in Louisiana.

Florida, once heralded for its wide-reaching public records laws, has rolled back some of those laws and now keeps college president applicants secret through a 2022 state law. Michigan courts have held that schools can avoid public meetings when hiring. And in Georgia, searches can be done without naming finalists.

When former LSU president Bill Tate was named president last year at Rutgers University in New Jersey, which is public, no other finalists had been named alongside him. Tate’s candidacy for the position only became known once he was hired for the job.

A Brechner Center report from 2020 investigated whether hiding the names of finalists truly helped the schools get better candidates. It found little difference in results between open and closed searches, though closed searches resulted in slightly more sitting presidents being hired.

Judith Wilde, professor of policy and government at George Mason University in Virginia, said the stakes can be high. If candidates aren’t vetted properly by the public, it can result in “failed presidents,” or those who step down early in their contracts.

That can result in big buyouts — a complaint that state officials, including Gov. Jeff Landry, have voiced about coaching contracts as well. A spokesperson for Landry said he did not have a position on Abraham’s bill.

“These become very expensive,” Wilde said. “When all the information about the presidents is being kept secret until the last minute, no one has a chance to vet them.”

This piece was originally published by The Advocate on April 22, 2026.