Help Dr. Salvatore Defend Our Right to Free Speech

Dr. Brian Salvatore honorably served as a professor of chemistry at Louisiana State University Shreveport for 21 years, where he recently became a target for termination by powerful and unsavory people within this region. Former and current LSUS administrators served as the conduit to set these abusive mean-spirited actions into motion, and LSU System President William Tate rubber stamped it all. These individuals have all misrepresented the truth, and they have violated both policy and law to carry out the ill will of others with bad intent.

Dr. Salvatore has always been an enthusiastic educator and a dedicated advocate for his students. He was nominated as a finalist for “Professor of the Year” numerous times at the university. He has also been a tireless advocate for those in the community who needed assistance on a number of educational and environmental issues. He never sought praise nor compensation for his efforts to help others.

For the past decade, Dr. Salvatore has maintained a high community profile, strongly advocating for safer environmental practices within Louisiana. This includes: his work with concerned citizens who identified safer alternatives to open burning over 16 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals at Camp Minden; his efforts to stop open burning and detonation of hazardous materials by Clean Harbors Colfax; and his public comments against the decision of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources to permit fracking near Shreveport’s drinking water supply, which is Cross Lake.

Dr. Salvatore was repeatedly told by University leaders that influential and powerful people had called and written to members of the University administration to complain about his public advocacy efforts, and an LSU Shreveport administrator informed Brian of having received instructions to “go after him.”

A faculty hearing committee recommended his termination on the explicit basis of his expression of concern about the handling of hazardous chemical waste.

The purpose of this funding is to support Dr. Salvatore’s ongoing legal battle in both state and federal court in defense of grass roots activism, open meetings law, public records law, and primarily our First Amendment rights, which are currently under assault in Louisiana and throughout much of our nation. Please donate to fund the restoration of justice in the appraisal of Dr. Salvatore’s career, proper administration of higher education, and Brian’s Right of Free Speech.