Top LSU administrator resigns amid campus leadership turmoil

by Piper Hutchinson, Louisiana Illuminator
February 20, 2025

One of LSU’s top leaders resigned from the university Wednesday, according to a letter of resignation that suggests she was instructed to step down. 

“I hereby tender my resignation as Executive Vice President for Finance and Chief Administrative Officer for Louisiana State University in accordance with our discussion,” Kim Lewis wrote in her letter to President William Tate. The Illuminator obtained the letter through a public records request. 

Read the letter below.

Lewis is the second top-ranking LSU administrator to resign in recent weeks. Last month, the university’s top attorney, Winston DeCuir, resigned, though he will take a visiting professorship at the LSU Law Center. 

DeCuir and Lewis, both Black attorneys, leave their jobs amid increasing politicization of the university. 

Lewis previously served as revenue secretary under Gov. John Bel Edwards, a moderate Democrat, and worked for previous Democratic governors. 

At times, she has butted heads with LSU Board of Supervisors members aligned with Gov. Jeff Landry. At an October board executive committee meeting, Lewis exchanged terse words with Lee Mallett, a political donor who gave tens of thousands of dollars to Landry’s election efforts. 

DeCuir did not respond to a request for comment asking if politics played a part in his resignation. Lewis likewise has not responded to a call requesting comment. 

Landry, thanks to a new law he pushed, has more power over higher education than previous governors and has taken a greater interest in LSU. 

In recent weeks, he has publicly called on LSU to take action against a law professor who profanely criticized him in the classroom. LSU removed Ken Levy from the classroom pending an investigation, though Levy is fighting his suspension in court. 

Landry also called for LSU to punish another law professor who criticized President Donald Trump in the days after the presidential election. In 2021, he called on LSU to punish Bob Mann, a political communications professor, who criticized one of Landry’s deputies in the attorney general’s office who shared vaccine misinformation at an LSU Faculty Senate meeting. 

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