BATON ROUGE, La. — A jury on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit accusing top Louisiana State University officials of retaliating against an athletics administrator for reporting alleged inappropriate sexual conduct by a head coach.
After six days of testimony, a panel of five women and three men rejected the defense's claims, The Advocate reported. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan of New Orleans presided over the trial after all federal judges in Baton Rouge recused themselves.
Then-athletics administrator Sharon Lewis filed the federal lawsuit in 2021. The following year she was fired.
Coach Les Miles led the 2007 LSU team to a national title but was fired by the university in 2016. He lost his coaching job at Kansas in 2021 after LSU released a report showing that school officials there considered firing him in 2013 over his alleged behavior with female student workers. Miles has denied allegations of inappropriate behavior.
The university hired the law firm Husch Blackwell to conduct the report after a national newspaper scrutinized LSU's handling of sexual assault cases involving two former football players.
Lewis' lawsuit alleges that she was denied raises and was subjected to verbal abuse after she went to officials with the allegations against Miles — including her accusation that he told her there were “too many black girls” working in the athletics and that a female student had accused him of “sitting on top of her” on his office couch.
Lewis, a former heptathlete who won a national track championship while competing as an undergraduate at LSU, worked in the Tigers football program for nearly 21 years. Then-coach Nick Saban hired her as recruiting coordinator in 2001, and in August 2020, she climbed the ladder to become associate athletic director for football recruiting and alumni activities.
Lewis, 56, alleged that LSU's Board of Supervisors allowed athletic department officials to retaliate against her for reporting alleged Title IX violations and for filing a 2021 complaint against the university with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission . She also said she was exposed to a hostile work environment.
Title IX is a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex at universities that receive federal funding, and requires most university employees to report these violations when they actually become aware of them.
During closing arguments Wednesday, Lewis' attorneys asked jurors to award her more than $6.3 million in compensatory damages and another $300,000 for emotional damages, The Advocate reported.
Her lead attorney, Larry English, repeated a mantra he used to start the trial, telling jurors that LSU fostered a “culture of fear, retaliation and violence” that victimized women in the athletic department.
“The undisputed evidence in this case shows that when people were accused of protecting women in the athletic department, they were instead concerned with protecting the football coaches and their seven-figure salaries in order to continue winning football games,” he said.
LSU countered that Lewis was not preyed upon, exposed to a hostile workplace or discriminated against because of her gender. Defense attorney Michael Victorian told jurors that the statutory deadline for one of the claims expired in mid-2020, so any of her “baseless allegations” about sexual misconduct and harassment during Miles' coaching stint were irrelevant to the case.
“Sharon Lewis and her lawyers are trying to trick you into falling for an emotional trick. That's why they're trying to get your sympathy,” he said. 'It's an emotional magic trick, ladies and gentlemen. That is the definition of busyness.”
In a statement, LSU said it was pleased the jury found in its favor.
“The simple truth is that Ms. Lewis has never retaliated or been discriminated against. She was fired along with 41 other football staff and coaches after a new head coach was hired,” the university said. “As an institution, over the past three years we have built a robust and nationally recognized Title IX office with more than a dozen experts committed to educating and protecting our entire LSU community while acting quickly and holding any violators fully accountable . This will remain a priority for us.”
