House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks at the US Capitol on November 2, 2023.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Mike Johnson worked with a Louisiana college to minimize fallout over his resignation as a law school dean, per WaPo.The school in question, the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law, never opened despite millions spent to do so.Johnson stepped down from his post after a critical feasibility study offered no real roadmap for the school to open.
About 15 years ago, plans for a private Christian law school in Louisiana were set in motion, with Louisiana College spending $5 million to purchase and renovate a building to house the institution.
Now-House Speaker Mike Johnson, who in 2010 was a young Louisiana attorney looking to make his mark in his home region, became the “inaugural dean” of the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law. The planned law school was touted by its boosters as one that would “unashamedly embrace” a “biblical worldview.”
But the law school — which would have been part of Louisiana College, a Southern Baptist institution in Pineville — never opened its doors, even after the multimillion-dollar expenses that were racked up in preparation for classes. (Louisiana College was renamed Louisiana Christian University in 2021.)
After stepping down as the law school’s dean in 2012, Johnson privately worked with Louisiana College officials to soften any fallout from his departure, according to The Washington Post.
In Johnson’s resignation letter, he wrote that “our hands are currently tied” regarding the push to secure funding in support of the law school.
According to an internal memo obtained by The Post, there was guidance from college officials to “minimize publicity on Mike’s resignation and keep all necessary messaging brief, positive and consistent.” Also in the memo was guidance for officials to say that the law school had been “temporarily delayed” and would be a “scaled-down future project.”
Before Johnson resigned from his position, he was perhaps the law school’s biggest booster, remarking on the importance of an institution that would educate Christian lawyers.
But he had also continually asked an aide to find a feasibility study for the law school, as he wanted to ensure that there would be sufficient funding in place to open the institution, according to The Post.
When the aide finally located the study, which was in a filing cabinet, it did not support the feasibility of the law school.
Johnson wrote in a 2013 memo obtained by The Post that the feasibility study was a “hodgepodge collection of papers,” with “nothing in existence” that identified the necessity of the law school or specific funding sources.
Joe Aguillard, the president of Louisiana College from 2005 to 2014, reportedly pointed to Johnson “for the Law School’s present delays in opening its doors,” according to a memo written by then-board member Heath Veuleman, which was also obtained by The Post.
But in a statement offered to Insider in late October, Aguillard praised Johnson’s character as the Louisiana lawmaker takes on the highest-profile position of his political career.
“He speaks from an internal moral compass that is true north and everyone should know that ‘Mike Johnson cannot be bought,'” Aguillard said. “Mike is sold out to his call by God on his life to continue to lead in a life-long journey to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“In short, America is in the best of hands under Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership,” he added.
Insider reached out to Johnson’s office for comment.