Decades of misconduct allegations at LSU come under scrutiny in $50 million suit

By Curtis Bunn, NBC News

Sharon Lewis, an LSU alum and former employee, claims the several complaints she filed over 20 years led to her ouster earlier this year.

In her two decades working in the Louisiana State University athletic department — a college athletics powerhouse — Sharon Lewis considered protecting the female workers and students a crucial part of her job. She said she was diligent about reporting racial and sexual offenses to her superiors — “several,” she said, filed over a span of 15 years. 

That is, until her superiors denied getting a single one of them, she said.

“I couldn’t believe it. It was just all so overwhelming,” Lewis said. “I fainted.”

Lewis’ allegation is part of her $50 million Title IX lawsuit against the school, the board of supervisors, specific staff members and attorneys at the firm Taylor Porter, all of whom she alleges conspired in “unlawful discrimination with malice or with reckless indifference to federally protected rights to which she is entitled.”

She has a motion hearing next week in Louisiana to defend against the school’s efforts to have her case dismissed. Her comments to NBC News are her first extensive interview about her filing against one of the largest college athletics programs in the U.S.

Keep reading about Lewis’ case against LSU and the school’s denial of reports.

Schools such as Harvard must reckon with their racist pasts, while HBCUs shut down due to lack of funding or receive threats.

The latest Black news isn’t all negative, however.