Tate pens Advocate column on Brooks case

REVEILLE STAFF REPORT

LSU President William F. Tate IV sent an email to students Monday, Jan. 23, after a man and an unnamed minor were charged with third-degree rape amid an investigation into the death of LSU sophomore Madison Brooks.

He received prompt backlash from LSU students and sexual assault survivor advocates who said his finger-pointing at underaged drinking missed the core of the problem: sexual violence.

Tate responded in a column in The Advocate on Tuesday.

“I want to be real and honest and leave political correctness out of this conversation, because we must remove every barrier to creating change that will save lives,” he said.

He wrote that there were several evils at work in this case.

“We know the first. It’s sitting in parish prison as I write this,” he said in a nod to the arrests made in the Brooks investigation.

Kaivon Washington, 18, and