Ken Levy

Introduction

Ken Levy is a Louisiana State University law professor who was pulled from the classroom in January 2025 after a student complained about profane political commentary he delivered during a criminal procedure class — including “fuck the governor,” aimed at Louisiana’s chief executive, and “I couldn’t believe that fucker won,” about President Donald Trump. What followed was a two-year suspension saga in which lower courts twice ordered LSU to return Levy to teaching, only for appellate courts to overturn those rulings each time. In November 2026, the university finally relented: Levy will return to the classroom this spring .

Background Information

Levy’s removal began with remarks he made during a criminal procedure class in January 2025 — political commentary a student reported, including profanity directed at the Louisiana governor and at Trump, and a statement to his students that those who supported Trump needed his political commentary. The university removed him from the classroom and kept him on paid leave while the dispute moved through the Louisiana courts, becoming one of the most-watched academic-free-speech fights in the country: a tenured professor barred from teaching not for misconduct toward students, but for what he said to them about politics .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Removed from teaching over classroom speech; returning after a two-year legal fight. LSU never charged Levy with misconduct toward a student; the dispute was about the political content and profanity of his classroom remarks.

Levy has maintained throughout that LSU never articulated a rule he broke. In a July 2026 Facebook post published by the student newspaper LSU Reveille, he said university officials still had not told him what “rules, regulations or policies” he had violated and that the university had never conducted any hearing on the removal; an LSU spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether that was accurate. The legal record is a see-saw: lower courts twice ruled Levy should be returned to the classroom, and appellate courts twice overturned those decisions, keeping him out through the 2025-26 academic years while the case wound on .

The end came without a courtroom victory lap: LSU announced Levy would return to teaching in the spring 2027 semester, as reported by Baton Rouge station WBRZ. After roughly two years out of the classroom — removed in January 2025, reinstated for spring 2027 — Levy gets his students back, and the university avoids a final judicial ruling on whether its treatment of his speech violated the First Amendment .

Public Reaction and Consequences

Free-speech organizations and faculty watchers framed the case as a test of whether public universities can sideline professors for politics, and the appellate reversals that repeatedly blocked Levy’s return made LSU’s position look increasingly untenable — an administration insisting on discipline it could not articulate, for speech a court noted was delivered in a classroom. Levy’s own account — no rules cited, no hearing held — became the story’s refrain, repeated in every update and never credibly disputed by the university in the fetched coverage. His return was announced without any admission from LSU and without conditions reported .

Current Status

Levy returns to the LSU law classroom in the spring 2027 semester, ending a removal that began in January 2025 and survived two appellate reversals of lower-court orders in his favor. The university did not report any disciplinary findings, and its spokesperson declined to confirm or deny Levy’s account that no rule violation was ever identified and no hearing was held. Levy remains a member of the LSU law faculty throughout .

Impact on Their Career/Life

Two years of a law professor’s career — roughly four semesters of classes, students who took criminal procedure from someone else, and a national case built around his name — were spent in administrative exile for classroom remarks. Levy kept his position, his pay, and ultimately his classroom, which distinguishes his case from the firings it is often cited alongside; but the precedent cuts the other way too, demonstrating that a tenured professor can be kept out of teaching for two years by an administration that, on his account, never said which rule he broke. His spring 2027 return will be watched for what he says on the first day back .

Sources

• Inside Higher Ed, “LSU Law Professor to Return to Class After Being Suspended for Political Speech,” November 2026 — source