JIM ENGSTER: LSU Loses Weak Leader in Tate

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When William Fleming Tate IV was hired as LSU President, it was predicted in this space he would adapt street fighting skills honed as a lad on the streets of south Chicago to shake things up in TigerTown. The vision of a modern-day Wild Bill Hickok ruling with power and panache at the Ole War Skule was a distant dream. Mild Bill Tate cowered to the wishes of his handlers in almost every major skirmish.

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He squandered an opportunity for historic evolution on campus. Hired a year after the George Floyd tragedy altered the American consciousness about race, Tate could have been a game changer. He leaves LSU for Rutgers with a legacy of timidity.

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It came as no surprise when Tate disbanded a committee assembled by his predecessor Tom Galligan to remove names of Confederates, slave traders and lynchers from LSU buildings. LSU had started the process of excising racists from prominent places by stripping General Troy Middleton’s name from its main library because of a letter the president of LSU and chief strategist in the Battle of the Bulge wrote in 1962.

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Tate loved the imperial nature of his post and had no stomach to offend a cadre of Confederate sympathizers yearning to return America to the balmy plantation times of 160 years ago.

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