House panel battles over auditing university spending on minority enrollment

Published: May 12, 2026

By: Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – A House resolution directing auditors to determine how much state and federal money has been spent on programs requiring Louisiana universities to increase the number of minority students survived after a tense debate in the House Appropriations Committee Monday.

Rep. Aimee Adatto Freeman and Rep. Alonzo Knox, two New Orleans Democrats, moved to involuntarily defer, or effectively kill, the resolution. But the committee voted 11-7 Monday to send the measure to the House Committee on Education for further discussion.

The resolution defines “underrepresented minorities” as all races other than white or Asian and includes students who are non-residents or whose race is either unknown or not reported.

If the full House were to pass the resolution, it would direct auditors at the Louisiana Board of Regents, which oversees higher education, and university systems to tally funds expended by from 2021 to 2026 for staffing, programming, technology and grants aimed at increasing minority enrollment.

Rep. Jack “Jay” William Gallé, Jr., R-Mandeville, on behalf of Rep. Josh Carlson, a Republican from Lafayette, who authored the bill, said the resolution was good practice.