DEFIANCE- Fighting Elitism and Racism at LSU in the '70s

Theodor "Ted" Schirmer graduated from LSU in 1978, worked as a case manager for the Illinois Department of Welfare in the South Side of Chicago, and then enrolled in the Southern University Law Center. After graduating in 1983, he opened a law practice in Baton Rouge that focused on civil rights and handicap discrimination. Due to a family health issue, Ted moved to California where he worked for New Directions, a long term drug and alcohol rehabilitation center for homeless veterans, helping his fellow veterans with their legal issues. In 2006, Ted joined the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office where he worked until he retired.

After retirement, Ted decided to write his life story for his children and grandchild. When he began writing about his years at LSU, he discovered through research that events that took place during his time as SGA president were being swept under the rug. He could locate nothing in the administrative files or oral histories open to the public that covered what happened at the LSU Homecoming in 1976.

In the '70s, even twenty years after Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), LSU was still refusing to give up its racist past. While most students attending LSU were primarily focused on obtaining a better life through getting a college degree, some could not turn their backs on injustice. The students who fought at Ted's side were not the wealthy fraternity or sorority members. They were from middle to lower-middle class families and the working poor. It was Ted's goal in writing this book to honor their sacrifices and tell what it was like to fight the system-the LSU administrators, the Board of Supervisors, and the Greek organizations-in the deep south in the turbulent '70s.