Closing Bureau of Change’s Academic Apprenticeship Studio in New Orleans, 2018

01 Mar Closing Bureau of Change’s Academic Apprenticeship Studio in New Orleans, 2018

In 2017-2018, while I was preparing Herster v. Lousiana State University Board of Supervisors for appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in a challenge to pervasive sexual and gendered violence and academic segregation within higher education, my former husband, LSU Law Professor Scott Sullivan, became irrecoverably and forcibly abusive to me while misusing alcohol, Adderall and benzodiazepines.

Bureau of Change was founded and directed by Margot Herster after she left her faculty position as area head for Digital Art at LSU. It operated as an apprenticeship atelier in partnership with New Orleans colleges and universities from 2012 to 2018. During the Spring 2018 semester, Herster removed all enrolled students due to gun threats in her studio classroom by LSU Professor Scott Sullivan, her former husband and colleague.

Sullivan’s abuse forced closure of my academic studio by deceit, assaults on me and true threats that also impacted others around me. He uncharacteristically visited a range to practice target shooting, for the first time in over 15 years, then threatened gun violence at my school in New Orleans where I was working with college students.

Since 2018, in the aftermath of my role as first public opponent and perserverant critic of campus violence against women cover-ups that lead to Louisiana State University’s systemwide investigations and national disgrace in 2020-22 for protecting perpetrators and silencing survivor-victims, Sullivan’s persistent menace has been punctuated by overwhelming acts of physical, legal and financial abuse in tandem with others motivated (or conned) to cover up in concert with him.