• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Nov 27, 2009

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The annual Bayou Classic will play out Saturday on the football turf of the Louisiana Superdome. But the battle for control of the mega-event has been waged behind the scenes during the past several months.

The fight is for authority over the private, nonprofit Southern University System Foundation, which oversees much of the Bayou Classic and the university’s fundraising. It’s a confusing power struggle that pits various factions within the university’s community and soon could play out in court.

One component resulted in prominent Baton Rouge lawyer Walter Dumas to take the reins as the private foundation’s president. Dumas also sits on the Southern University System Board of Supervisors, which oversees Southern’s three academic campuses, its law school and its agricultural center.

Dumas touts the “new” foundation as “transparent” and “student first.”

Embattled former Southern University System President Ralph Slaughter claims the private foundation he once ran is now being run illegally. It’s an accusation he asserted last month in a legislative auditor’s complaint. Slaughter also filed litigation over his alleged ouster.

Slaughter, former foundation director Cedric Upshaw and some former foundation board members also contend that Dumas, a major Southern booster, owes the university more than $300,000 in football stadium suite rent and endowed professorships. Dumas denied the debt. The obligation has since been forgiven by the foundation board.

Campus and the Classic

For years, officials from Southern’s main campus and athletic department have complained the lack of oversight and revenue from the Bayou Classic game between Southern and Grambling State University and subsidiary events like the Battle of the Bands.

The Foundation and the Southern University System have managed Southern’s end of the Bayou Classic.

As a Southern University System vice president, Slaughter took over management for much of the Bayou Classic in 1998. He became president in 2006.

Slaughter previously claimed the nationally televised Bayou Classic brings about $1 million annually to the Baton Rouge campus.

But Southern started the year with about an $800,000 deficit projected for the athletic department.

Southern Athletics Director Greg LaFleur said he is happy to co-chair the Bayou Classic for the first time this year.