Termination from LSU and subsequent lawsuit

On 9 April 2009, LSU announced its decision to terminate Van Heerden's position, effective at the end of the spring semester. Van Heerden said the university did not offer a reason for this action.^[4] In a subsequent interview with Harry Shearer on his Le Show radio program, Van Heerden revealed that he learned about his dismissal from news media and was never personally informed.^[5] This sudden termination raised serious academic freedom concerns and sparked protests from faculty members and students at LSU.^[6] It was speculated that the termination was related to Van Heerden's public criticism of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after Hurricane Katrina, an action which could have placed LSU's funding at risk.^[7]

One of the criticisms leveled at Van Heerden came from a retired corps employee, who claimed that van Heerden, a geologist, had allegedly offered "engineering services" or had represented himself "as an engineer publicly without having a professional engineer's license".^[8] This was seen as a potential legal liability for LSU.

van Heerden, however, found strong support in the Louisiana press,^{[9][10][11][12]} with scathing criticisms of LSU's administration appearing in major newspapers like the New Orleans Times-Picayune, from James A. Cobb Jr., attorney and adjunct professor in LSU-rival Tulane University's School of Law,^[13] whose letter to the editor ended thus:^[14]

Academic freedom and intellectual integrity are, at LSU, like two distant cousins who haven't spoken to each other in many, many years.

— Flagship university? Please.

In an interview with the New York Times, van Heerden voiced suspicion that his "slow-motion" dismissal was strategically timed with the opening of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the US Army Corps of Engineers over the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal (MR-GO), where he was expected to testify.^[15]

On February 10, 2010, van Heerden filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against LSU, alleging retaliation by university officials.^[16][17] The lawsuit ended in a settlement after emails between the Louisiana Governor's office and LSU officials were made public, indicating an early plan to silence van Heerden after his criticisms of the Army Corps of Engineers. The emails were exchanged three weeks after Katrina, and were in response to van Heerden blaming the Army Corps of Engineers for most of the New Orleans area flooding during Katrina. The settlement amounted to $435,000,^[18] while the university's legal expenses approached an additional half million dollars.^[19][20]