Louisiana Christian University

Before it became Louisiana Christian University, Louisiana College was best known outside central Louisiana for a law school that never existed. In 2010, the college hired Mike Johnson — the man who would become Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives — as the “inaugural dean” of the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law. (Associated Press) The school’s establishment was supposed to be a capstone achievement for the college, which administrators boasted would “unashamedly embrace” a “biblical worldview.” Instead, the Associated Press reported, it “collapsed roughly a decade ago without enrolling students or opening its doors amid infighting by officials, accusations of financial impropriety and difficulty obtaining accreditation, which frightened away would-be donors.” (Associated Press)

Louisiana Christian University is a private Baptist university in Pineville, Louisiana, affiliated with the Louisiana Baptist Convention and, through it, the Southern Baptist Convention. It was founded in 1906 as Louisiana College and took its current name in 2021. (Baptist News Global)

Founded in Pineville in 1906

The university was founded in Pineville, Louisiana, on October 3, 1906, as the successor of two earlier Louisiana Baptist schools: Mt. Lebanon University, a men’s school founded in 1852 by the north Louisiana Baptist Convention, and Keatchie Female College, founded in 1857 by the Grand Cane Association of Baptist Churches. After both schools fell under State Baptist Convention control in 1899, an Education Commission selected a more central campus, and 19 students enrolled when the new college opened. The Education Commission administered the school until 1921, when it was replaced by a Board of Trustees under a new charter; its first administrative head was W.F. Taylor, whose title was chairman of the faculty. (Louisiana Christian University)

The law school that never opened

The Pressler law school project was named for a Southern Baptist Convention luminary described by the AP as instrumental in the faith group’s turn to the political right in the 1980s. The board of trustees that brought Johnson aboard included Tony Perkins, now the president of the Family Research Council. (Associated Press) Johnson predicted a bright future, telling an audience that “from a pure feasibility standpoint,” he was “not sure how this can fail,” and college officials hoped the school would someday rival the law school at Liberty University. (Associated Press)

The trouble predated him. For several years before Johnson’s arrival, the AP reported, the college had been in turmoil after a conservative board takeover: trustees implemented policies restricting academic freedom — including the potential firing of instructors whose curriculum touched on sexual morality or teachings contradicting the Bible — the school’s president and other faculty resigned, and the college was placed on probation by an accreditation agency. (Associated Press) At the same time, a shale oil boom was enriching local donors, and President Joe Aguillard had ambitions that went well beyond a law school: opening a medical school, a film school, and making a movie adaptation of the 1960s pastoral comedy TV show “Green Acres.” (Associated Press)

As dean, Johnson ran a major fundraising campaign and wrote about a big-dollar Houston event featuring former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, then-Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Pressler in a 2011 alumni magazine. But money came slowly while “drama percolated behind the scenes,” culminating in a flurry of lawsuits, including a whistleblower claim by a school vice president who accused Aguillard of misappropriating money and lying to the board. A law firm brought in to investigate concluded in a 2013 report that Aguillard had inappropriately diverted funds to a school the institution hoped to build in Africa, as well as for personal expenses. (Associated Press)

The physical plan collapsed too: the historic former federal courthouse in Shreveport selected as the law school’s campus required at least $20 million in renovations, the school was denied accreditation to issue juris doctorate degrees, and major donors backed away from their pledges. (Associated Press) Johnson resigned in the fall of 2012 and went back to litigating for Christian causes, though he continued representing the college for six more years in a case challenging the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employers provide workers access to birth control. (Associated Press) The AP noted there was no indication Johnson engaged in wrongdoing while at the college. (Associated Press)

The school’s namesake later became a liability of a different kind. In 2017, Pressler was sued in a civil case that grew to include allegations by multiple men who said he sexually assaulted them, some when they were children. The case was still pending when the AP reported the story, and it helped spark a broader reckoning by the Southern Baptist Convention over its handling of sexual-abuse claims. (Associated Press)

The 2021 rebrand

In November 2021, the Louisiana College board of trustees voted to change the institution’s name to Louisiana Christian University. The name was filed and reserved with the Louisiana Secretary of State, and the change was formally presented to the Louisiana Baptist Convention on November 16. (MinistryWatch) “This is in keeping with our mission of being Christ-centered,” President Rick Brewer said. “It’s a logical move. We are not throwing away our past. We are recognizing this school has always been Christian.” (MinistryWatch)

The rebrand was also practical. Brewer said the word “college” led prospective students to associate the school with community or technical colleges, while the institution better fit the definition of a university, with several colleges and graduate programs. At the time, Louisiana Christian was an accredited Master’s Level III institution offering four graduate programs — in teaching, education, nursing, and social work — plus dozens of undergraduate programs; an MBA proposal was announced with a projected start of fall 2022, and the strategic plan included a first doctoral program, a Doctorate in Education, by 2025. (MinistryWatch) Baptist News Global reported the alternatives had already been taken: both “Louisiana University” and “Louisiana Baptist University” were unavailable. (Baptist News Global) Enrollment was about 1,250 when the new name was announced. (MinistryWatch)

The fight over “LCU”

The new acronym quickly became a legal problem. Lubbock Christian University in Texas had been using “LCU” since it became a university in 1987 and had registered the stylized interlocking letters as a trademark in 2007, applying for renewal in 2020. The Louisiana school, by contrast, had adopted the name only about two and a half years earlier, after more than a century as Louisiana College. According to the lawsuit Louisiana Christian filed in July 2023, its legal name remains Louisiana College, but the trade name “Louisiana Christian University” has been registered with the Louisiana Secretary of State since November 1, 2021. (The Christian Chronicle)

The litigation began after months of letters and phone conversations, initiated in December 2022 by Lubbock Christian president Scott McDowell to Louisiana Christian president Rick Brewer, that failed to resolve the dispute. A January 2023 letter from Lubbock Christian’s counsel said the Texas school was “prepared to defend our right to our trademark if necessary.” When a July 7, 2023 telephone meeting between the presidents failed, Louisiana Christian filed suit a week later in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Alexandria Division, seeking to prevent Lubbock Christian from asserting a claim of trademark infringement. (The Christian Chronicle) The Louisiana school argued that any confusion was negated by the 656 miles between the schools, their different religious affiliations and athletic associations, and a student body that is 90 percent Louisiana residents. (The Christian Chronicle)

The presidential lineup shifted mid-fight: Brewer retired in April 2023 and executive vice president David Jeffreys was appointed interim president. Motions followed, including a Lubbock Christian motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, and as of January 2024 the case had been transferred to a new judge and assigned to a magistrate for a report and recommendation, with both universities continuing to use their LCU logos in the meantime. (The Christian Chronicle)

Leadership today

The university’s November 5, 2025 Founders’ Day release — commemorating the October 3, 1906 founding — identifies Dr. Mark Johnson as LCU president. (Louisiana Christian University)

What this profile does not claim

It does not claim the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law ever enrolled a student, opened its doors, or held accreditation to grant law degrees — the AP reports that none of those things happened. (Associated Press) It does not assert that Mike Johnson was involved in any wrongdoing at the college; the AP states there is no indication of that. It does not give a current enrollment figure or endowment, since the only available numbers (936 students for fall 2024) come from Wikipedia and were not independently verified. It does not report an outcome to the “LCU” trademark litigation; the latest verified state is the early-2024 reassignment to a new judge and magistrate. (The Christian Chronicle) It does not name the accreditation agency that placed the college on probation, since the source identifies it only as “an accreditation agency.” (Associated Press)