The American Association of University Professors has criticized New Orleans area university leaders for their response to Hurricane Katrina.

Loyola, Tulane, LSU Health Sciences Center, Southern University and University of New Orleans officials should not have made decisions to cut programs and personnel as well as making decisions about tenured faculty, according to a draft copy of the report issued by the AAUP.

Loyola declined to comment on the findings of the report since the draft was supposed to be confidential, according to The Times-Picayune. However, Loyola will issue a response to the draft Feb. 2.

The report specifically criticized universities that were restructured using the unprecedented situation as an excuse for not following protocol.

“However grave the institution’s fiscal situation may be, and however closely a lay observer might assume that fiscal exigency did exist, adverse personnel judgments are permissible only if the attendant procedures have been scrupulously observed,” authors of the report wrote.