By TODD HORNE, Executive Editor
BATON ROUGE, La.—Sharon Lewis, a former LSU athletics administrator, has filed a court motion opposing ex-LSU football coach Les Miles’s bid for $64,795.99 in attorney fees. She accuses both Miles and the presiding judge of misconduct and bias. The filing, lodged earlier this week in the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish, comes amid a protracted legal battle that has drawn national scrutiny to LSU’s handling of Title IX complaints and alleged cover-ups of sexual-misconduct claims.
In her motion, Lewis alleges that Judge Beau Higginbotham showed “clear bias” in favor of Miles, repeatedly issuing rulings and sanctions that shielded him from accountability. Higginbotham has already imposed more than $265,000 in sanctions and legal costs on Lewis, which she claims are retaliatory punishments for exposing what she calls a systemic effort at LSU to silence her. Lewis had reported Title IX violations and alleged predatory conduct by Miles.
Lewis’s lawsuit against LSU was filed in 2021, but her case dates back to at least 2015, when, as LSU’s associate athletic director of football recruiting, she says Miles directed her to dismiss Black female student workers, calling them “ugly,” and threatened her when she refused. Lewis later reported the coach’s behavior to university compliance officers. A Husch Blackwell report commissioned by LSU found that Miles targeted female students as young as 18 and pressured staff to conceal his misconduct.
Despite the report’s findings, which were corroborated by emails and sworn testimony, Lewis’s fraud and defamation claims were largely dismissed in state court. Higginbotham ruled that key evidence was inadmissible and sanctioned Lewis under Louisiana’s anti-SLAPP statute. In her latest filing, Lewis’s attorneys point out conflicting rulings from federal judges who have criticized Higginbotham’s handling of the case as inconsistent with broader legal precedent.
The motion also accuses Peter Ginsberg, Miles’s attorney, of perjury during a 2019 sanctions hearing. Lewis alleges Ginsberg falsely denied involvement in efforts to suppress a Title IX probe into Miles, citing internal Taylor Porter law-firm emails suggesting otherwise. Lewis’s counsel, Larry English, characterizes the fee request as a continuation of the intimidation campaign against their client. “Judge Higginbotham carried out Les Miles’s threat through his unwarranted punitive actions,” the filing states, referencing an alleged remark by Miles that he would “punch Sharon Lewis in her mother-expletive face.”
Beyond Miles, Lewis’s motion paints a broader portrait of an athletics department rife with abuse and retaliation. She accuses a former associate coach of sexual harassment and a senior administrator of using racial epithets, and says current Athletic Director Scott Woodward ignored her pleas for help before terminating her employment.
Some legal experts say the dispute has ramifications beyond the parties’ immediate interests.
LSU did not comment on the filing. A spokesman for Miles, who left Baton Rouge when he was fired for on-field performance reasons in 2016 and now coaches at the University of Kansas, said he denies all allegations of misconduct and will seek full recovery of his legal costs. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education reportedly has an open inquiry into LSU’s compliance with federal Title IX requirements.
The district court has not yet ruled on Lewis’s objection to the fee award. For Lewis—the first African-American woman to hold her former position at LSU—the case remains a personal quest to restore her reputation and to hold the university’s leadership to account. “Whatever protean shape [fraud] may assume, justice should be left free to meet and thwart it,” her motion concludes, quoting a 1928 Louisiana appellate decision.
Download Sharon Lewis’ Legal Filing
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