BATON ROUGE - Attorney General Liz Murrill gave the Baton Rouge Rotary an update Wednesday on how her office is handling the New Year's terror attack in New Orleans and on the status of other high-profile cases.

She spoke candidly, specifically about how her office handled the transition from protecting the city to hosting the Super Bowl.

"I think we just have to be willing to look at what happened, do a real after-action analysis of that event, and be willing to make the changes that are necessary," Murrill said.

The conversation then shifted to how the freedom of speech is applied to state employees.

Last month, LSU law Professor Keny Levy was removed from teaching after comments he made about Gov. Jeff Landry surfaced. Levy eventually sued the university, saying he could not be removed for making political comments. At this point, LSU cannot take any employment action against the professor.

Murrill says she believes in letting the process play out.

"An employee of government or higher education and their rights associated with their employment relationship, whether its tenure rights, civil service rights or anything else, is different from your rights as an individual citizen and your protections under the first amendment through freedom of speech," Murrill said. "We should be able to look at these actions and be fair arbiters of what the rule of law is."

Murrill also celebrated a campaign she launched last year to pay student-athletes through state-funded NIL deals.

She says the program's goal is to prevent vaping in school-aged kids. Part of the program is athletes speaking to sixth graders with Murrill's outreach team about anti-vaping and anxiety management.

The deal is funded by more than $250,000 from an e-cigarette lawsuit settlement.