wrote a sobering report to the Board of Supervisors entitled "LSU and Segregation." Here he outlined the history of the enrollment of blacks at LSU, which showed how resistant the university had been to such an undertaking. While there were avid segregationists who declared the federal desegregation laws would not be fulfilled, more practical minds could see the futility and extreme expense of having to create duplicate facilities in every area of advanced education, and the process of integration, which had already begun at a slow pace, now became accelerated. When Middleton reached the university's mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1959, the Alumni Council adopted a resolution to have the Board of Supervisors waive the age requirement, and allow Middleton to stay on as president. This was done, and again at the end of the 1959–1960 school year he was once again declared to be essential to the university, and once again reluctantly agreed to stay for one, but only one, additional year. Though it became a long year, on 1 February 1962 Middleton officially retired, and three weeks earlier 11 January was declared as "Troy H. Middleton Day in Louisiana" by Governor Jimmie H. Davis. LSU classes were suspended, an honor guard from the Cadet Corps was formed, and Secretary of the Army Elvis Stahr came to address the convocation, at which Middleton was given the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Retirement and death Middleton was a little more than 72 years old when he retired from LSU in 1962. He was now President Emeritus, and maintained an office on campus in the David F. Boyd building. He went to this office every Wednesday morning where a staff secretary handled the typing of a large number of letters in response to his mail. Two years after his retirement, in May 1964, Governor John J. McKeithen came to his office hoping that Middleton would accept a job on a commission that he was forming. The governor was wanting to ease the state's growing racial tensions by creating a biracial commission composed of 21 blacks and 21 whites. The governor needed a chairman who would command a tremendous amount of respect, and his choice was Middleton. Middleton said he would do it for a year, beginning in 1965, but as had often happened in the past, the year stretched into five, and it wasn't until 1970 when the commission