2014 Influence List: Zealous Regent

Wallace L. Hall Jr.

As public skepticism of college leaders and professors builds, trustees have been encouraged over the last year to ask tougher questions about campus operations. But few college board members have tested the limits of their authority as much as Wallace L. Hall Jr.

Mr. Hall, 52, a member of the University of Texas system’s Board of Regents, has conducted exhaustive investigations of the flagship campus, exposing what he describes as sweetheart deals for administrators and shady admissions practices that favor politically connected applicants. His persistence is applauded in some quarters, but critics have accused Mr. Hall of conducting an ideologically motivated witch hunt that centers on a desire to see William C. Powers Jr. removed as president of the Austin campus.

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(Mr. Powers narrowly escaped firing this past summer, but he has said he will step down in June of 2015.)

In his efforts to expose wrongdoing, Mr. Hall has flooded the university with public-records requests, including one for all of Mr. Powers’s personal and business travel expenses over an eight-year period. In the eyes of a legislative committee, which censured Mr. Hall in August, the regent’s tactics amounted to “misconduct, incompetency,” or “behavior unbefitting a nominee for and holder of a state office.”

Mr. Hall retains the support of Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, who appointed the regent to the board. Mr. Hall, who has worked as an investor and financial analyst, is founder and president of Wetland Partners LP, a wetlands mitigation company.

In the process of reviewing voluminous records, Mr. Hall came across personal student information, which he is alleged to have shared with others in violation of federal law. Officials with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office have said they plan to present his case to a grand jury, and he could face criminal charges.

Despite his polarizing reputation, Mr. Hall has prompted an important discussion about the often gray line between effective board oversight and micromanagement.

Facing what has been at times withering criticism, he sounds undaunted. “It would be wonderful if cheering for our institutions was the sum total of what I think our responsibility is, but it’s not,” he once told his colleagues on the board. “Some things that we have to do are not pleasant, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t do them.”

—Jack Stripling