Texas Southern University’s regents last year gave themselves the unusual power to fire any and all campus employees, a move that flouts best-practices recommendations on higher-education governance and may raise red flags for the institution’s regional accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges.
The board’s new powers came to light as the university’s leadership is itself in flux. Regents last month placed the university’s president, Austin A. Lane, on administrative leave amid an investigation into admissions improprieties. A special board meeting called for Tuesday will include discussion, in executive session, of a “notice of termination of the university president.” The same day Lane was placed on leave, his special assistant was fired.
Approved in October, the new bylaws allow the board to “remove any professor, instructor, tutor, or other officer or employee connected with the institution” if required by “the best interests” and “proper operation” of the institution. The board can also “approve the termination of any position” including a dean, officer, or other employee.
This is unusual and looks like overreach into administrative roles.
The university’s board chair, Hasan K. Mack, did not respond to The Chronicle’s requests for comment on Monday. Gregory H. Maddox, dean of the graduate school and a liaison to the accreditor, wrote in an email that the university is “committed to compliance” with accreditation standards. He referred all other questions to the board. Two board staff members did not respond to an email from The Chronicle.
A review team from the university’s accreditor will visit Texas Southern in March as part of its regular reaffirmation process. Universities without accreditation risk losing federal student-aid funding.
“At first blush, this is unusual and looks like overreach into administrative roles,” Belle S. Wheelan, president of the accrediting agency, told The Chronicle in an email. “Generally, the president will make recommendations to the board and, above or below certain levels, the board approves or not.”
‘Heads Need to Roll’
The vote on the new bylaws followed a series of speeches at a public board meeting. Angry with how his colleagues had been treated by university staff members, one regent, Ronald J. Price, appointed to the board in early 2019, rattled off a litany of perceived slights.
He complained of being dropped off a block away from the university at homecoming, “like we were a bunch of homeless people.” At a football game, individuals smelling of marijuana and alcohol entered the board’s suite, “which quite frankly frightened some of us in there,” he said.
He suffered another indignity at the Democratic presidential debate that Texas Southern hosted in September, he said. Some board members sat in the back row, Price said. “That is unacceptable, and that can never happen again, or heads need to roll, Mr. President. Heads need to roll,” he said (Price did not respond to requests for comment through board liaisons or on his social media.)
At the October meeting, another regent, Derrick M. Mitchell, warned against how accreditors could perceive the board’s hiring and firing of staff members. “We don’t want to put ourselves, Chairman, in a position where SACS looks at us as micromanagers,” he said.
A third regent, Wesley G. Terrell, disagreed: “We can terminate everybody, even down to the janitor, if it’s the will of the board.” (He did not respond to requests for comment.)
Minutes later, the regents approved the new bylaws.
Ellen E. Chaffee, a college-governance consultant, told The Chronicle that the board’s policy deviates sharply from best practices and raises numerous concerns. “I’ve read dozens of board bylaws, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Chaffee, a former president of Valley City State University and Mayville State University, both in North Dakota.
“It would be very easy for them to play favorites, to violate employment rights and tenure rights,” she continued. “I don’t know why they would want to do this.”
Even setting aside those major concerns, Chaffee said, it would be impractical for volunteer board members to evaluate every university employee. The trustees aren’t qualified to do that, she said, and, even if they were, they would not have time to do it effectively.
A policy of this kind, Chaffee said, could run afoul of regional accreditation standards.
“They are supposed to make sure the policies are in place for proper functioning,” she said. “They are not responsible for any particular position except the president. That is probably explicitly in all accrediting requirements.”
Looking Ahead
The accreditor’s site visit is coming at a tumultuous time for Texas Southern’s leadership. In the fall, board members advised Lane, who has been in office since 2016, that they had been in touch with local law enforcement in connection to “improprieties” in admissions.
The university disclosed in November that one person connected to admissions had been fired, and it announced that the board had begun a “full and comprehensive review” of admissions, including enrollment, financial aid, and scholarships. In January the board held a seven-hour meeting with a university auditor, investigators, and independent counsel, and the board’s audit committee recommended that Lane be placed on administrative leave. Board statements have not directly tied Lane’s leave to the admissions investigations.
Lane was standing outside the board meeting when a colleague called and told him of the board’s action, he recalled to The Chronicle. “It was pretty embarrassing,” he said. Shortly after, he and his special assistant, Wendell Williams, drove to a nearby restaurant to debrief. About 10 minutes after they arrived, Williams said, he got word from the university’s human-resources department that he had been fired.
He looked at his former boss and said, “I just was terminated.”
It is not clear who ordered Williams’s dismissal — the board, exercising its new powers, or the acting president. On Monday Williams said he did not know. (Last year he filed a complaint against Terrell after the board member asked him about his wife and, separately, complimented her on her attire, he said on Monday. The comments struck Williams as inappropriate. Terrell told the Houston Chronicle that Williams’s complaint was a “complete lie” and declined to say whether the board had been involved in firing Williams.)
Expanding board authority to allow regents to hire and fire university employees is “not good for higher education,” Lane said on Monday, adding that accreditors are clear about what board responsibilities are acceptable. “I think that’s for SACS and the institution to hammer out.”
It is not clear what prompted the admissions review. When Lane took office, one of his earliest priorities was to raise enrollment. He succeeded, and quickly. Enrollment jumped from 8,862 in the fall of 2016 to more than 10,200 in the fall of 2017. Lane said in an interview that the university doesn’t have any problems with admissions and has “nothing to hide.”
“I’m ready to get back to work and be reinstated,” he said.
James M. Douglas, the university’s president in the late 1990s, and a former interim dean of the Texas Southern law school under Lane, said he does not believe that the board has used its new powers.
If it had done so, he said, faculty members would be concerned.
“The best procedure is to leave the management of the university to the president,” he said. Still, he trusts the board, he added. “They haven’t done anything so far that would cause me a lot of concern.”
Jack Stripling contributed reporting to this article.
