Weekly Briefing

Records show outside groups influenced a botched hiring

Illustration by The Chronicle; photo by Zoonar GmbH, Alamy

Kathleen O. McElroy made a splash this summer when Texas A&M University announced it was reviving its journalism program by putting her at the department’s helm.

McElroy, a prominent Black journalist who spent years at The New York Times before becoming a tenured professor and director of the University of Texas at Austin’s journalism school, later turned down the offer from A&M after it was diluted from the original contract.

The situation at A&M turned heads across the country. It had echoes of the debacle at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, when an offer to another New York Times journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones, was derailed by conservative opponents. She eventually rejected Chapel Hill’s offer and went to Howard University.

McElroy’s hiring involved alumni groups and board members — groups that typically have little say in the hiring of a tenured faculty member. Documents published last week in a Texas A&M University investigation, and some provided in response to a Chronicle public-records request, show just how unusual this hiring process was. The resulting controversy also sank the institution’s president, M. Katherine Banks.

This case is just the latest in a troubling trend for faculty members, in which politicians and other external forces take an outsize interest in a public university’s work.

Trouble began early for McElroy’s hire. On May 11, José Luis Bermúdez, the now-former interim dean of Texas A&M’s College of Arts and Sciences, requested funds to re-establish the university’s journalism program. To help revive and expand the program, Bermúdez wanted to hire McElroy.

That evening he had dinner with Banks, then the president, according to text messages.

In a text to Hart Blanton, head of A&M’s communication and journalism department, Bermúdez said that he and Banks had decided to delay the hiring until after the Texas state legislative session adjourned in late May. Bermúdez, who declined to comment to The Chronicle, wrote to Hart that the Times connection would be “poor optics” for Texas lawmakers. Still, the search committee recommended McElroy in April, and some department heads even congratulated Bermúdez for recruiting McElroy.

As the hiring was delayed, McElroy grew frustrated, according to documents. After a June announcement that she was taking the tenured position, an article by a university student was published by the Texas Scorecard, a conservative news site. The story describes her as a supporter of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Texas’ governor had just signed a new law banning DEI officers at the state’s public colleges.

That’s when the alarm bells from the Board of Regents sounded. At least two members voiced their concerns to administrators.

Jay Graham, a member of the Board of Regents, texted Banks and John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M system, “I thought the purpose of us starting a journalism department was to get high-quality Aggie journalist [sic] with conservative values into the market,” he wrote. “This won’t happen with someone like this leading the department.”

Michael A. Hernandez III, another regent, emailed Banks and Sharp, writing that McElroy was, “exactly the opposite of what we had in mind for someone in that position.”

Vickie Spillers, executive director of the regents’ office, did not respond to a request for comment from The Chronicle.

Two alumni groups — the Sul Ross Group and the Rudder Association — also texted Bermúdez that they didn’t favor McElroy. Both alumni groups have several conservative members.

Banks texted Bermúdez to prepare for “more press and awful emails.”

Read what happened next in our Zachary Schermele’s full story here.

Lagniappe

• Play. This new interactive game has you place significant historical events in chronological order. You’ll be surprised that some moments happened later or earlier than you thought. Did you know that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was enacted just in 1974? I figured legislation that famously gave women equal access to credit happened earlier than it did! (The New York Times)
• Read. Many workers are worried about the rise of artificial intelligence. This article explains the existential problem AI has created in Hollywood. (Bloomberg)

—Fernanda