Once again, Abbott Kneecaps Higher Ed. Accountability....

"He who covers his sins will not prosper,
But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy."
Proverbs 28:13

See no evil....

An era of disunity on the University of Texas System Board of Regents could soon be ending, as the most controversial member of the board, Wallace Hall, and his two closest ideological allies have been passed over for reappointment to the board.

On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott chose to name three new regents, including recently retired state Sen. Kevin Eltife, a Republican from Tyler.

....

That means the tenures of Hall, Regent Alex Cranberg and Regent Brenda Pejovich will soon likely end, as long as the Senate opts to confirm the appointees.

In addition to Eltife, Abbott named Rad Weaver, CEO of the company owned by UT-Austin mega-donor Red McCombs, and Janiece Longoria, a former vice chair of the UT System board.

It’s no surprise that Hall has not been reappointed. But it’s still a major development for the UT System. His six-year tenure has been a time of near constant strife. He clashed frequently with Bill Powers, the man who was president of UT-Austin for much of Hall’s tenure. And more recently, he sued current UT System Chancellor Bill McRaven to win access to confidential student records.

Hall’s time helped lead to some major changes. Most notably, he helped bring to light a scandal at UT-Austin over the admission of students with powerful connections who might not have been qualified.

Read the whole thing here.

Bottom Line: We'll have more to say in due time, but we must say that appointing a former Senator is a particularly audacious act of mendacity.

Paxton backs Hall (again) on Government Transparency!!!

"He who covers his sins will not prosper,
But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy."
Proverbs 28:13

Fantastic, via the Daily Texan:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and two UT System Board of Regents members filed court briefs last week in favor of Regent Wallace Hall’s lawsuit against Chancellor William McRaven.

This is Hall’s second appeal in the case regarding McRaven’s refusal to divulge private student information from an investigation about student admissions led by Hall.

....

Paxton said he has fully supported Hall’s efforts to gain access to confidential student records. In previous court briefs, Paxton said University regents have a right to access University information to fulfill their duty as regents and he continues to hold this opinion going into Hall’s second appeal.

“The attorney general previously issued an attorney general opinion holding that University regents have a right of access to University information to fulfill their fiduciary duty to the University,” Kayleigh Lovvorn, media relations for Paxton, said in an email.

Paxton continues to hold this opinion going into Hall’s second appeal, Lovvorn said.

“Both the Board’s rules and Texas law ensure that Regent Hall can only use the information he obtains for legitimate educational interests, providing a criminal penalty for the use or disclosure of information that has not been made public,” Paxton said in his court brief. “The University has no basis to assume the information requested will be used in a way as to violate state and federal privacy laws.”

Hall said in his lawsuit System officials don’t have the power to restrict a regent’s access to information, but the Board of Regents voted 6-3 in favor of denying him access in 2015.

Read the whole thing here.

UT Regents Modestly Improve Campus Carry Policy

Greg Fenves discussing gun-free zones with Wallace Hall

"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you;"
1 Peter 4:12

In politics, as in life, one advantage to low expectations is that occasionally they are exceeded; this morning's UT Board of Regents meeting, much like the whole campus carry process, cleared that hurdle.

During public testimony, C.J. Grisham of Open Carry Texas delivered remarks with which we largely concur.  C.J. said that the campus carry implementation group led by President Fenves "by and large" did a good job [Author's Note: By U.T. Standards].  Nevertheless, C.J. re-iterated the longstanding concerns related to the prohibition of firearms in dormitories and pointed out that requiring gun safes would solve the issues that were the alleged basis of the continuing prohibition.

C.J. Grisham talking with Chancellor McRaven

At their May meeting, the Regents punted on two motions to amend the policy.  Vice Chairman Jeffrey Hildebrand revived the first motion to remove a proposed prohibition on chambered rounds.  That motion sailed through 7-2, though it's worth pointing out that Steve Hicks and Sarah Martinez Tucker [Author's Note: Abbott Appointees.] carried water for the politburo.  Speaking of Sarah Martinez Tucker, during public testimony she went out of her way to congratulate two anti-Second Amendment students who re-iterated their opposition to firearms under any conditions.

(Abbott appointee) Regent Sarah Martinez Tucker congratulates anti-Second Amendment student

Wallace Hall did something awesome.  Responding to the previously discussed worries about the continuing prohibition of self-defense in dormitories, Regent Hall introduced a motion to prohibit gun-free zones anywhere on campus.  Brenda Pejovich seconded.  The motion was doomed from the start, but it's still pretty badass that Wallace Hall made them vote on it.  In the event of future litigation, let the record very clearly state that Regents Hall and Pejovich voted against gun-free zones on campus.

Regent Wallace Hall

Following Hall's motion related to campus-wide gun free zones, Alex Cranberg offered a more narrowly tailored motion over written signage to prohibit self-defense in faculty offices.  Hall asked Fenves "is there any downside" to removing ambiguity?!?  Fenves said that verbal notice was sufficient to comply with the law and deflected Hall's inquiry with a vague statement about not wanting to dictate office aesthetics to individual faculty members.  Hall subtly, but unmistakably, pointed out the hypocrisy of faculty members who are unwilling to advertise their own offices as gun-free zones.  In addition, Cranberg got Fenves to admit that a faculty member would have to individually inform each visitor to their office about an office prohibition without signage to satisfy the law.  Without explicit verbal prohibition every single time a visitor enters, the status of the office is actually in legal limbo.  Ultimately, Cranberg joined Hall and Pejovich in voting "aye," but the motion failed 3-6.

Maybe we have Stockholm syndrome.  Maybe we're grading them on a curve.  Nevertheless, at least by U.T. standards, we found the campus carry implementation process to be reasonably transparent and the final policy to be less than reprehensible.

Bottom Line: What was it a certain former Governor said about "the soft bigotry of low expectations"?!?

[Author's Note: You can read the system's press release here.]

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Following the campus carry discussion, Chancellor McRaven gave a brief update on the ongoing Houston debacle 'stakeholder process.'  McRaven's two minute address was littered with buzzwords and cliches.  The phrases "generational effort" and "wide range of possibilities" stood out.

Cranberg and Pejovich join Wallace Hall's lawsuit

"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."
Galatians 6:9

Some good news:

First, the state attorney general sided with University of Texas System Regent Wallace Hall Jr. in his court battle to obtain records of an investigation into admissions improprieties. Now, two frequent Hall allies on the Board of Regents and two former chairmen of the board have thrown in with him. 

Regents Alex Cranberg and Brenda Pejovich and former chairmen Charles Miller and Gene Powell filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week backing Hall’s lawsuit against UT System Chancellor Bill McRaven. The chancellor contends that Hall is not entitled to see confidential student records of the investigation into favoritism in admissions at UT-Austin. 

“The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (‘FERPA’) does not trump the need for individual regents to have access to such information for purposes of fulfilling their duties and responsibilities as Regents of the UT System,” lawyers for the four wrote in the brief. “While universities’ misapplications of FERPA to avoid disclosing negative or embarrassing information to the press have become increasingly common over the past several decades, this is the first time an educational institution has invoked FERPA against its very own regent. ”

Read the whole thing here.

HEAVILY REDACTED e-mails illustrate UT System's CONTEMPT for Texas Senate

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows..
1 Timothy 6:10

In our interview last week, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick expressed dismay at the timing of the recent proposed UT tuition increase.  The Lt. Governor called the timing of the tuition announcement, "[b]efore they had even cashed the checks we'd sent to them," "offensive."  Yesterday afternoon at 5:00pm (*), we received e-mails as part of an open records request that revealed the offense against the Texas Senate was even greater than the Lt. Governor had realized.

On October 2nd, the day of the U.T. system's announcement of the tuition increase, we filed several open records requests for Regental communications on the subject of tuition.  The overwhelming majority of that request is currently at the Attorney General's office.  The e-mails the U.T. system released to us yesterday don't reveal much about the decision making process, but they did contain an interesting nugget about timing.

Some relevant history: Lt. Governor Patrick's consternation is rooted in the fact that, this past session, the 84th legislature passed something called Tuition Revenue Bonds (which, for the record, we opposed at the time).  The short explanation of TRB's is that they are a controversial financial instrument universities can use to borrow against future tuition revenue to fund construction projects.  In addition to TRB's, the 84th #TXLEGE provided RECORD funding levels to higher education through the traditional appropriations process.

Some important dates: The Texas Senate initially passed HB 100, the TRB bill, on May 19th.  The Texas Senate passed the HB 100 conference committee report on May 30th.  The 84th Texas Legislature adjourned sine die on June 1st.

We highlight these dates because of the following e-mail (page 99 of 106) U.T. Chancellor Bill McRaven wrote to Regents Alex Cranberg and Jeffrey Hildebrand regarding tuition at U.T's Rio Grande Valley campus ON MAY 20TH:

Remember, TRB's initially passed the Texas Senate on May 19th, which means Bill McRaven was mucking around with tuition literally the next day.

Bottom Line: Chutzpah, thy name is U.T.

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* -- Friday at 5pm...CLASSIC U.T!!!

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Author's Note: There is circumstantial evidence from the released e-mails that suggests the U.T. Regents were seriously considering tuition increases as early as March 27th (NOTE: Abbott's regent nominees were confirmed March 11th) but due to redaction that's something we can only speculate about rather than prove.

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Read the full collection of e-mails below:

U.T. Tuition hike -- First batch of Regent e-mails

U.T. Politburo picks a fight with Patrick

"Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall."
Proverbs 16:18

They really ARE that arrogant.

Yesterday, in a 7-2 vote (Wallace Hall and Alex Cranberg voting Nay), the University of Texas Board of Regents did the following:

UT institutions get first go-ahead in four years to propose tuition increases

AUSTIN —The UT System Board of Regents authorized UT institutions to present proposals for increases to tuition and fees for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 at a special-called board meeting Friday. 

Most UT System in-state undergraduate students have seen little to no increase in tuition since fall 2012 and no increases in mandatory student fees since 2011. However, Chancellor William H. McRaven said the System’s academic institutions now are facing the need for significant additional resources because of the increase in costs associated with operating a university campus and the decline in per-student state appropriations over the last decade. 

“Maintaining and increasing access to a college education remains one of our guiding missions. It is a mission shared by our legislators, who offered significant additional support for higher education in the last session. But even with this state funding, our institutions – which have done a tremendous job of increasing efficiency and holding the line on costs – have reached a breaking point,” McRaven said. “If we want UT institutions to continue to be nationally competitive against their peers and offer a top-notch education, we have to provide them with more financial flexibility.”

 They did so in direct defiance of Lt. Governor Patrick, who had stated the day before:

"It is my hope, instead of looking at ways to potentially raise tuition in the future, they will look for ways to make college education more affordable for students and families across Texas. I encourage them to remember that we must keep the cost of college tuition at a level that is within reach of all Texans. With the dramatic increase in funding from the legislature this session, I am surprised that they are already looking at ways to raise tuition on students."

They did so at a time when the football team is 1-3 (*).

They did so at a time when the University is middle of the pack (at best) in Academics.

They did so at a time when they've been given historic levels of Funding from the legislature, an additional slush fund, and when they have the second largest endowment in the nation.

It's NEVER enough, because these people's avarice, corruption, and greed knows no limits.

Still, this could be a turning point.

The Texas Senate has TREMENDOUS authority over the state's public universities.  Senator Charles Schwertner's tuition deregulation repeal bill could easily become a priority.  And let's not forget, four of the candidates running for the open seat in SD-24 have already expressed a willingness to vote against Governor Abbott's next round of Regent nominees.

And yes, we did predict this EXACT chain of events back in March.

Bottom Line: It's their funeral.
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(*) -- NOTE: This post was written shortly before kickoff of the TCU game today.  It doesn't take it into account.  That being said, if they lose to TCU today (which seems likely), it applies all the more so to a 1-4 team.

Wallace Hall at NE Tarrant Tea Party

"The wicked flee when no one pursues,
But the righteous are bold as a lion.?
Proverbs 28:1

Wallace Hall spoke to the NE Tarrant Tea Party last week; start with Hall's prepared remarks:



Highlights:

• "There hasn't been a lot to be optimistic about" in Texas govt. the past few years.

• "Being a Regent is a significant responsibility that should be taken very serious [sic]."

• "It is not sufficient to treat the role of regent as an honorary post."

• $15 billion annual budget, over 200k students in full UT system.

• "It is critical that the funding under our direction is not wasted."

• Insisted on following National Accounting Standards.
• UT restated their financials by over $200 million.
• Author's Note: Personally, out of all the UT scandals Wallace has uncovered, we think this one is the worst. 

• Blew the whistle on "forgivable loan" program.

• Sought "proper compliance with the Texas Public Information Act."
• "Incredibly, three years after this effort has begun, the project remains a work in progress."

• Procurement irregularities related to no-bid contracts.

• The admissions stuff.

• "The most prominent attempt to stop me was in the form of a campaign by House speaker Joe Straus to impeach me."
• Assisted by (the disgraced) Jim Pitts and Dan Branch.

• Bill Powers created "a phalanx of defenders."

• For the past 10 years, UT Austin has "languished."

• "Regents are either too intimidated or disinterested to perform their regental duties, this is made worse when board members see it as their duty to block honest inquiry because they fear exposing friends and/or politicians."

• "It is one thing for board members to sit by while others ask uncomfortable questions (or, in other words, perform their duties), it is something else for board members to encourage opposition to other board members who ask uncomfortable questions."
• "Unfortunately, that is what is taking place on our board."
• "Our board leadership consistently has pushed for more and more rule changes that restrict, if not make impossible, efforts by Regents to obtain information."

• Only gets: "Spoon-fed, redacted, information."

• "Opacity is our enemy."

• Runs through Criminalization of Politics
• Stickland
• MQS
• Perry
• Paxton
• Literally the next day, Jane Nelson was added to the list.
• ALL INITIATED BY STRAUS OR HIS ALLIES.

Q&A with Jonathan Stickland:

Highlights:

• Perry was very insistent that costs were too high.

• No idea he would find what he found heading in.

• "The big pink building" was when he couldn't function as a fiduciary.

• Stickland: "They knew the message, they just reject conservative principles."

• Gene Powell "was terrific."

• Cranberg, Pejovich also "terrific."

• "Senator Zaffirini would make some condescending comment to the press."

• Stickland: UT gave an "incredible" spread to legislators.
• "Amazing to me" how many people this was the only issue they cared about.
• They kept impeachment "completely away from Jonathan Stickland."

• Value of a discretionary seat at UT-Austin has increased tremendously over the past two decades.

• UT-Austin: 24,000 employees for 50,000 students.
• "I still don't know the answer for that."

• Straus' offer: Walked over to Gov's [Perry] office and said 7 reasons to impeach.
• Jessie Ancira called Perry's Chief of Staff and said the whole thing would go away if Wallace resigned.

• Wallace: "Governor Perry has been a stalwart."
• Stickland: "On this issue."

• "Our board never got to speak to the [Kroll] investigators."

• The Board has never discussed admissions or the Kroll report.

• Gets anonymous calls and e-mails "frequently."

• Stickland plugs Bo French.

• Stickland: UT still stonewalling the Lege.

• Stickland: Establishment tries to make examples out of ringleaders.

• "If they don't do what they said somehow there's this really complicated explanation...."

• "There's no use trying to persuade people once they've gone down that path, all you can do is replace them."

• Tenure reform something else the Board hasn't discussed.

At McRaven's bidding, regents stiff Hall (and Paxton); change rules....

"Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 13:40-42

At today's meeting, the U.T. Board of Regents held a three hour executive session where they (predictably) sandbagged Attorney General Paxton; then, in an act of chutzpah led by Mr. McRaven and Steve Hicks, they changed the rules to shut down further inquiry from Wallace Hall.



Highlights:

• Cranberg: "Unnecessarily Neutering"; chilling.

• Analogous to "getting rid of the turbulent priest."

• McRaven: As the C.E.O. "I will look into it."
• Author's Note: Just like you did with Seal Team 6 and Bill Powers.

• Cranberg: Longer running "journey of discovery."

• Hall: Change designed to thwart Regents from performing their fiduciary duties.

• Cranberg: The Kroll report never would have happened if this rule had been in place.\

• Pejovich: Regents received rule changes less than 24 hours ago.

• Hall: Outcome of last meeting "reinterpreted after the fact."
• "This is not the way fiduciary responsibility is carried out."

• Rule change passes 6-3

Awesome Sauce from Wallace Hall

"Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you."
Deuteronomy 31:6

(Update 4/9/2015) -- Watchdog has more here.

U.T. System Headquarters -- This afternoon, the U.T. Board of Regents held a special called meeting to discuss requests made by Wallace Hall in relation to the Kroll Report.  Regent Hall was seeking to see records the Kroll team used and to discuss those records with Kroll.  While the post-Abbott appointee board denied most of his requests, Wallace Hall's dogged pursuit of the U.T. politburo was marvelous to witness firsthand.

Highlights:

• Politburo says a new contract would be needed for Wallace Hall to meet with Kroll.

• McRaven: "I had my opportunity to adjudicate the [Kroll] report."
• Author's Note: And you did nothing.

• Hall: Kroll Report "remains, in my mind, a source of confusion."
• "I seek to inform myself, ask questions, and gain a fuller understanding of this matter."

• Shorter Steve Hicks: Shut up and listen to the Chancellor.

• Cranberg: Not a close call; don't block any regent from seeking information.
• New admissions policy at next meeting.
• No opportunity to ask Kroll directly.

• Hall: Offer McRaven claims to have made never happened, would have said yes if offered.

• McRaven: Kroll report is closed.
• Attempts to obfuscate Cranberg's point.

• Hall: There were several other categories of holds he didn't know about.

• U.T. wasn't under contract with Kroll in relation to Van Taylor's question.

• Hall: Follow-up is a regular part of a business relationship.

• Need for another contract is U.T.'s position, not Kroll's.

• Shorter McRaven: 
  

• Shorter Paul Foster: Shut up and listen to the chancellor.

• Beck: Regents can't ask for meetings with third parties.

• Hall: Regents asking questions is not an investigation.

  - I don't know what's in there till I read it.

  
  

  - Why wouldn't you give a member of the board the same treatment you gave to a member of the legislature?!? 

  
  

• Foster: All of your inquiries are an investigation.

• Hall: I tried to do this in the past and was rebuffed.
• "I don't know what we're afraid of."

• Tucker: Something, something, clarifying questions, something, something digging deeper.

• Hall: "I don't know what documents exist, that's the dilemma."

• Foster: I don't know there's a need to continue asking questions.