When a University Regent Tries to Blow the Whistle: The Wallace Hall Case

The John William Pope Center
George Leef
Dec. 7, 2016

Like all public universities, the University of Texas has a governing body that is supposed to oversee its management—the Board of Regents. Trouble can arise when a member of such a governing body takes his job seriously and tries to investigate action by the university president that influential people would rather stay hidden.

One member of the UT Board of Regents who believes that he should look for threats to the integrity of the university and diligently pursue any he finds is Wallace Hall. Mr. Hall, a graduate of UT himself, was appointed to the University of Texas Board of Regents in February 2011.

It wasn’t long before he began to suspect corruption and mismanagement.

First, there was a scandal involving a large slush fund run by the dean of the law school, allowing him to hand out “forgivable loans” to select faculty members. The university’s president, William Powers, promised an investigation by an in-house lawyer, who dutifully produced a “nothing to see here” report. Hall argued that the matter required a more objective assessment, but his complaints were ignored.

More... When a University Regent Tries to Blow the Whistle: The Wallace Hall Case — The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy


Education is a racket.

 

Very interesting story and it's funny that this guy was considered to be the "Most Dangerous Man in Texas". The guy is a modern day muckraker!

That being said, it is VERY ironic that he exposed admissions biases for the law school at the same time that the SCOTUS was using a UT-related case in its basis on racial preferences for college admissions.

I wonder how long he'll stick around the state. i wouldn't want to be in an area where so many "connected" people had it out for me...

 

I suspect he is most dangerous because there are many more rocks to be turned over. Too much money is being tossed around and that is 'public' money so no one has a direct interest in protecting it.

 

I agree to an extent. Most people gloss over this kind of stuff, assuming that governments are irresponsibly spending their money, anyways. Texas also doesn't have a state income tax so....there's that. However, if there turns out to be some BIGLY "rocks to turn over", perhaps the people of Texas will view him as more of a hero than as a threat.