Trustee Who Verifies

We have long held that trustees don’t do nearly enough to act as a reality check on the universities they are entrusted with. Of course, when one comes along, the universities don’t like it one bit.

“The University of Texas system has spent the past two years airing plenty of dirty laundry, and that is thanks in large part to Wallace L. Hall Jr.,” Jack Stripling reports in The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Mr. Hall, who was appointed to the Texas Board of Regents in 2011, has made it his mission to look into the dark corners of the university, focusing much of his attention on the flagship campus in Austin, where Mr. Hall has questioned spending and admissions decisions.”

“With the gusto of a muckraking reporter, the Texas businessman has spent hours and hours sifting through boxes of university documents, searching for evidence of sweetheart deals or even cover-ups.”

Putative muck-raking journalists might take note: We’ve covered UT-Austin for years— There’s no shortage of material there.

Not too surprisingly, Hall’s efforts have earned him the enmity of both the academic and political establishment. Last year, the nominally Republican Speaker of the House, Joe Straus, commissioned high-powered Houston attorney Rusty Hardin to investigate, not the UT system, but Hall himself.

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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