New information is emerging this morning that lays the growing legislative clout-abuse scandal at the feet of UT President Bill Powers.
At issue is a growing body of evidence that individuals with sub-par qualifications have been granted acceptance to UT based on their political relationships. Last week, Powers was told to resign or face termination.
He submitted his resignation yesterday, but that doesn’t stop investigations into clout abuse and other scandals.
The most dogged of those investigators has been UT Regent Wallace Hall, who uncovered the legislative clout abuse and — not surprisingly — finds himself the object of an impeachment effort for shining light on the abuses of House Speaker Joe Straus and his cronies on the UT admissions process.
Texas Monthly has profile of Hall online today. It’s an interesting read.
Most explosive is the claim by the author that, yes, a whistleblower has stepped forward with information that UT President Bill Powers “misled” investigators about his office’s role in the growing admissions scandal. (Breitbart Texas first reported on the existence of a new whistleblower in the admissions case.)
From the Texas Monthly article:
[A] well-placed source in the UT System said the real reason Cigarroa turned on Powers was because an individual with “intimate knowledge of UT’s admissions program” met with Cigarroa after the Office of General Counsel’s report was released. This individual said the lawyers in the Office of General Counsel had been misled by Powers and his deputies when they told the lawyers that they didn’t intervene in admissions. According to this individual, they sometimes went so far as to order officials in the admissions office to accept particular students—a charge that, if true, could explain Cigarroa’s decision to ask for Powers’s resignation.
We know now that scores of individuals with sub-par qualifications were nonetheless admitted to UT based on political relationships, and apparently after bypassing the normal admissions process and going through Powers’ office.
Which lawmakers? The Texas Monthly article names names — mostly allies of House Speaker Joe Straus.
The facts WILL come to light. Will regents and lawmakers be complicit in the corruption, or crusaders for honesty in government? The regents seem to be casting their lots with complacency today.
And the Legislature is still consumed with impeaching Wallace Hall for uncovering this betrayal of trust and power.
The University of Illinois clout-abuse scandal is looking tame in comparison…
Voters are going to demand a reckoning.
