When University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall uncovered abuse of the admissions process at the Austin campus, he was ruthlessly attacked by powerful members of the legislature and threatened with both impeachment and criminal investigation. Now, Hall is speaking out, and naming names.

In a speech to the North East Tarrant Tea Party, Hall told members that the trail of abuse leads directly to House Speaker Joe Straus.

“There was a time that I figured out how admissions work,” explained Hall. “I decided to exercise my right as a private citizen, and I used the Texas [Public] Information Act, and I made a request to get the letters and communications by and between President Powers and his office and any politicians over the last 4 years or 5 years, and you would have thought I set off an atomic explosion.”

Many lawmakers wanted Hall to end his inquiry and go away. The Texas House began proceedings attempting to impeach Hall and remove him from office for his efforts.

In an interview format moderated by State Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R–Hurst), Hall expounded on what it took to stand up to the attacks on his character.

“The pressure came from the politicians. There was a fight that had started that I didn’t even understand. I was just asking questions…but this group wasn’t interested in us playing in the sandbox at all.”

(A video of the presentation is available below.)

Based on the letters received from Hall’s information request, the UT Board of Regents launched an internal review of the admissions process at UT Austin. Eventually, the review showed that if an applicant included a certain letter from a politician, that applicant had a 300% higher chance of admission.

Despite that shocking revelation, UT has done little to remedy the problem. The liberal media has mostly been silent or has given cover to the corruption.

When the former chancellor of the University of Texas System stood up and called for an independent investigation, the investigators found that the UT president and his chief of staff had lied to the Board of Regents and the public during the internal review. However, Hall revealed that the Board never got to speak to the investigators during the process and never publicly discussed the admissions scandal.

“Then what were you talking about?” Stickland asked Hall, jokingly.

Stickland asked Hall to address the accusations that he was just there to tear down the University and attack certain legislators.

Hall explained that he never set out to attack any specific legislators, but through the process of asking simple questions and seeing the overreactions to those questions, he was better able to figure out who all was involved.

As soon as Hall started asking the right questions, the politicians connected with the scandal began impeachment proceedings against him.

Hall repeated a story about a conversation between the offices of House Speaker Joe Straus and then-Gov. Rick Perry. Straus reportedly told Perry’s office the impeachment charges against Hall would go away if the governor could force Hall’s resignation. Straus has denied he made the offer.

“The idea that they would hang a false accusation over my head in an effort to coerce me to leave the board and coerce the governor for that matter to ask me to step down…I thought that was terrible. They came after me to make an example of me.”

Hall told the audience that lawmakers responsible for the admissions abuse, and who participated in the cover-up, must be held responsible.

“I don’t know how you can have accountability unless somebody pays some meaningful price for bad behavior,” said Hall. “We need to bring the integrity back to the process so the people of Texas, the applicants, and the kids know when they apply that it’s a level playing field. Replace the bad candidates…with people who will do what they say. The rest is nibbling at the edges.”

Faith Bussey

Faith Bussey is a mom, a grassroots activist, a writer, and a consultant. She is passionate about limiting government in the lives of every Texan.

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