A newly-created ombudsman’s office for institutions of higher education has received dozens of “harassing, obviously fake, and profane” complaints. Many other complaints fall outside the office’s jurisdiction.
The office in question falls under the Higher Education Coordinating Board. It was created under Senate Bill 37, signed into law last year.
According to documents obtained via an open records request, the ombudsman’s office has received 69 total complaints since January.
Most of these were filed during the first two weeks of operations.
More than 30 of these were ultimately resolved using various combinations of the terms “harassing,” “obviously fake,” and “profane.”
While the documents do not specify the political orientation of these complaints, online profanity is a well-documented left-wing tactic.
In addition to these politicized complaints, the office received many that were outside of its statutory jurisdiction.
The office’s statutory jurisdiction is limited to general education curriculum review, faculty council or senate, DEI Initiatives, responsibility of President/CEO for annual evaluations, grievance, hiring, discipline authority of President/CEO, and general education curriculum advisory committee.
Complaints also require evidence “to support the Statutory Complaint, such as copies of correspondence, enrollment agreements, course catalog information, and any other information believed to be relevant to the matter of the Statutory Complaint.”
Finally, complaints require “specific facts supporting the allegation, including relevant dates, identifying information regarding the individuals involved, and any supporting evidence in the individual’s possession.”
The ombudsman currently has one open investigation, based on a complaint that “the IHE’s academic assistance program, which is supposed to provide tutoring and academic support, is censoring conservative political speech while encouraging liberal political speech and antisemitic speech. Complainant was terminated from his position as Student Instructor after bringing up these concerns to the program supervisors. Complainant alleges the program is being operated as a DEI program in violation of TEC 51.3525.”
Texas’ Higher Education Coordinating Board oversees a variety of functions related to the state’s taxpayer-subsidized higher education institutions.
Complaints can be submitted online at the Office of the Ombudsman’s complaint portal.
