Texas A&M University is refusing to fulfill multiple open records requests related to a senior administrator who serves on the board of a national organization that promotes left-wing DEI themes.
Dr. Darby Roberts, Texas A&M’s director of student affairs, serves on the board of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). This organization claims to be a trade association for student affairs administrators.
As reported in June, NASPA held a conference in Austin that heavily promoted DEI concepts. This included panel discussions that explicitly drew upon “equity” and “inclusiveness,” alongside similar, though less politically charged, terminology such as “belonging” and “culturally relevant.”
On June 15, Texas Scorecard sent an open records request to Texas A&M for the following items from Roberts:
- Calendars from January 1, 2025, through the date the search is conducted.
- Communications involving the following keywords: “NASPA,” “National Association of Student Personnel Administrators,” “Equity,” “Trans,” “Abbott,” and “Systemic Barriers.”
On June 22, Texas A&M requested a timeline for the search, despite the fact that the dates were explicitly listed in the original request. Texas Scorecard replied on June 26.
On July 6, Texas A&M requested “additional clarification/narrowing” of the request due to “a voluminous amount of emails being found.” On July 7, Texas Scorecard narrowed the scope to exclude “Abbott” and “Trans.”
On July 22, Texas A&M stated that “After excluding ‘Abbott’ and ‘Trans’ from the list of key phrases, our query for responsive information still resulted in a voluminous amount of emails being found.” Texas Scorecard replied on July 27 by narrowing the timeline under consideration to one year prior to the original request.
On August 10, Texas A&M continued that “We are in need of additional clarification/narrowing regarding the communications portion of your request. A query for responsive information still resulted in a voluminous amount of emails being found.” Texas Scorecard replied on August 17 that the request would not be narrowed any further.
In addition, on July 22 Texas Scorecard sent a request for the following items:
- Calendars from June 15, 2026, through the date the search is conducted.
- Communications from June 15, 2026, through the date the search is conducted, involving the following keywords: “NASPA,” “National Association of Student Personnel Administrators,” “Equity,” “Trans,” “Abbott,” “Systemic Barriers.”
On August 10, Texas A&M replied that it would seek a ruling from the Texas attorney general in an attempt to withhold this information. Texas A&M stated that its objections fell under Chapter 552 of the Texas Government Code but did not elaborate further.
Finally, requests for Darby Roberts’ communications with campus President Susan Ballabina and Provost Alan Sams did not return any responsive records. This suggests that Texas A&M’s director of student affairs does not speak regularly with the institution’s president or chief academic officer.
Texas A&M University is a component of the Texas A&M University System. The Texas A&M System is overseen by a Board of Regents that is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate. Robert Albritton of Fort Worth is the current board chair.
