UT President Bill Powers told to resign or be fired, sources say

As a Texas Ex, I find it frustrating to see the governor going along with this pissing match at UT. I think that one of the reasons UT and A&M are two great flagship schools for the state are the investments made in both academia and career-prep majors. To force UT to change its philosophy is short-sighted and, frankly, I don't understand where the desire stems from.

 

Don't worry Perry is just a salty Aggie who couldn't get into UT Austin, like most of them are.

Plus he's an idiot.

 

Different opinions on the importance of saving pretzels for the gas jets, I'm sure.

 

The problem, and it's a problem throughout state government where the governor makes appointments, is that Perry has been governor for so long that the checks and balances intended to limit the appointments of one particular governor simply don't work. Staggered terms? He's been there so long that it makes no difference. No one expected a governor to be governor for over a decade. The system is broken. Here we have regents appointed by Perry, no doubt being pressured behind the scenes to dump Powers because Perry wants him gone, going against the wishes of a clear majority of Texas Exes. Powers is popular, but doesn't jive with the politics of most of the regents and Perry. This is purely a political power play. The popularity of Powers within the university community, and with alumni, is the only reason he has remained as long as he has, in my humble opinion.

This is a farsical tragedy and incredibly damaging to the University of Texas.

 

Yup this is a political fight that has been ongoing since 2011. Since that time, Perry has been able to stack the deck and stack the deck in the board of regents. Let's not forget when Perry forced out that one Texas Tech Regent for supporting his gubernatorial rival he expects fealty from regents to him - not fiduciary duty to the universities they serve. Now that Perry will be leaving he wants to make sure the deed is done.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/terminator

 

The word is "jibe" not "jive". Unless you're referring to swing music.

carry on.

 

That has too be one of the ****tiest articles I've ever seen written. How does it not even mention the admissions scandal Powers is involved in? Its pretty much the entire reason Powers is being fired and the article just fails to mention it.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/07/04/texas-celebrates-fourth-of-july-by-ousti

Hall has been fighting corrupt Bill Powers for about 3 years. Glad to see Hall won.

 

Did you go to UT, tallanvor?

 

nope. why?

 

then you know nothing

 

You speak English your way, and I'll speak English my way, you jive turkey.

 

This is spin pure and simple. If you think that the mere starting of an investigation that might link Powers to admission of politically connected students is reason for firing, you probably think we should impeach Obama because Issa has begun investigations into Benghazi or the IRS. The blogger that you linked to and the Daily Caller piece that that blogger linked to presume guilt without even any recommendation because they would like no other result. If Powers is found at fault in some sizable way, the a resignation could possibly be in order.

In other news, Regent Hall, the Perry crony and donor who has been leading this witch hunt is actually already been found to have engaged in impeachable offenses:

http://www.house.state.tx.us/_media...n-Transparency-in-State-Agency-Operations.pdf

Kind of a fascinating report to read. While they found certain violations giving rise to ground for impeachment, they rejected others.

 

obvious. this isn't about an admissions scandal. it's wallace hall picking up every tiny rock he can to chuck at bill powers, so perry can get his wish at dumping UT and A&M into a lower tier, one-size-fits-all "upper" education box.

why would a guy like hall put his own career at stake unless the reward is so great?

ask jeff sandefer and his potentially profitable new model of ultra-private, upper-echelon education.

 

they presume guilt because of the analysis done by Hall and Cassidy.

Here is Cassidy's findings

Wallace Hall refers to direct evidence of emails and documents (these aren't public)

you didn't answer my 'why' question at all.

 

So we presume some sort of fireable offense committed by Powers because two dudes, said so. One is Hall himself, a person who has currently found to have actually committed impeachable offenses. The other who works for Watchdog.org a non-profit group started by the Franklin Center in 2009 (An article published by the Columbia Journalism Review, in 2011, revealed that 95 percent of the Franklin Center’s revenues came from the liberty advocacy group DonorsTrust, whose top contributors were Libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch). Even presuming we think that they are 100% right that Powers had knowledge of or personally cleared the admissions, the offense they seem to think is such a big deal is that people with connections who had lower qualifications got into the flag ship Texas law school. I'm outraged that people with connections or with good experience would get into schools that they are not academically qualified for. To think that an admissions officers might possibly look at non-academic factors. Heads must roll!

 

No you presume it based off the evidence they provide. In fact who they are is almost completely irrelevant.

 

As a UT law graduate and a former student of Powers, I don't think the charges leveled against him will be proven true.

And that article tallanvor posted seems weak for any number of reasons that anyone who's actually passed the bar and become a lawyer can attest to.

 

Here is what you said earlier:

Once again, where in the "analysis" they provide do you get that Power's is guilty of some crime or some sort of lawless behavior?

Here is all that intrepid Cassidy et. al have to say:

All I see from their conclusion is that they found that people who they deemed had political experience and connections before entering law school failed the bar at a higher rate than the rest of the law school population. Here is the question, so what? The amount of presumptions they use in their "analysis" our staggering. They presume that these people failed because they were under qualified and because they were underqualified they leveraged connections to get into law school. Their methodology or "analysis" doesn't get at the fact that there are tons of people that get law degrees that fail the bar because they spend their time doing other things like working in politics when they should be studying. E.g. Hillary Clinton.

Even assuming that they aren't torturing the data and spinning presumption into fact, point to me where in the "analysis" you provided from Cassidy that makes you presume Powers' guilt in some sort of crime or fireable offense? Christ, you are clowning yourself so badly here it pains me. I feel no schadenfreude, just discomfort