Will King Lane lose his kingdom?
On Monday, November 18, 2019 the Board of Regents met for a closed door, unscheduled meeting. Sometimes unexpected things happen
and unscheduled meetings need to be called for, so this wasn't really unusual
for the BOR to meet without scheduling but what made it so unusual was that King
Lane, nor Provost Harris nor Wendel Williams (the President's confidant) were
invited or possibly not even allowed to be in the meeting which makes us give
deep pause and wonder- is King Lane on his way to the exit lane?
Bear with us as we reminisce on the past 3.5 years of King Lane's tenure:
1) Tried to get the BOR to approve a $2.5 million mansion for his family and him to live in despite already receiving several thousand dollars a month in living stipend. King Lane brought up the mansion proposal on at least 3 separate BOR meetings unsuccessfully.
2) Spent $100,000 on Rockets courtside basketball tickets
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/04/confirmed-president-lane-buys-100k.html
3) Had to do 2 "do-overs" on several school dean searches, notably the law school, SOPA and Jones Business school. Either King Lane was dissatisfied with the final pickings or he picked some very wrong individuals and they either were under pressure to resign or outright terminated and we had to do the dean search all over again.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-never-ending-story-of-never-ending.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-case-of-disappeared-dean.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/02/rumble-and-stumble-in-sopa-dean-seach.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/11/sopa-dean-searchun-deux.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/11/new-colabs-dean-search-committee.html
4) Rumored to have either lied repeatedly or obscured the truth regarding total enrollment at TSU to BOR. This affects our funding also from the DOE and Texas and harms the relationship between the president and the BOR which is critical for getting things done.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/01/will-real-enrollment-numbers-please.html
5) Too many problems with the law school accreditation.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-law-school-saga-continues.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/03/aba-accreditation-problems-at-our-law.html
6) Law school admissions scandal- https://abc13.com/education/tsu-law-school-tied-to-admissions-improprieties-sources/5705898/
7) Muzzled and threatened (through the Provost office) some of the faculty through vague insubordination terminology of "mass emails" when faculty were simply expressing their First Amendment right and also wanted to make sure other faculty knew about goings-on campus which in many cases the Lane regime appeared to try and hide. One faculty member appears to have been suspended indefinitely as we wrote a few months ago and may never come back to campus due to "mass emails" and “insubordination”.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-dangerous-new-weapon-used-by-king-lane.html
7) Suspicious and sudden changes in several high and mid-level administrators, some of whom appeared to have left TSU with a cloud of suspicion regarding possibly unethical and illegal activities. This includes at least one possible dean (our very first post) and possibly at least one more dean.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-case-of-disappeared-dean.html
8) Brought in Koch Brothers money which has corrupted and destroyed the morale and fabric of too many universities and which has resulted in either lawsuits or severe disagreements among faculty and administrators at George Mason, Auburn and Florida State. There may even be a lawsuit at TSU involving the CJR. The Koch money which established the Center for Justice Research and has harmed the university's reputation irrevocably, especially with the recent Houston Chronicle articles and the 31 academics who have condemned the Center's decision to put forth spurious and biased research, possibly to advance a neo-conservative agenda which is certainly not friendly to academics and definitely not friendly to an HBCU.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Report-Harris-DA-s-office-overburdened-14302364.php
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Academics-raise-concerns-about-report-finding-14539787.php
https://www.prosecutorreport.com/
https://www.prosecutorreport.com/note
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-center-for-justice-research-stands.html
9) Manipulated and controlled the Faculty Senate and it's former President- Dr. Javus Cavil- until he was defeated by Professor Wu recently. Dr. Cavil was successfully able to block several key items the faculty senate wanted to be delivered to King Lane, either by not placing them on the agenda or he would drag the meetings on until the items would need to be tabled until the next meeting. Cavil also went with Lane on several expensive taxpayer pleasure junkets- for what meaningful purpose?
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/01/an-impotent-and-ineffective-faculty.html
10) Hired past cronies of his for work on the faculty salary inequity research study as we mentioned on our February 25, 2019 post. It also appears that the Precision Group then turned around and outsourced their work to some other company. At the very least we call "Shady!"
11) The newest and weirdest parking situation on our campus- need we say more?
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/09/free-parking-for-all-thanks-king-lane.html
12) An incompetent and gutless Human Resource department, a complete puppet of King Lane. Some HR complaints are not closed for years and people are not even notified about the HR complaint against them until a year or more has gone by. This HR incompetence is directly connected with the 6-7 lawsuits filed in the past 14 months, all of them having to do with issues that could have been resolved on campus but HR was either too incompetent, corrupt or submissive to King Lane to properly investigate and take corrective actions. We need an independent HR outside of TSU.
13) Too many questions raised about the flow of money from the annual TSU Maroon and Gray gala- where is all the money going? And what is going on with the money from the TSU Foundation?
14) Buddy cronyism, possible hiring of individuals who are really not qualified to be holding high-level, lucrative positions on our campus and rumors of tremendous issues with OIT for example.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/09/precision-group-outsources-their-job.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/02/why-spend-302-255-on-comprehensive.html
15) Retaliation and possible termination of at least 2 tenured professors in Education and SOPA. No idea whether these 2 professors will be terminated or if this is a power move by King Lane to suppress dissent and force professors to give up their First Amendment rights, but we find these maneuvers deeply, deeply troubling.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/06/confirmed-tenured-professor.html
16) Hiding or deliberately manipulating the hiring of at least one dean without consulting the BOR for a salary contract worth more than $100,000. Instead it appears that at least one former Dean- Theo Herrington- at SOPA was placed into office in April 2018, but was NOT confirmed by the BOR until August 2018. The rumor is to get around his $13,000 salary a month, King Lane and his cronies manipulated and moved the money around into smaller bite-size contracts instead of a formal contract.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-sopa-dean-searchcontinues.html
17) Lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit…..!!!
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/09/tsu-served-with-yet-another-lawsuit-5.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-4th-lawsuit-to-be-served-on-tsu.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/06/another-lawsuit-to-hit-tsu.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/05/another-lawsuit-to-hit-tsu.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/11/another-lawsuit-to-hit-tsu.html
18) Almost “lost” our law school
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/03/will-tsu-lose-our-law-school.html
19) He “needs” a $2.5 million mansion when we have students who are homeless, sleeping in their cars and faculty and staff living paycheck to paycheck? King Lane is already well, well compensated…..reportedly he receives over $60,000 in housing allowance. Why does he “need” a $2.5 million mansion funded by Texas taxpayers?
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/part-2-25-million-mansion-for-his-royal.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-2-million-mansion-for-his-majesty-dr.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/03/transparency-states-wishes-to.html
20) Finally...and we really want to know...what exactly is King Lane's long-term vision of TSU? We have never been privy to what direction does King Lane see TSU going? What will we look like in 10 years as a university? At a time when our neighbor across the street- the University of Houston- is going gangbusters on expansion plans with a brand new medical school, a new and improved law school and even a brand new School of Public Affairs, tons of new buildings with an even lower acceptance rate than Rice or UT from their fall admissions data...what exactly does King Lane bring to the table?
We believe this is a worthy question to ask especially in light of another neighbor of ours- the University of Saint Thomas- who is reportedly teethering on bankruptcy and closing down departments, firing tenured and tenure-track faculty and has a campus seething with faculty and administrators acrimony and even alumni and students have become involved. Could this happen to TSU? We think possibly yes, .....if King Lane doesn't start to make major and more positive changes involving genuine shared governance, transparency and eliminating favoritism and the hiring of cronies, we foresee 2020 as the most difficult year King Lane faces..... if indeed he remains as our leader.
Bear with us as we reminisce on the past 3.5 years of King Lane's tenure:
1) Tried to get the BOR to approve a $2.5 million mansion for his family and him to live in despite already receiving several thousand dollars a month in living stipend. King Lane brought up the mansion proposal on at least 3 separate BOR meetings unsuccessfully.
2) Spent $100,000 on Rockets courtside basketball tickets
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/04/confirmed-president-lane-buys-100k.html
3) Had to do 2 "do-overs" on several school dean searches, notably the law school, SOPA and Jones Business school. Either King Lane was dissatisfied with the final pickings or he picked some very wrong individuals and they either were under pressure to resign or outright terminated and we had to do the dean search all over again.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-never-ending-story-of-never-ending.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-case-of-disappeared-dean.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/02/rumble-and-stumble-in-sopa-dean-seach.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/11/sopa-dean-searchun-deux.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/11/new-colabs-dean-search-committee.html
4) Rumored to have either lied repeatedly or obscured the truth regarding total enrollment at TSU to BOR. This affects our funding also from the DOE and Texas and harms the relationship between the president and the BOR which is critical for getting things done.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/01/will-real-enrollment-numbers-please.html
5) Too many problems with the law school accreditation.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-law-school-saga-continues.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/03/aba-accreditation-problems-at-our-law.html
6) Law school admissions scandal- https://abc13.com/education/tsu-law-school-tied-to-admissions-improprieties-sources/5705898/
7) Muzzled and threatened (through the Provost office) some of the faculty through vague insubordination terminology of "mass emails" when faculty were simply expressing their First Amendment right and also wanted to make sure other faculty knew about goings-on campus which in many cases the Lane regime appeared to try and hide. One faculty member appears to have been suspended indefinitely as we wrote a few months ago and may never come back to campus due to "mass emails" and “insubordination”.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-dangerous-new-weapon-used-by-king-lane.html
7) Suspicious and sudden changes in several high and mid-level administrators, some of whom appeared to have left TSU with a cloud of suspicion regarding possibly unethical and illegal activities. This includes at least one possible dean (our very first post) and possibly at least one more dean.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-case-of-disappeared-dean.html
8) Brought in Koch Brothers money which has corrupted and destroyed the morale and fabric of too many universities and which has resulted in either lawsuits or severe disagreements among faculty and administrators at George Mason, Auburn and Florida State. There may even be a lawsuit at TSU involving the CJR. The Koch money which established the Center for Justice Research and has harmed the university's reputation irrevocably, especially with the recent Houston Chronicle articles and the 31 academics who have condemned the Center's decision to put forth spurious and biased research, possibly to advance a neo-conservative agenda which is certainly not friendly to academics and definitely not friendly to an HBCU.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Report-Harris-DA-s-office-overburdened-14302364.php
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Academics-raise-concerns-about-report-finding-14539787.php
https://www.prosecutorreport.com/
https://www.prosecutorreport.com/note
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-center-for-justice-research-stands.html
9) Manipulated and controlled the Faculty Senate and it's former President- Dr. Javus Cavil- until he was defeated by Professor Wu recently. Dr. Cavil was successfully able to block several key items the faculty senate wanted to be delivered to King Lane, either by not placing them on the agenda or he would drag the meetings on until the items would need to be tabled until the next meeting. Cavil also went with Lane on several expensive taxpayer pleasure junkets- for what meaningful purpose?
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/01/an-impotent-and-ineffective-faculty.html
10) Hired past cronies of his for work on the faculty salary inequity research study as we mentioned on our February 25, 2019 post. It also appears that the Precision Group then turned around and outsourced their work to some other company. At the very least we call "Shady!"
11) The newest and weirdest parking situation on our campus- need we say more?
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/09/free-parking-for-all-thanks-king-lane.html
12) An incompetent and gutless Human Resource department, a complete puppet of King Lane. Some HR complaints are not closed for years and people are not even notified about the HR complaint against them until a year or more has gone by. This HR incompetence is directly connected with the 6-7 lawsuits filed in the past 14 months, all of them having to do with issues that could have been resolved on campus but HR was either too incompetent, corrupt or submissive to King Lane to properly investigate and take corrective actions. We need an independent HR outside of TSU.
13) Too many questions raised about the flow of money from the annual TSU Maroon and Gray gala- where is all the money going? And what is going on with the money from the TSU Foundation?
14) Buddy cronyism, possible hiring of individuals who are really not qualified to be holding high-level, lucrative positions on our campus and rumors of tremendous issues with OIT for example.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/09/precision-group-outsources-their-job.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/02/why-spend-302-255-on-comprehensive.html
15) Retaliation and possible termination of at least 2 tenured professors in Education and SOPA. No idea whether these 2 professors will be terminated or if this is a power move by King Lane to suppress dissent and force professors to give up their First Amendment rights, but we find these maneuvers deeply, deeply troubling.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/06/confirmed-tenured-professor.html
16) Hiding or deliberately manipulating the hiring of at least one dean without consulting the BOR for a salary contract worth more than $100,000. Instead it appears that at least one former Dean- Theo Herrington- at SOPA was placed into office in April 2018, but was NOT confirmed by the BOR until August 2018. The rumor is to get around his $13,000 salary a month, King Lane and his cronies manipulated and moved the money around into smaller bite-size contracts instead of a formal contract.
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-sopa-dean-searchcontinues.html
17) Lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit…..!!!
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/09/tsu-served-with-yet-another-lawsuit-5.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-4th-lawsuit-to-be-served-on-tsu.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/06/another-lawsuit-to-hit-tsu.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/05/another-lawsuit-to-hit-tsu.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/11/another-lawsuit-to-hit-tsu.html
18) Almost “lost” our law school
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/03/will-tsu-lose-our-law-school.html
19) He “needs” a $2.5 million mansion when we have students who are homeless, sleeping in their cars and faculty and staff living paycheck to paycheck? King Lane is already well, well compensated…..reportedly he receives over $60,000 in housing allowance. Why does he “need” a $2.5 million mansion funded by Texas taxpayers?
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/part-2-25-million-mansion-for-his-royal.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-2-million-mansion-for-his-majesty-dr.html
https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2019/03/transparency-states-wishes-to.html
20) Finally...and we really want to know...what exactly is King Lane's long-term vision of TSU? We have never been privy to what direction does King Lane see TSU going? What will we look like in 10 years as a university? At a time when our neighbor across the street- the University of Houston- is going gangbusters on expansion plans with a brand new medical school, a new and improved law school and even a brand new School of Public Affairs, tons of new buildings with an even lower acceptance rate than Rice or UT from their fall admissions data...what exactly does King Lane bring to the table?
We believe this is a worthy question to ask especially in light of another neighbor of ours- the University of Saint Thomas- who is reportedly teethering on bankruptcy and closing down departments, firing tenured and tenure-track faculty and has a campus seething with faculty and administrators acrimony and even alumni and students have become involved. Could this happen to TSU? We think possibly yes, .....if King Lane doesn't start to make major and more positive changes involving genuine shared governance, transparency and eliminating favoritism and the hiring of cronies, we foresee 2020 as the most difficult year King Lane faces..... if indeed he remains as our leader.
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