Kochs, CJR, Police Reform & Mayor Turner? Oh My!

-

When Mayor Turner set up the police reform advisory committee, there was immediate pushback and criticism, even as recent as September 16, 2020:

 

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Civil-rights-activists-call-for-police-reforms-in-15573053.php

 

In July, the CJR set up their own police reform committee while Director Henderson had been placed on the Mayor’s police reform committee:

 

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/TSU-assembles-group-of-Black-researchers-to-15394528.php#photo-19649410

 

While we cannot question the urgency, necessity and desire for police reform, we have to question the potential conflict of interests which exist between the CJR in connection with the Kochs’ and Koch Industries providing supplies to law enforcement as well as the HPD Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between Director Henderson and the HPD in summer 2018.  Although we cannot verify this document is legally binding, it does appear to be a legitimate agreement between HPD and CJR.

 

Several questions immediately concerned us upon viewing this MOU-

1)    How is a faculty member (Dr. Henderson) able to sign an agreement between HPD and TSU? (CJR is part of TSU and listed under the School of Public Affairs).    Usually only the President, Provost or possibly General Counsel can make a legally binding agreement such as an MOU between an outside organization and TSU. 

2)    If the Kochs’ have supplied the CJR with $2.7 million for 5 years beginning in 2018 what are the Kochs’ getting out of CJR?  The Kochs’ are well-known neo-conservatives and their politics and presence on many campuses have been criticized, condemned and even involved lawsuits. 

3)    Finally, we are concerned that this MOU, CJR and Kochs’ are part of some type of triangular conflict of interest- 1) Kochs’ supply money to CJR, --> 2) the money comes from selling services and products to law enforcement and CJR (Dr. Henderson) is then appointed on the Mayoral reform committee--> 3) thus potentially creating more shareholder value for Koch Industries for future sales to law enforcement and possibly more money sent back to CJR as a reward. 

 

We are very, very concerned for the image of our university to be used by the Kochs’ and provide a façade of criminal justice reform through the submissiveness and acquiescence of CJR.  Mayor Turner needs to be very concerned too. 

 https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/07/hbcu-for-salesold-part-3.html?m=1





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why is the Registrar teaching 2 classes 2 days a week during working hours?

-
Image
As our last post discussed the concerns of teaching classes regarding the General Counsel in the School of Business, it seems that he is not the only top administrator teaching courses on our campus.   https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2021/10/why-is-general-counsel-teaching-at-4pm.html Our Registrar is teaching 2 classes during normal workday hours at 9:30 am and 11am on Tuesdays/Thursdays, a total of 200 minutes outside of her office each week.   This would be conservatively $5,000 extra (***estimated) for each class in her paycheck, a total of $10,000 for this semester and possibly $20,000 for the academic year if she teaches next semester also.  We doubt that she is teaching these 2 classes for free.  We do wonder since both the Registrar and the General Counsel report directly to Madam President - did she permit them to teach and make extra money?  Neither one of these individuals seem to have been teaching prior to this semester, so why have they suddenly now become interest
Read more

CONFIRMED: Permanent Removal of Dr. Adams and Professor Robinson from the MPA program

-
It seems that the School of Public Affairs becomes messier the longer that Dean Kieh and Interim Associate Dean Ewoh remain in power.  It appears that based on a pretext of NASPAA accreditation guidelines Drs. Ewoh, Majumdar, Christophe and Oluponmile collectively voted to remove professors Adams and Robinson from the MPA program permanently .  When questioned as to why these 2 senior and long-standing professors were removed from the MPA program, the 4 professors (all administrators) responded that they were following accreditation guidelines yet the accreditation guidelines do not prescribe an abrupt removal in the middle of the semester.  Moreover Interim Associate Dean Ewoh should not have been present in the meeting and voting against the 2 professors as he represents the Dean's Office and works as Interim Associate Dean .  Department and program meetings are understood to only have tenure and tenure track faculty members in attendance.   We wonder: Does this actually mean tha
Read more

What happened to the Registrar- Ms. Marilyn Square?

-
Image
It seems that Ms. Marilyn Square, TSU's decades-long Registrar and the second-most powerful TSU administrator has abruptly retired in August without any recognition or well-wishing from TSU for all her years at TSU. Not even a single email announcing her retirement!   Ms. Square was extremely well-known and recognized for all her hard work on behalf of our students.  Routinely Ms. Square would spend weekends and nights assisting students and faculty to make sure our students were able to graduate on time.   The Registrar is actually more powerful than the Provost and is the only administrator (besides the President) who can over-rule the Provost.  Rumors are that the Provost repeatedly did not agree with the Registrar on certain academic issues and is possibly the reason why Ms. Square has left the university without any fanfare or thanks for her service.   We find it very disappointing that a personal disagreement between 2 administrators has potentially harmed our university as
Read more