Transparency State University

Looks like one of our predictions is already coming true- on Monday night, rumors on Twitter  surfaced that King Lane and his lawyer are secretly conducting negotiations through mediation to buyout and cashout the remainder of the King's contract with TSU. As we predicted, King Lane finally woke up and smelled the coffee- you really cannot work with people you picked a fight with, lied to, complained to the media and tried to bully them into doing things which are unethical and possibly illegal, i.e. the BOR and others (tenured faculty, staff) who have been at TSU much, much longer than 3.5 years. Going to the media or trolling on social media clearly doesn't work either especially when you have a 4 page detailed termination letter.  Rumors are adrift that the BOR must be sitting on a ton of very incriminating evidence that they are not going to release until they absolutely need to and will likely devastate any case going to court.  King Lane must be very aware of gian...

So now we know the reasons why King Lane has been removed by the BOR.  In a 4 page termination letter posted on TSU's website the BOR lists a series of very disturbing and damaging items which likely has already harmed our university's reputation and brand image.   http://www.tsu.edu/about/board-of-regents/pdf/final-termination-letter-02042020.pdf We turn now to the future- what will the rest of 2020 look like for our university?  We anticipate several predictions in the coming months:  1) King Lane will either go away quietly with a severance package or he will fight it out in civil court which could take years and years and years.....rumors are that King Lane and his Queen own 2 houses and have 2 mortgages which doesn't seem like a very stable financial situation especially when you just got terminated.  We suggest King Lane take the money and run . 2) The 30 day appeal process for King Lane will not be successful for him .   No one ...

Need we say more?  Thanks for your service Austin.    TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY 3100 Cleburne Street, Ste. HH115 | Houston, Texas 77004 | (713) 313-7992 BoardofRegents@TSU.edu 2/5/2020 Board of Regents Dear Texas Southern University Family, As you know, TSU’s vision is to become one of the nation’s pre-eminent comprehensive metropolitan universities, recognized by our program excellence, our quality instruction, our innovative research, and our desire to make an impact on our community, state, nation and world. It is in that spirit that we must continue to work together as a Tiger community, even as we address challenges brought on by a change in our leadership. Last night, the TSU Board of Regents, the governing body that holds itself and the University’s leadership to the highest standards, voted 6-1 to propose the termination of Dr. Austin A. Lane. As previously announced, Kenneth Huewitt will serve as acting president....

Looks like another lawsuit to hit TSU.....So TSU isn't ADA compliant?  What a surprise! https://www.open-public-records.com/court/texas-29054373.htm

It’s almost like an episode of Game of Thrones at TSU this past week.   With the sudden announcement by the BOR of King Lane being placed on paid leave pending an investigation’s results, it seems like it’s house cleaning time at TSU.    The board hasn’t given any reason as to why King Lane was placed on paid leave, but there’s been so many rumors now about why, we have to assume some of those rumors are true.   https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/01/will-king-lane-lose-his-kingdom.html             But in other news, the same day the BOR placed King Lane on paid leave, his special assistant, his consigliore , Senor Wendell Williams was fired by acting President Huewitt, possibly under the direction of the BOR.   This was rumored to be true by Saturday but the Houston Chronicle has confirmed it- https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Assistant-to-TSU-preside...

Texas Southern University Board of Regents - Special Announcement / 1-17-20 On behalf of the Texas Southern University Board of Regents, we want to provide our community with an update about our recent decision to place TSU President Dr. Austin A. Lane on paid administrative leave.   We are sharing this information while remaining mindful and respectful of the ongoing investigatory process and for all of the parties involved.   On January 10, 2020, the Board of Regents met with the Chief Internal Auditor, independent counsel, and third-party investigators for approximately seven hours. The Audit Committee made a public recommendation to the full Board, and consistent with the Audit Committee’s recommendation, in a seven to one vote (one abstention), the Board of Regents placed Dr. Lane on paid administrative leave.   The Chief Internal Auditor's investigation goes back over three months. The investigation into admissions and our review of ...

By now we have all heard the latest news about King Lane being placed on administrative leave pending an investigation outcome.   Details remain scarce but this fact is puzzling to us- why has King Lane informed the media that the vote to place him on leave was 5-4 when on the TSU website it states 7-1 (with one abstention)?   Who is mistaken here regarding the number of votes against King Lane?   Or rather…..in who’s best interests does it serve to muddy the deeply troubled waters of the difficult and lengthy decision-making process of the BOR?   Fortunately, the BOR has placed the final public vote on YouTube.   We are appreciative of this wise and transparent leadership decision from the BOR.   This will serve us well as we move to a new era of Honesty, Ethics, Accountability and Transparency, which we have decided to christen as the new H.E.A.T paradigm in the aftermath of King Lane's departure.   The acronym HEAT will serve us well an...

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-...

By now most people have heard about the very sad and disappointing news of our law school's admissions scandal.  Details remain scarce but it appears this scandal involved a "pay to play"admissions scandal whereby someone at the law school admitted students who may not have been qualified for admissions but bribed their way into the law school.  Details are still forthcoming but this scandal doesn't look good for all of us, especially King Lane and his royal coterie. Interestingly, the Board of Regents had a special meeting on Monday, November 18 but without the presence of King Lane or the Provost.  Neither was invited or asked to attend which is even more interesting.  Why would the President or Provost not attend a Board of Regents meeting? https://abc13.com/education/tsu-law-school-tied-to-admissions-improprieties-sources/5705898/

Look like yet another powerful whack at the Center for Justice Research by the Houston Chronicle- Not only that, but it seems that about 31 academics have signed a report stating that the Center's Director- Dr. Howard Henderson- research is pure baloney as well as proposing outdated and anachronistic policy proposals to increase mass incarceration. We can only imagine how embarrassing and humiliating this must be for him as well as the Faculty Fellows.  Moreover what does the Koch Foundation think about all this “research”?  We guess the Koch’s must be very, very unhappy. We certainly would!  The weblinks are set below- 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

Rumors are again rampant that another high-ranking General Counsel team member will be fired or "resigned" very soon.  King Lane seems rather displeased with a certain member of his court of jesters but we are not sure what the reason is.  However, this rumor comes to us from a trusted inner court individual so we wait to see if the exit doors be slammin' on yet another exiled member of the Lane kingdom soon enough. Of course we wouldn't be surprised at all to hear this rumor being verified in the very near future.  King Lane's merry go round of court jesters have a very, very limited shelf life...

Today we bring you a story filled with money!  Yes, money! Really good money for our newly appointed deans at TSU according to open documents filed at the BOR meeting in June.  We had heard rumors of a $1 million payout but we had to see the documents for ourselves!  What a windfall! Dr. George Kieh, Dean of School of Public Affairs (SOPA)- $195,000- his predecessor made a salary of $156,000 so way to go Dean Kieh!  Dr. Needha Boutte-Queen, Dean of COLABS- $195,000- we are not aware what her predecessor made but wowza!  Dr. David Chi-Chung Ye, Dean of Jones School of Business- $225,000- we are not aware what his predecessor was earning- you all may recall the first story we ever published of the mysterious case of the missing dean! Dr. Rashid Mosavin- Dean of Pharmacy and Health Sciences- $235,000-  we are not aware what his predecessor was earning but...dang!  Dean Joan Bullock- Dean of TSU law school- $270,000- her predecessor whom we wrote abo...

Several faculty have recently noticed that there seems to be an unusual amount of paperwork this semester.  Normally every semester there is the usual HR videos to sit and yawn out, but this semester it seems like the HR paperwork is in overdrive- here's a list: 1) 6 HR videos to watch and take quizzes on- seems like there were only 5 last year(?) 2) NAT sheet to fill out- the tiresome 12th Day Roster sheet 3) Student Progress Report- This seems to be something new to torment the faculty with- the geniuses at OIT seem to relish finding new ways to keep the faculty occupied or perhaps King Lane and his Royal Court of Jesters are finding creative ways to keep all of us stuck on desktops and laptops occupied. 4) SACS compliance syllabi- oh gee.....we all know SACS is coming.....but come on. 5) Drug Policy for faculty and staff to sign- I mean really.....now we have to sign a statement that we don't use drugs?  When did this happen? 6) Overload approval paperwork- this is no...

As many of you know, faculty salary inequity and just making ends meet in this day and age is tough as heck.  We have so many expenses and so much stress just paying our bills. One way that faculty who are on a fixed salary are able to make a little extra money is by doing what's called "overloads", i.e. teaching extra classes for extra pay.  The pay is not much, but it helps. Normally most faculty can receive at least 1 overload per semester provided they complete their agreed-upon workload as according to the faculty manual. Usually the workload is 4-5-6 courses per academic year (Fall and Spring combined). For example, a professor could teach 3 courses in the fall and 2 in the spring and would be able to earn 2 extra courses overloads for the academic year (2 each semester).  Or a professor could teach 2 Ph.D. courses each semester and earn 2 overloads each semester.  But...if a professor decided to teach 2 courses in the fall and 3 in the spring semester........

At the beginning of the semester, it was announced that King Lane would be removing the gate arms for all the parking lots except of course his Majesty's aka Presidential Circle parking area.  Hey you got to keep the "peasants” out right...I mean, even King Lane can only be so "liberal" to a point.  (And yes, we are being facetious as we all are aware King Lane is a registered Republican, no joke)  The reason given for this curious development is- "As TSU has grown to become the second largest HBCU in the nation, so has the need to better utilize our parking spaces. With our new plan, we aim to reduce the circling of parking lots to secure an empty space, as well as prevent reserved spaces from being occupied by unauthorized vehicles. We have also  reduced the parking fee by more than 10%  for most categories." So let us see if we understand the thinking behind such a curious and frankly, a weird...weird idea...you take down the gate arms so now a...

Rumors recently came to light and are circulating that the Precision Group - "hired" last semester to oversee a much-needed salary increase study appears to have outsourced their work to another consulting company.    Now this is interesting because the rumors were that the Precision Group had the expertise, knowledge and blah blah blah to do an effective job. Additionally, King Lane seemed to really push to hire this group during the BOR meeting but it seems that he knew this company and probably the company leaders very, very well from his days at Lonestar Community College. Seems like the usual kozy Tiger politics that our King has swiftly adapted to....how disappointing!

Welcoming us back to campus we all found out faculty and staff would be receiving a 2% raise in our salaries.   The exact reasons were listed in an email sent out to the campus- "I am excited to share with you that the TSU Board of Regents has approved the administration's recommendation of a salary increase of two (2) percent for all full and part-time employees who meet the criteria..." Wait.....hold on King Lane...according to other sources we find reliable and credible this is NOT a 2% raise by the BOR, this is a state mandated raise . Which raises the question we all want to know.....Why are you and the BOR taking credit for this state mandated raise? Seems..... royally duplicitous to take credit for something you had no hand in doing.  And now of course maybe that salary inequity raise we were all hoping for, needing and deserving will also be delayed even further or probably never happen.  You all remember we "hired" Precision Group to do a study for ...

Rumors are circulating on campus for the last week that a long-term TSU Office of General Counsel employee- a lawyer- has been terminated from his/her employment due to head-butting and other disagreements between the chief General Counsel (Hao Le) and him/her.  Transparency State is attempting to confirm these rumors but there are also rumors that an email has been leaked of Hao Le complaining that he cannot work with the above-mentioned long-time employee. We wonder what fresh drama is going on in our General Counsel office.  Seems that there are a lot of new hires, possibly buddies and BFF's of our new general counsel and King Lane and may not actually have the competence and knowledge to be able to grasp the delicate and sensitive nature of work in a university setting. We make no assumptions about their competence, but unfortunately in our university's history we have too many instances of cronyism, former fraternity and sorority hires and other BFF's who simply kno...

So it happened again just as we knew it would.  A 5th lawsuit has now been filed against TSU by a law professor in the Thurgood Marshall Law School.  There had been rumors over the summer of increased pending litigation and unfortunately as always those rumors proved true. Looks like the lawsuit concerns inequitable pay and discriminatory actions towards another one of our professors, now the 3rd lawsuit involving the law school (refer to our earlier posts regarding Sacks and Sofidiya lawsuits filed in October 2018 and June 2019). So a new year begins anew at TSU as of August 26 and already at least 3 lawsuits were filed over the summer. Absolutely disappointing but absolutely necessary.....when the King and his Kozy Coterie refuse to listen to reason and common sense and solve the problems internally.....we are left with no choice but to go outside to get our solutions. We anticipate more lawsuits unless the King finally decides to change his royal attitude and engage con...

A recent Houston Chronicle report on the Center for Justice Research lays bare the sad and disappointing news that all of us knew too well and for far too long- the Center for Justice Research is more along the lines of the Center for Joke Research!  Or perhaps, more aptly Court Jesters Reunited?  The Harris County DA, Kim Ogg has been asking for more Assistant DA's but the City Council has pushed back twice against her requests.  So why does the Center want to create junk science in order to push the Harris County DA's (perhaps?) political agenda for more Assistant DA's?  We encourage our readers to consider the implications for not just the Center and it's Koch Foundation funding but also the serious implications to Texas Southern and our image in the community. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Report-Harris-DA-s-office-overburdened-14302364.php

Rumors are afloat that almost 100 professors on campus were not paid for the summer classes in session 1 on time and had to be paid in a 7 day off-cycle despite having EPAF's submitted.  For those of us who live paycheck to paycheck this was quite a shock to all of us who need to be paid on time. And what was the reason the money wasn’t in our accounts on time?  Will King Lane address his subjects and inform us the reason why?  We await with baited breath. 

A 4th lawsuit was recently filed on June 20, 2019 by a former TSU law school graduate and librarian at the Thurgood Marshall Law School.  The concerns and complaint is much of what we have heard over the years from faculty and students- gender discrimination in the form of unequal and inequitable pay disparity as well as a hostile work environment.  These allegations have been confirmed and verified by the ABA prior to this lawsuit. The law school had been working towards efforts to make the work environment more hospitable as well as more reflective of a harmonious working atmosphere, but we question as to how 2 lawsuits by 2 separate law school employees (see our blog post on November 3, 2018) have now been filed and there are rumors of other law school lawsuits coming soon.  We are aware of at least 1 EEOC complaint at the law school filed very recently who's facts are eerily similar to the current lawsuit being discussed here.  We anticipate this will also turn ...

It is CONFIRMED- Transparency State has it on ironclad reliable information that the tenured professor in SOPA (see our June 16 post) has been indefinitely suspended due to "mass emails and insubordination."  The professor is currently appealing their suspension and will go through a faculty hearing process, most likely in the Fall semester.   We are not aware when this situation will be resolved and whether or not the professor will ever be able to come back to campus.  It seems that King Lane's minions have been extremely busy in finding more and more creative ways to rid the campus of individuals they disagree with.  Transparency State is very interested in the outcome of this case as it appears to hinge on the definition and usage of the First Amendment's right to free speech and what exactly does it mean to accuse the professor of sending out "too many emails"?  It is also something to be concerned about regarding the impact and effectiveness of ...

It is CONFIRMED- another lawsuit has hit TSU.  Rumors were swirling as to whether or not a lawsuit was going to be filed regarding the problems in the Aviation department and allegations of misuse of federal funds as well as other potential illegal quandries.  The case can be accessed here- https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txsdce/4:2019cv01614/1664909

Another tenured professor in the School of Public Affairs has reportedly been suspended for 30 days and the administration is moving to fire him soon. The professor’s supposed crime was to send out too many emails criticising Provost Harris’s disastrous decisions regarding the SOPA dean search committee mishaps.  Like all authoritarian regimes, King Lane’s minions do not like dissent and are afraid of too many good questions being raised by the few rebels still left in the shattered country we now call Laneworld.  As a bonus to King Lane, due to this professor's unexpected suspension he has also been prevented from earning summer money through summer teaching. So the administration decided to break both his kneecaps, not just one. To send a message to him...or...for something else?  To send a not-so-subtle message to...? We wonder- what exactly is the long term plan to unite the campus under King Lane.  Or is this the best plan he has come up with?  Crush d...

Our campus seems to be in the throes of heated, passionate and frankly, tiresome Dean search endless marathons.  Out of 6 schools at TSU, 5 currently have ongoing permanent Dean searches.  We regard most of these fruitless and sycophantic Dean searches as yet another despotic opportunity for King Lane to create and continue to cause chaos, disruption and to ramp up stress and aggravation among the faculty, thus dividing and conquering and maintaining control over the divided and factionalized faculty.  Let's recap this madcap year of Dean searches: The College of Liberal Arts and Behavioral Sciences (COLABS) are going through yet another Dean search. COLABS had a search conducted over a year ago and yet they are going through the same search process all over again.  It’s very doubtful that this second finalist candidate will be acceptable to the President.   The School of Communications Dean Maruice Odine resigned after almost one year in office withou...

We were glad to be a witness to the recent removal of Dr. Cavil as the recently deposed Faculty Senate President in our faculty senate elections last month.  We heartily endorse and look forward to Dr. Wu's leadership as our new Faculty Senate President!  We hope she is able to bring stability and a sense of moral responsibility, ethics and leadership sorely lacking in our current Lane administration and look forward to the Fall semester. 

      Looks like this “disappeared” Dean’s job posting has been removed from the outside job posting website.   We are not entirely clear as to what happened as the rumors came from trusted sources on campus.   At this time the Dean seems to be back in his position on campus.   We will keep our readers updated as new information surfaces.