Texas Southern Regents to Rewrite Tenure Rules Aug. 28 to Match 2023 State Law

The Texas Southern University regents will meet on Aug. 28 in a special session to replace a 15-year-old tenure policy with one written to carry out a 2023 state law — four days before the state’s annual filing deadline.

The policy the board will vote on is a rewrite, not an amendment. It renames the policy from post-tenure performance review to faculty tenure and post-tenure review, and it writes the law’s eight grounds for firing a tenured professor into board policy. It adds a summary dismissal for serious misconduct, heard by a designated administrator, with the appeal coming only after the firing. And it drops the current policy’s referral of a tenure revocation to non-binding mediation.

What it replaces was adopted in April 2011 and rests, in its own words, on “peer review, academic freedom, and due process.” The packet posted for the meeting contains no marked-up comparison of old and new, no memo explaining the change and no record that the faculty was consulted — though the new policy itself says the board shall seek faculty advice before adopting tenure rules. A separate university policy guaranteeing a hearing before an impartial faculty panel, and putting the burden of proof on the university, is left standing and unreconciled.

The timing is statutory. Every governing board in Texas must file its tenure policies, and any amendments, with the state’s higher education agency by Sept. 1 each year — a duty that dates to 1997. The 2023 law rewrote the section around that filing, adding the dismissal grounds and stripping out a requirement that a professor facing termination first be offered mediation. Texas Southern is adopting the conforming policy three years later.

The board meets under scrutiny. A state audit in December found the university’s records did not match contract documents for nearly all of a sample of 60 vendors, and the governor had asked the Texas Rangers to look at its finances the month before. The Aug. 28 notice carries no public comment item. Chairman James Benham has led the board only since October, when his predecessor left to take a new state post overseeing higher education compliance. Watch whether regents adopt the policy as posted or hold it for faculty review.

Meeting at a glance

Board members

• James M. Benham — chairman; College Station; chief executive, JBKnowledge.
• Lauren A. Gore — vice chair; Houston; partner, LDR Growth Partners.
• Richard A. Johnson III — second vice chair; Houston; Texas Public Policy Foundation director.
• Marilyn A. Rose — secretary; Houston; accountant, Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
• Caroline Baker Hurley — Houston; retired Harris County state district judge.
• Paloma Z. Ahmadi — Shavano Park; general counsel of Athena, appointed February 2026.
• Ben H. Proler — Houston; commercial manager, Shell; Navy reserve lieutenant.
• Alithea Z. Sullivan — Austin; partner, Stone Hilton PLLC.
• Joseph V. Carter — student regent, non-voting; Texas Southern political science major.

Roster from the university’s regent biographies and meetings page, read August 21, 2026, and cross-checked against the governor’s appointment releases. The board appears to be one member short: Benjamin C. Kohlmann of Dallas, appointed in 2024 to a term running to 2027, has been dropped from the university’s roster index, committee list and catalog, though his individual biography page remains posted, and no resignation or replacement was found in the Texas Register. The Dispatch could not confirm the seat is vacant. Meeting contact: Faith Ruiz, Office of Board Relations, (713) 313-7900.