Texas Southern Regents to Vote Sept. 10 on a Code of Ethics for Themselves

Texas Southern University’s regents will vote Sept. 10 on a code of ethics for themselves, an 11-page appendix to the board’s bylaws that would make each regent certify in writing every year that they have read it, and would bar any regent from acting for the board outside a meeting.

The code gathers up rules already scattered across state law and board policy — the financial disclosure and revolving-door provisions in the Government Code, the conflict-of-interest law written for university regents, and the board’s own policies on nepotism, harassment and investment conflicts — and adds the annual certification and a section titled “No Individual Authority.” No state law requires a governing board to adopt one. A 2025 law rewrote the training regents must complete, adding ethics to the subjects covered and requiring a sworn statement afterward, but it says nothing about a code. The bylaws, last amended in April, contain none.

The board has been under state scrutiny since late last year. A State Auditor’s Office report in December found, among other things, that the university paid all 60 invoices in one sample without first obtaining requisitions and could not locate 50 of 60 sampled assets. Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Rangers to investigate its finances in November and, a month later, ratified a budget board order barring new contracts and contract extensions until that review ends, the Legislature reviews the audit and the university corrects the problems. The Rangers review remains open. No findings have been made public, and no one has been charged.

Regents also receive an outside account of what has been fixed. The accounting firm Weaver tested the two technology findings in the state audit — policies left un-updated, and nine of 303 users who still had access to the university’s financial system — and reported in July that both are remediated. The university’s public scorecard for the wider remediation campaign it calls Operation Tiger Reset still says it “remains on track” to finish inside 100 days, language written for a deadline that passed May 1.

Most of the rest of the meeting is contracts. The consent docket seeks more spending authority on an information technology staffing contract, a renewed master lease on two apartment buildings used for student housing, a replacement steam boiler, charter flights, and authority to hire an investment manager. Whether the December order reaches renewals, amendments and added authority on existing agreements is not publicly documented; a regent asked for that clarity on the record in February. The board meets again Nov. 12.

Meeting at a glance

Board members

• James M. Benham — chairman; College Station; construction technology executive, founder of JBKnowledge.
• Lauren A. Gore — vice chair; Houston; attorney; chairs the audit response committee.
• Richard A. Johnson III — second vice chair; Houston; educator.
• 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; reappointed February 2026.
• Ben H. Proler — Houston; commercial manager, Shell; Navy reserve lieutenant.
• Alithea Z. Sullivan — Austin; partner, Stone Hilton PLLC.
• One voting seat is vacant.
• Joseph V. Carter — student regent, non-voting; takes the oath at this meeting.

Roster from the university’s regent biographies and the 2026-27 catalog, cross-checked against the governor’s appointment releases. Benjamin C. Kohlmann of Dallas, appointed in 2024 to a term running to February 1, 2027, no longer appears on the roster, the catalog or the state directory, and his is the seat shown as open; his individual biography page is still posted, and the Dispatch found no resignation notice, replacement appointment or explanation. Brandon L. Simmons, honored by proclamation at this meeting, chaired the board from October 2023 until October 2025, when the governor named him to run the Higher Education Coordinating Board’s new ombudsman office. Meeting contact: Faith Ruiz, Office of Board Relations, (713) 313-7900.