Impeached for Doing Your Job?

(From NationalReview.com):

Impeached for Doing Your Job?

By Jane S. Shaw

What gets you a credible threat of impeachment in Texas? Doing what you are supposed to do.

Wallace Hall is a regent of the University of Texas system. He and other regents discovered that faculty at the University of Texas law school were receiving sizable  ($500,000) forgivable loans. Bill Powers, president of UT-Austin, fired the dean of the law school.

But now Powers and his friends in the legislature are trying to impeach Hall for investigating too much. There is the potential for an Illinois-type “clout list”—powerful people who get their children or grandchildren into the university whether they are qualified or not.

But that and other investigations by Hall incensed Powers and legislators They went after Hall for demanding too many emails. A legislative committee has just issued its report, listing what it claims are impeachable offenses.

These proceedings are ludicrous against someone who is doing what Governor Perry appointed him to do—oversee a sprawling university system that seems to be full of mismanagement.

The press, however, seems to take the side of the legislature. Only Jon Cassidy of watchdog.org is showing that the Emperor (the impeachment committee) has no clothes.

Congratulations to Anne Neal of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) for standing up for Hall.

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Jane S. Shaw is President of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy