Let's see -- your local univerity has fired its president and she has been indicted for stealing from the school to rehab her personal home. She has, in turn, sued the school for wrongful termination. What does the Univeristy do next?

A) Bar her from campus until the dispute has been resolved.

B) File suit to recover the cash from the homes's sale to the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft.

C) Return her to her previous duties as an accounting professor.

Priscilla Slade, the former Texas Southern University president fired for her spending of school money on personal expenses, is teaching accounting courses on campus this semester.

Her return to the classroom comes four weeks after a Harris Country grand jury indicted Slade and three aides for allegedly violating the university's policies and state laws in paying for household furnishings and landscaping, among other things.

* * *

Officials said the university could move to revoke her tenure, and Slade almost certainly would file a grievance. The grievance would be heard by a committee of faculty members, whose recommendation would go to the regents for the final decision.

Such a dispute would likely end up in court, officials said.

"Regardless of who it is, we have to make sure that due process is followed because faculty members nationwide have fought for the right of tenure," said Sanders Anderson, president of TSU's faculty council.

At most universities, professors with tenure have the implicit promise of a lifetime job. They cannot be dismissed, transferred or demoted, with the exception of extreme misconduct on their part or a financial emergency at the school.

And given that TSU operates like a poorly-run community college, with no admissions requirements to speak of and a sense that it can do what it wants because it is a "black thing", the odds of anybody doing anything about this travesty is pretty near zero. Heck, this is at least the third financial scandal at the place since I moved to Houston nine years ago. Maybe the alumni will create an endowed professorship in Slade's honor -- "The Priscilla Slade Endowed Chair of Crooked Accounting and Financial Fraud".

UPDATE -- 8/31/2006 -- A real newspaper would have published this editorial the same day as the original story. But then again, this is the Houston Chronicle, so a 36 hour delay isn't too bad.

Given the blizzard of bad press, the last thing TSU needs is to put its controversial former president at the head of a class while awaiting trial. Slade deserves and will get her day in court to prove her innocence of the two felony charges she faces for misapplication of fiduciary property. In the meantime, school officials should have assigned the tenured academic to non-teaching duties with a lower public profile.

Such a course would have been the prudent way to minimize damage to the school's image while the question of Slade's professional future is determined. It's not too late to assign another professor to handle her teaching duties while justice takes its course.

Might I suggest having her was dishes in one of the dining halls?

Posted by: Greg at 11:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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