Student’s past key to TSU scandal
Officials say his failure to disclose rape arrests sparked investigation
For Shaboyd Cannon, it was a celebratory moment — one he’d been anticipating for years, ever since he beat his latest rape arrest.
In a video recorded on his cellphone, Cannon points to a signed admission letter for Texas Southern University’s law school for the 2019-2020 academic year and reaches across the desk to shake hands with Edward Rene, the school’s assistant dean of admissions at the time.
“This man has stuck with me since day one,” Cannon says of Rene in the video.
Cannon became a key witness in a monthslong investigation into admissions improprieties that shocked TSU, cost Rene his job and led to a six-figure buyout of university President Austin Lane, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle.
School officials said that Cannon, 37, failed to disclose his arrest record, which included two sexual assault cases that did not result in convictions, and revoked his admission to law school. Cannon claimed Rene, who had worked at TSU since 1999, knew about his history all along. Cannon demanded to be readmitted.
TSU officials have provided few details about the scope of the scandal and have refused to release an audit report that the Chronicle requested under the state’s public records law. The Chronicle obtained a memo on Monday through a public records request with the State Auditor’s Office detailing the preliminary findings by
TSU’s internal auditor.
The Oct. 25, 2019, memo shows that auditor Charla Parker-Thompson found “anomalies” in admissions practices at the law school. She identified Rene as a “person of interest” and called for a full investigation.
Parker-Thompson sent the memo to TSU’s board of regents stating that Rene had admitted a transfer student to the law school who had “character and fitness” issues. The memo stated that at least two other students were admitted despite failing to meet the academic requirements of the law school. One student reported paying $14,000 in cash to Rene in exchange for being admitted to the academic program and a $14,000 scholarship.
School administrators had already taken action against Rene and revoked the students’ admissions, including Cannon’s. Then, the board of regents stepped in.
The board’s involvement led to an ugly, public confrontation with Lane and his supporters that eventually toppled the president of TSU, a historically black university in Houston that has served generations of students since its founding in 1927 in the days of segregation.
In an early February “notice of termination,” the regents said the president failed to notify them about “fraudulent and dishonest activities” in the law school’s admissions process. Ultimately, however, the board found no wrongdoing on Lane’s part, according to a settlement reached weeks later. Under that agreement, Lane stepped down and the board paid him a lump sum of $560,000, plus unpaid benefits, bringing the total buyout to $879,000, Lane said.
Messages left with Hasan Mack, the board’s chairman, weren’t returned for this story.
Michael Olivas, a recently retired University of Houston law professor and former interim president of UH-Downtown, who was not involved in the investigation but has followed it in the media, said instances of wrongful admissions at universities aren’t uncommon.
What makes TSU’s handling of the situation so unusual, Olivas said, is that regents usually don’t deal with such matters. School officials had already dealt with Cannon when the board intervened.
“The thing that is extraordinary about this is not that that it happened, but that it came so inflamed and toxic,” Olivas said.
Past arrests
Cannon said he first met Rene in 2013 while working as an intern at the Texas Legislature. A resolution from Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who was a state lawmaker at the time, recognized Cannon for his “outstanding work with the Thurgood Marshall School of Law Innocence Project.”
Cannon said he and Rene reconnected after he encountered problems at his former school, the Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, La. Cannon had already been dismissed once from the school in 2014 for not disclosing his arrest record — a misdemeanor shoplifting charge in 2008 and a rape charge in Albany, Ga., that was dismissed in April 2010 for insufficient evidence — on the admissions application he filed in 2011. The university allowed him to return that same year.
In 2015, Southern University police arrested Cannon after a student accused him of sexually assaulting her in the campus law library. Southern University Law Center once again expelled him.
Cannon said he was wrongfully accused. Court records show he posted $50,000 bond after his arrest but was never indicted in the case. A message left with the district attorney’s office in East Baton Rouge Parish wasn’t returned.
Cannon said he flew to Houston to meet with Rene in 2016 in hopes of enrolling in law school at TSU — a place where he already had a connection. Cannon enrolled in TSU’s online graduate administration of justice program that spring, according to TSU documents.
Cannon provided the Chronicle with a December 2016 email exchange with Rene that he also sent to TSU officials. In the email thread, Cannon and Rene discussed whether Cannon should include his past arrests on his law-school application.
“Dean you want me to tell them about the charges, they were dropped in May?” Cannon wrote on Dec. 5, 2016.
“If you check yes I can not help you!” Rene replied.
That same month, Rene conditionally admitted Cannon as a “visiting student” at the law school for the spring 2017 semester, according to an admissions letter signed by Rene on Dec. 2, 2016. Rene wrote in the letter that once he received a letter of good standing from Southern University Law Center, Cannon would be admitted and allowed to complete nine credits. But the letter never came, Cannon said.
Meanwhile, Cannon filed a lawsuit against the Southern University Law Center in 2017 in federal court, alleging the school violated his rights by expelling him. He sought to be readmitted, but a judge dismissed the case. Cannon appealed. Southern University officials declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Emails provided by Cannon show that Rene was trying to secure Cannon’s transcript and letter of good academic standing from Southern University in the fall of 2018. His admission to TSU’s law school finally was approved in 2019 and captured in the video with Rene.
But Cannon said that his admission to TSU’s law school came with a caveat — though he would be admitted as a transfer student, none of his 70-plus credits he previously earned would transfer. Rene told him he’d have to start from square one, Cannon said.
‘Truthful answers’
Cannon said he began asking other people in the law school — including the law school’s dean, Joan Bullock — whether he could be granted his transfer credits, even if it was only a portion. Cannon said he met with Bullock, who told him that she would consider his request and make a final decision about his admissions.
In a response to a request for a comment from Bullock, university spokesman Steve Scheffler said that it is TSU’s policy to not comment on personnel matters and that Bullock couldn’t answer questions about Rene or Cannon.
Cannon said officials had advised him that his credits had expired. Standards set by the American Bar Association, an accrediting body for law schools, state that a law degree should be completed “no later than 84 months after a student has commenced law study at the law school or a law school from which the school has accepted transfer credit.”
Cannon started law school in 2011 at Southern University — around eight years or 96 months before attempting to apply for the fall 2019 semester at TSU’s law school.
But Cannon wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I did not cooperate with them just letting me in school, admitting me as a transfer student, but not treating me as a transfer student,” Cannon said. “I begged and pleaded with them to give me at least a minimum 30 of the transferable hours . ... They were reluctant to (do) so.”
In a letter dated Aug. 27, 2019, and obtained by the Houston Chronicle, Rene said Cannon was dishonest in his application for not including his past rape arrests. Cannon said the letter came after several conversations with Rene, during which Cannon says he disclosed his history.
“It has come to our attention that you did not provide truthful answers on your law school application,” Rene wrote. “I must inform you that your acceptance as a transfer student has been rescinded and your application has been rejected.”
Cannon said he was confused and angered. He began sending emails, contacting TSU officials and anyone who would listen. He had heated phone exchanges with Bullock, Cannon said, and sent several emails pleading and demanding to be admitted.
Cannon also began emailing members of TSU’s board of regents.
Ultimately, Bullock rejected Cannon’s request to attend TSU, noting an admissions committee had reviewed his case and reached the same conclusion.
Bullock began scrutinizing other students who had been admitted by Rene. Her concerns were reflected in a letter she wrote last November to the American Bar Association, the law school’s accrediting body, in which she said she terminated Rene.
Bullock said she reported the problem to TSU Provost Kendall Harris and Lane, and asked the internal auditor’s office for assistance.
“As a consequence of my oversight, I terminated the assistant dean of admissions,” Bullock wrote to Barry Currier, the ABA’s managing director of accreditation and legal education. “I had no trust or confidence in his ability to lead and manage the office because of his failure to follow all the rules and procedures required for transparency and for fair consideration of all applicants in compliance with ABA (standards).”
Bullock’s letter was sent the same month the board announced the discovery of “improprieties” in TSU’s admissions process. The board said it had contacted law enforcement authorities and approved a “comprehensive review” by outside experts of the school’s admissions and financial aid practices.
Lane later said the board’s actions weren’t just unnecessary, they violated school policy, which states that school management — vice presidents, directors, managers and supervisors — are responsible for “detecting fraudulent, dishonest or improper activities” and should notify the university’s Office of Internal Audit & Assurance and university police, if necessary.
By the time the board began investigating, Bullock and other TSU officials had already removed Rene, Lane said, and TSU’s internal auditor was examining the law school’s admissions office.
“It’s clear that the board of regents did not follow the fraud policy and hijacked the internal auditor’s job of doing the investigation for her,” Lane wrote in a letter that he later released, which objected to the board’s efforts to oust him.
The fallout
In the end, Lane was caught in the fallout from the admissions scandal. The board of regents stated in the Feb. 4 “notice of termination” to Lane that he was responsible and failed to keep the board informed.
“You and/or your subordinate allowed this student to be admitted into the university,” the board stated in what appears to be a reference to Cannon attending the online graduate program.
Lane denied the claims, asserting that he and his staff adhered to university policy by reporting Cannon’s situation to the school’s auditor. Lane said it was the auditor’s responsibility to investigate and report to the board.
On Feb. 20, Lane and the board reached the settlement that found no wrongdoing on Lane’s part. Many of Lane’s supporters said they are still shocked by his departure and how the board handled it.
Glenn Lewis, a former TSU board member who served as chairman for 11 years, said he didn’t want to second-guess the board’s conflict with Lane or the decision to buy out his contract. But he said Lane’s departure caught him by surprise because he hadn’t noticed any friction between Lane and Mack, the board’s chairman.
“It all happened kind of quickly,” Lewis said.
Cannon said he found another law school to attend. And he holds no grudges against Rene.
“He never took money from me. He was sympathetic for me,” Cannon said. “He was really a nice guy. I was really sad that s--- happened to him.”