Details unveiled in A&M’S botched hiring
The Texas A&M University System completed its internal investigation into the mishandled hiring of Kathleen Mcelroy, revealing that several top administrators were involved in the scandal.
Mcelroy, a Black journalist who was slated to direct the flagship’s revived journalism program, told the Texas Tribune last month that “outside” concerns over her experience in diversity and inclusion as well as her career at the New York Times prompted A&M to water down her tenured contract to a short, nontenured position.
The revelations came shortly after a legislative session that saw lawmakers ban diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs in public higher education. The session also had Texas’ faculty on edge with an attempt to ban tenure, which did not gain enough support and ended with legislators codifying many existing tenure practices into law.
The system’s Office of General Counsel launched its investigation into Mcelroy’s hiring when faculty raised concerns about external interference in hiring practices, and attorneys released their findings last week.
Mcelroy previously told the Tribune that she understood her job would have little to do with DEI. She received a $1 million settlement and will remain a tenured professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Here’s what to know.
Texts between Texas A&M administrators derailed Mcelroy’s hiring.
While then-president M. Katherine Banks told faculty leaders in a public meeting that she did not know of any regressive changes to Mcelroy’s contract, the texts prove otherwise. They show her and José Luis Bermúdez, then-interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, orchestrating a plan to move the journalist to a multiyear nontenured professorship and multiyear at-will directorship, which they said would be necessary to get her approved by Texas A&M’S board of regents.
The texts show the pair drafting a public defense as to why the changes made sense for Mcelroy’s purposes. Banks told Bermúdez, “If you get this done, you get a bonus.” They also indicated that nothing would be guaranteed for Mcelroy.
“How much can I say about support from the top of the university?” Bermúdez said.
“Absolutely nothing. Nothing, nothing. She is going to have a very rough road here,” Banks said in a text.
Mcelroy was apparently receptive to a multiyear contract — she told one official she intended to end her career by setting A&M’S journalism program up for success, documents show — but she walked away from the deal when Bermúdez further altered her terms. He said Mcelroy would have only a one-year nontenured faculty position in addition to a three-year at-will position running the new program.
After she brought her story to the Texas Tribune, texts show Banks and Bermúdez anticipating some blowback.
“I assume all texts were deleted,” Banks said.
Bermúdez later apologized to Banks, who told him not to worry.
“I think we dodged a bullet,” Banks said. “She is an awful person to go to the press before us.”
“A terrible journalist too,” Bermúdez said.” completely selfserving.”
Bermúdez said Mcelroy lied in much of her interview with the Tribune, and Banks responded that she already had told A&M’S chancellor that was the
case.
“Just think if she had accepted!!! Ugh,” she texted.
Members of the Texas A&M System Board of Regents opposed Mcelroy’s hire.
Six or seven members called Banks asking questions about how they would square Mcelroy’s hire and her “advocacy for DEI” with the new law banning DEI at universities, according to the report.
In texts between regents, board member Jay Graham said the hire seemed like an April Fools’ Day joke.
“I thought the purpose of us starting a journalism department was to get high-quality Aggie journalist with conservative values into the market,” he said. “This won’t happen with someone like this leading the department.”
Graham added that he couldn’t allow the appointment to happen. He also referenced previous assurances that the president’s effort to combine multiple programs into one college for arts and sciences would benefit conservative professors.
“Kathy (Banks) told us multiple times the reason we were going to combine arts and sciences together was to control the liberal nature that those professors brought to campus,” Graham texted. “This won’t happen with this kind of hire!”
And regent Mike Hernandez said in an email to Banks and Chancellor John Sharp that “granting tenure to somebody with this background is going to be a difficult sell for many on the (board).” He suggested they “put the brakes on this,” and he said he forwarded his Google searches on Mcelroy to the system’s general counsel so it could be distributed to the full board.
“The New York Times is one of the leading main stream media sources in our country,” he wrote. “It is common knowledge that they are biased and progressive leaning. The same exact thing can be said about the university of Texas. Yet that is Dr. Mcelroy’s résumé in a nutshell.”
“A letter offer of employment is not binding, but it does present a PR predicament,” he continued. “Granting tenure to somebody with this background is going to be a difficult sell for many on the BOR.”
Board Chair Bill Mahomes spoke differently in a letter he sent Mcelroy after she went public with her experience. He said the board did not discourage her hiring or “act against your potential A&M employment due to any outsiders’ influence or for any other reason.”
Alumni were vocal against Mcelroy’s potential hire.
A&M changed its tune with Mcelroy after an article in Texas Scorecard, a conservative-affiliated publication, announced Mcelroy’s hiring and referred to her as a “DEI proponent,” according to the system’s report.
Banks received several calls from alumni, including a group called The Rudder Association, about Mcelroy, the report states. And in text messages, Bermúdez also referenced the Sul Ross Group, members of the official alumni association who have passed 55 years since their graduations, as an organization that opposed the hiring.
“The Sul Ross Association and Rudder Association are gunning for her,” he said. “They have no power of course. But people who do have power listen to them.”
Banks previously had been accused of giving outsized attention to The Rudder Association. In a previous statement, the group’s leaders admitted to expressing concerns about Mcelroy. But they objected to “the characterization of taxpayers, tuition payers, and donors as ‘outside influence,’” saying they had a right to make their opinions known.
Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp said he was not involved.
Text and email communications sometimes referenced Sharp being apprised of the happenings with Mcelroy’s hire, but they did not show him placing any input.
In a text exchange with Bermúdez on June 19, Banks said she intended to discuss a change in Mcelroy’s appointment with Sharp in a scheduled meeting the next day. Chancellor Sharp’s calendar for June 20 reflected a meeting with Banks and Ross Bjork regarding athletics matters, but Sharp said Mcelroy was not discussed.
Sharp issued a statement after the system issued its report, publicly apologizing to Mcelroy.
“Regarding the events in Dr. Mcelroy’s hiring process, it is difficult to recognize the alma mater I dearly love and to which I owe so much. Texas A&M is far better than this!” he said. “A few, however, forgot our Core Values.”
Texas A&M admitted ‘significant’ mistakes were made.
The Office of General Counsel found that Bermúdez referenced Mcelroy’s race on two occasions, but the review did not identify any other evidence that race or gender were factors in the internal hiring process. Bermúdez clarified that his comments referenced how race might have been a factor for others outside of the system, but not for Texas A&M.
Several high-ranking A&M officials acknowledged that “significant” mistakes were made in the hiring process, mostly due to a failure to follow established policies and procedures on faculty hiring.
All faculty offer letters from now on will require the signature of the vice president of faculty affairs. Interim President Mark Welsh III also has directed the Office for Faculty Affairs to create a task force to provide recommendations on appropriate protections for faculty in matters of faculty hiring and academic freedom.