Texas Tribune
Tarleton State instructor loses job after parking fees feud
by By Nell Gluckman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Texas Tribune – 2024-06-25 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Ted Roberts, a non-tenured history instructor at Tarleton State University, faced unexpected job non-reappointment after 12 years of service, despite strong student evaluations and a good standing. Roberts had vocally criticized the university's parking fee hike, which led to a tense but respectful exchange with the university president at a faculty meeting. This incident spurred faculty concerns about retaliatory actions. Roberts' appeal against the decision was denied without an explanation. The university justified the non-reappointment by citing policy, leading Roberts to consider legal action and contemplate his next career steps.
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An email landed in Ted Roberts' inbox one morning last April. The acting dean of Tarleton State University's liberal and fine arts college, where Roberts taught history, wanted to meet that day. He asked her what it was about, but got no response. At 4:45 p.m. that afternoon, Aimee Shouse, the acting dean, showed up at his office and asked if they could talk.
“The decision was made to non-reappoint,” she said, according to a recording of the meeting.
“So they're firing me?” Roberts said.
As a senior instructor, Roberts was not tenured. But for 12 years, there had never been any question that his yearly contract would be renewed. He earned his undergraduate and master's degrees at Tarleton and channeled his experience as a veteran into a popular military-history class that he taught in addition to several other history courses. Roberts was well-liked by students, particularly those in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, or ROTC program. They were who he was there to reach.
Roberts could not believe he'd lost his job. His student evaluations were strong and he believed he was in good standing at the university. The faculty senate would later, in a letter, write that the administration's decision “resulted in a widespread impression of a retaliatory environment, which in turn has created a chilling effect throughout the university.” What Roberts had done was complain, passionately, about something that people complain about all the time on college campuses: parking.
Finding his mission
Roberts' career in higher education was not inevitable. In 1992, after a short stint in college that did not last due to too much partying, he joined the Marines. He spent time in Japan and South Korea working as an intelligence analyst before returning home to Texas to try college again. Even with the GI Bill, Roberts said Tarleton, which is part of the Texas A&M University System, was the only place he could afford. Five years in the Marines had matured him, and he earned a bachelor's in 1999 and a master's in history in 2003. He worked as an adjunct professor at Tarleton for another year.
By then, the United States was at war in Afghanistan and Iraq and many young Americans felt the pull of patriotism. Roberts was not exactly young, but he believed his country needed him again. He figured he would work in a combat-support role, but American forces were getting clobbered in Iraq and he was deployed as an officer in the infantry. Between 2006 and 2009 he served an exceptionally long tour in Iraq — 17 months — then was deployed again. When he got back in 2010, he returned to civilian life.
A Tarleton professor he had been close to had become the department chair and offered Roberts a job. The university, whose main campus is in Stephenville, about an hour southwest of Fort Worth, was dealing with an influx of students, and though Roberts wanted to go to law school, he agreed to help his former mentor so long as the position could be as a visiting professor rather than an adjunct. One semester turned into two, which turned into a yearslong profession. Roberts taught five courses per semester, including military history, a requirement for ROTC students.
“The more I stuck around the more I started to see similarities between the young men I commanded and the young students that were showing up in the classrooms,” Roberts said.
Teaching suited Roberts, but as anyone who works on a campus knows, it comes with regular frustrations. One of the most universal is parking. Last year, the gate to the faculty and staff parking lot that Roberts uses was broken and the lot filled regularly with drivers who weren't supposed to park there, he said.
To make matters worse, Tarleton jacked up parking fees — by a lot. Roberts' own cost jumped from $105 a year to $400. “I can afford it,” he said. “I was thinking of all these administrative assistants, staff folks that cut the grass, trim trees, and they've got to pay $400.”
Voicing concerns
In January, Roberts wrote to parking services explaining the gate problem and calling the fee hike “racketeering at worst, exorbitant at best.” The parking gate was later fixed, but Roberts was not satisfied with the response he got about the fees. The vice president for campus operations, David V. Martin, wrote that the increase was needed to fund more parking construction and told Roberts that there are “pains with growth.”
So when an email popped into Roberts' inbox in February announcing that the university president would be “embarking on a comprehensive listening tour” in which faculty members and staff were encouraged to attend sessions to “voice concerns and propose solutions,” Roberts saw an opportunity.
Before the meeting, he did some research. He typed up a list of parking fees at other Texas A&M universities ($50 at Texas A&M at Texarkana; $190 at Texas A&M at Corpus Christi) as well as those at other institutions outside the system. He included the average annual salary at Tarleton, according to Glassdoor, and listed the salaries of the university's top earners (the president made $400,000 in 2022). His research was cursory, he said, and there may have been some errors, but he stands by his point.
The meeting was held in a lecture hall and drew roughly 40 attendees, Roberts estimated, plus more on Zoom. No other university leaders were invited in order to foster “an environment conducive to open dialogue,” the invitation had said. Beforehand, faculty members were asked to submit questions and concerns anonymously. To start it off, James Hurley, the university's president, spoke at length. According to Roberts, Hurley mentioned parking but did not get into detail. Then he moved on.
Roberts felt a sense of urgency. Was that it?
Ten years of military service that instills how to address a senior-ranking officer kicked in and he stood up. He held his typed notes in his hand and referred to it as he challenged the president. Hurley pushed back, disputing Roberts' numbers. The exchange went on for about three or four minutes, Roberts estimated, and ended with Hurley asking if he could see Roberts' notes. Roberts handed over the page and sat back down.
Three other faculty members who attended the meeting said the exchange was tense but cordial and never got out of hand. They thought that would be the end of it.
About two and a half weeks later Roberts got the email from Shouse, the acting dean, who also serves as associate provost and associate vice president for curriculum and faculty, asking for a meeting. At first, Roberts thought it was about the tenure and promotion committee: Shouse had appointed him to that committee, he said, even though he is not on the tenure track. He said she told him it was because he was experienced.
“Very rarely do things make it to the administration building as quickly as they did after the listening session with the president,” Shouse told Roberts, according to a recording he made of their conversation and shared with The Chronicle. “And I mean from a variety of sources.”
It was ultimately the provost's decision not to renew Roberts' contract, she said. The provost, Diane M. Stearns, had been clear “that they're not going to tolerate intolerable behavior. And I think the way it was perceived was intolerable behavior in terms of toward the president,” Shouse told Roberts.
A few minutes later she said that “cordial isn't the word I've heard” and that “other deans” had heard about the exchange. “I think the perception was it was a big enough noncordial event that people were talking about it.”
She explained that Roberts could appeal the decision to the provost. And she left.
Shouse did not return a request from The Chronicle for an interview. Sven Alskog, director of university communications, declined a request for interviews with Stearns, the provost, and Hurley, the president, saying the “university does not comment on personnel matters.”
Roberts considered himself someone who did things right, a military man who followed the rules and respected his superiors. A day after the meeting with Shouse, he wrote to the provost asking for an explanation. She responded that he would not get one.
A chilling effect
“Having gone through the trauma of war and thinking everything is going to be easy after Iraq,” Roberts said, “it's bothered me more than I thought it would.”
Roberts' colleagues were equally surprised. In a letter to the provost, the faculty senate wrote that Roberts had a “competitive track record” of teaching and service and that his role as a teacher and adviser to many ROTC students was critical. The administration's decision, they wrote, made faculty feel less safe to speak up. If they could not raise concerns about parking, how could they bring up problems they considered more serious?
“Mr. Roberts spoke up about the parking issues, and although those in attendance agreed he was passionate about his research into the topic, he did not represent his fellow faculty members in a negative way,” the May 9 letter said. “Certainly, no one left that meeting thinking he would lose his job because of the interaction.”
The history department chair, Jensen Branscombe, also wrote a letter to the provost describing Roberts as “one of the most dependable, hardworking, and upstanding members of the department” and that he was well-liked by students and peers. Roberts got high marks on student evaluations, Branscombe wrote, and regularly served on search committees, and mentored students. Every summer he volunteered to help undergraduates register for classes. Branscombe wrote that Roberts had met or exceeded expectations in his annual evaluations for the last five years.
Roberts appealed the decision and met with Stearns for about 10 minutes. In the meeting, according to a recording he made, he explained that he believed the decision not to reappoint him was made in retaliation for his exchange with the president. He provided Stearns with the faculty senate letter and the letter from Branscombe, both of which she said she had.
Stearns still would not give a reason, quoting system policy that states that institutions are “not required to give a non-tenure track faculty member a reason for a decision not to reappoint.” Roberts told her that he was prepared to hire a lawyer.
In a May 28 letter, Stearns wrote to Roberts saying “that there are not adequate grounds to overturn the decision of non-reappointment.”
Roberts is not sure what he will do next. His 84-year-old mother lives in the area and he visits her every weekend, so he would rather stay close. But so far he has not found another teaching job nearby, so he may have to look elsewhere. His position at Tarleton will officially end on June 28.
“I feel like this was kind of a stab in the back to not just me as a veteran, but other veterans,” Roberts said. “At the very least, the university needs to answer questions about firing a veteran like that.”
Disclosure: Texas A&M University and Texas A&M University System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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Texas Tribune
Texas to double state fund aimed at expanding power grid
by By Kayla Guo, The Texas Tribune – 2024-07-01 17:05:54
SUMMARY: The state of Texas plans to double the Texas Energy Fund from $5 billion to $10 billion to expand the power grid as electricity demand is expected to nearly double by 2030. This follows a forecast by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which estimated the state's main grid would need to supply nearly twice its current power. The fund, approved by voters in November 2023, offers low-interest loans for new gas-fueled power plants. The state's grid has faced scrutiny since a 2021 winter storm caused extensive outages. Companies must apply for loans by July 27.
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The state of Texas plans to double a state fund aimed at expanding the power grid as demand for electricity is expected to nearly double over the next six years.
The state will look to boost the Texas Energy Fund from $5 billion to $10 billion, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced on Monday. The fund was approved by voters in November 2023 to offer low-interest loans to incentivize development of new gas-fueled power plants.
The announcement comes soon after a new prediction by the state's main grid operator that said electricity needs will surge in the coming years. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas estimated that the state's main power grid would have to provide nearly double the amount of power it currently supplies by 2030.
The numbers in the new forecast, Abbott and Patrick said in a press release, “call for an immediate review of all policies concerning the grid.”
The state's grid came under intense public and legislative scrutiny after a winter storm in 2021 knocked out its operations, causing dayslong power outages across the state in freezing temperatures that left millions of Texans without lights or heat. Hundreds died.
The Texas Energy Fund set aside $5 billion to fund 3% interest loans to help construct new gas-fueled power plants that are not dependent on the weather and that could power 20,000 homes or more.
The fund was also designed to pay out bonuses to companies that connect new gas-fueled plants to the main grid by June 2029, and to offer grants for modernizing, weatherizing and managing vegetation growth around electricity infrastructure in Texas outside the main electricity market, which meets around 90% of the state's power needs.
The state received notices of intent to apply for $39 billion in loans — almost eight times more than what was initially set aside, Abbott and Patrick said. They added that the average plant will take three to four years to complete, and new transmission lines will take three to six years to complete.
Companies have until July 27 to apply for a loan.
Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!
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Commanding officer confirms Troy Nehls has two Bronze Stars
by By Isaac Yu, The Texas Tribune – 2024-07-01 13:02:57
SUMMARY: The Texas Tribune reports that the military record of Rep. Troy Nehls has come under scrutiny. A CBS investigation revealed discrepancies in Nehls' service decorations, including claims of a second Bronze Star and a Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB), which the Pentagon has not corroborated. Nehls' former commanding officer, Jason Burke, affirmed awarding him a second Bronze Star in 2008. Despite the Pentagon's records indicating only one Bronze Star and no CIB, Nehls insists on social media that he earned both awards. Nehls, facing criticism, has stopped wearing the CIB, which was revoked in 2023 due to service in a non-combat role.
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WASHINGTON — The commanding officer of a 2008 tour in Afghanistan that included then-U.S. Army Major Troy Nehls told The Texas Tribune that he recalls awarding the now-congressman his second Bronze Star award.
That award — which recognizes service members who show heroism in the field — has been called into question after a CBS investigation reported Nehls had been touting military decorations that did not match his service record provided by the Pentagon. In campaign ads and in his House biography, Nehls, R-Richmond, has posted pictures wearing an Army uniform and two Bronze Star medals. He has also worn the Combat Infantryman Badge lapel pin, awarded to soldiers for service in combat.
The investigation found that the Pentagon reported Nehls received only one Bronze star and that the Combat Infantryman Badge was awarded in error and rescinded in 2023. Nehls, who has been publicly criticized by members of his own party amid the claims of stolen valor, said on social media that he did have two Bronze Stars. But he has since stopped wearing the CIB.
But Jason Burke, the Navy captain who led the 130-person joint task force Nehls served on during his tour, recalled awarding the medal to Nehls. Nehls received the medal at a ceremony with several other officers in the fall of 2008, shortly before Nehls finished his tour and returned to Texas, Burke told the Tribune.
“You're getting that award if you've done a good job and met the criteria,” said the now-retired Burke, who is listed on the award certificate as Nehls' commanding officer. “He earned it, and received it.”
Nehls, who represents a swath of Houston suburbs, served as Burke's second-in-command under a joint effort called Task Force Currahee. Their unit, which included both Army and Navy officers, worked on provincial reconstruction, building roads, clinics and schools in eastern Afghanistan's Ghazni Province. Burke said the team's convoys regularly came under Taliban ambushes and guerrilla attacks.
The Bronze Star award must be recommended by a commander, and any service member in any branch of the military working an operation involving a conflict with an opposing force is eligible. The CIB, by contrast, is only given to those in combat roles.
It was relatively standard during the U.S.'s war on terrorism, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, for officers of certain ranks to receive a some kind of award upon completing a tour, often a Bronze Star. Nehls' first star was awarded for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004, where he trained 13 staff members of an Iraqi government office to perform financial assessments, according to the certificate.
A spokesperson for Nehls declined to comment on this story, pointing to a post on X Nehls made last month defending his record and posting photos of the certificates of his two Bronze Stars, and his copy of the underlying nomination forms. Burke's sign-off can be seen on the 2008 documentation, known as a Form 638, along with signatures from two higher-level officials.
CBS reported the Pentagon would conduct another review of Nehls' record. The most recent summary of his service and awards, provided to the Tribune by a Pentagon spokesperson on Friday, lists only one Bronze Star and no CIB.
The systems for keeping records for military awards can be difficult to navigate. A soldier often becomes responsible for making sure awards paperwork is turned over to a personnel officer.
That means documentation for awards sometimes slips through the cracks, according to retired Army sergeant Anthony Anderson, who has investigated numerous instances of stolen valor.
“I wouldn't say it's common, but it does happen,” Anderson said.
Anderson said he had previously spoken with Nehls' chief of staff, encouraging them to submit documentation of the second Bronze Star to the Pentagon to be added to Nehls record.
He said he would be surprised if an officer in Nehls' position hadn't received a Bronze Star.
Nehls' military record has become a thorn for him in recent months. He announced that he would stop wearing the Combat Infantryman Badge last week in response to reports that the badge had been revoked in 2023.
Nehls was found to be ineligible for that badge because he had served in Afghanistan in a civil role, not as a combatant infantryman. Nehls did serve as an infantryman during his time with the Wisconsin National Guard in the 1990s, completing a tour in Bosnia.
Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!
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Robert Robertson execution day set in Texas shaken baby case
by By Kayla Guo, The Texas Tribune – 2024-07-01 11:33:10
SUMMARY: A Texas court has scheduled Robert Roberson's execution for October 17. Roberson, sentenced to death in 2003 for his 2-year-old daughter's death, has consistently challenged the conviction, claiming it was based on questionable science. Despite halting his execution in 2016 due to doubts about shaken baby syndrome, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his death sentence in 2023. Roberson's attorneys argue new evidence shows his daughter died of natural causes, not head trauma, and question the shaken baby syndrome diagnosis. The execution date triggers deadlines for last-minute legal and clemency filings.
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A Texas court on Monday set an execution date for Robert Roberson, who was sentenced to death in 2003 for killing his 2-year-old daughter but has consistently challenged the conviction on the claim that it was based on questionable science.
Roberson has maintained his innocence while being held on death row for more than 20 years. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals previously halted his execution in 2016. But in 2023, the state's highest criminal court decided that doubt over the cause of his daughter's death was not enough to overturn his death sentence.
His new execution date is set for Oct. 17.
Roberson's attorneys objected to the scheduling of an execution after Anderson County prosecutors requested on June 17 that a date be set. His attorneys said they have new evidence to bolster their case and that they planned to file a new request to overturn his conviction.
As a result, his attorneys argued, setting an execution date would be “premature and unjust.”
Roberson was convicted of killing his sickly 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, after he rushed her blue, limp body to the hospital. He said that Nikki fell from the bed while they were sleeping in their home in the East Texas town of Palestine and that he awoke to find her unresponsive. But doctors and nurses, who were unable to revive her, did not believe such a low fall could have caused the fatal injuries and suspected child abuse.
At trial, doctors testified that Nikki's death was consistent with shaken baby syndrome — in which an infant is severely injured from being shaken violently back and forth — and a jury convicted Roberson.
The Court of Criminal Appeals in 2016 stopped his execution and sent the case back to the trial court after the scientific consensus around shaken baby syndrome diagnoses came into question. Many doctors believe the condition is used as an explanation for an infant's death too often in criminal cases, without considering other possibilities and the baby's medical history.
The Court of Criminal Appeals' decision was largely a product of a 2013 state law, dubbed the “junk science law,” which allows Texas courts to overturn a conviction when the scientific evidence used to reach a verdict has since changed or been discredited. Lawmakers, in passing the law, highlighted cases of infant trauma that used faulty science to convict defendants as examples of the cases the legislation was meant to target.
Roberson's attorneys, in their opposition to setting an execution date, cited “overwhelming new evidence” that Nikki died of “natural and accidental causes” — not due to head trauma.
They wrote that Nikki had “severe, undiagnosed” pneumonia that caused her to stop breathing, collapse and turn blue before she was discovered. Then, instead of identifying her pneumonia, doctors prescribed her Phenergan and codeine, drugs that are no longer given to children her age, further suppressing her breathing, they argued.
“It is irrefutable that Nikki's medical records show that she was severely ill during the last week of her life,” Roberson's attorneys wrote, noting that in the week before her death, Roberson had taken Nikki to the emergency room because she had been coughing, wheezing and struggling with diarrhea for several days, and to her pediatrician's office, where her temperature came in at 104.5 degrees.
“There was a tragic, untimely death of a sick child whose impaired, impoverished father did not know how to explain what has confounded the medical community for decades,” Roberson's attorneys wrote.
They have also argued that new scientific evidence suggests that it is impossible to shake a toddler to death without causing serious neck injuries, which Nikki did not have.
And they cited developments in a similar case in Dallas County, in which a man was convicted of injuring a child. His conviction was based in part on now partially recanted testimony from a child abuse expert who provided similar testimony on shaken baby syndrome in Roberson's case. Prosecutors in Dallas County have said the defendant should get a new trial.
In 2023, when the Court of Criminal Appeals denied Roberson a new trial, prosecutors argued that the evidence supporting Roberson's conviction was still “clear and convincing” and that the science around shaken baby syndrome had not changed as much as his defense attorneys claimed. Witnesses also testified at trial that Roberson had a bad temper and would shake and spank Nikki when she would not stop crying.
The scheduling of Roberson's execution triggers a series of deadlines for any last filings in state and federal court to seek relief and begin a request for clemency.
Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!
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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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