Free Republic

Two Houston-area lawmakers kicked off a campaign Thursday to pressure the state Legislature to continue sending extra money to Texas Southern and Prairie View A&M universities to offset past discrimination. State Sen. Rodney Ellis and Rep. Garnet Coleman, both Houston Democrats, said they will file a civil rights complaint if the state doesn't renew the $250 million funding that was given to the historically black universities in 2001. "Today, Representative Coleman and I are calling for our fellow leaders, both state and federal, to take a close look at the promises they've made, the promises they have kept and those...

TSU board votes to ax Slade over spendingHearing likely for president before her firing becomes official. Priscilla Slade's seven-year tenure as Texas Southern University's president headed to an end Monday when the historically black institution's governing board decided to fire her on the grounds that she misspent school funds. Slade's contract guarantees the right to a public hearing within the next month before the firing becomes final, and she plans to request one. Slade, meanwhile, will be on paid leave. "There is always in everybody's life a day of reckoning," Slade told supporters at a nearby church afterward. "There is...