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U.S.|Southern Methodist University Wants to Sever Ties to Its Church. Can the Church Stop It?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/us/southern-methodist-university-church.html
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The dispute, which some critics say tests the church’s autonomy, heads to the Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Jan. 15, 2025Updated 10:00 a.m. ET
The Texas Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in a battle over whether Southern Methodist University can separate from the United Methodist Church. The university, founded in Dallas by Methodists in the early 20th century, has been trying to extricate itself since 2019, a period of intense turmoil in the denomination over whether the church should accept gay clergy or gay marriage.
At stake is the question of who ultimately controls the university: its own board or the church that founded it more than a century ago and wrote its ownership into the school bylaws. The case will determine whether one of the flagship institutions of Methodism will remain connected to the church, which is the country’s second-largest Protestant denomination.
The private university abruptly changed its articles of incorporation in 2019 to name its own board as its “ultimate authority.” That move displaced one of the church’s regional governing bodies, the South Central Jurisdictional Conference, which oversees congregations in eight states including Texas.
The university’s articles of incorporation previously stated that the school would be “forever owned, maintained and controlled” by the conference, which had a say in selecting and approving board members, including three United Methodist bishops.
In response, the conference sued Southern Methodist, arguing that the university did not have the authority to declare independence without the church’s approval. A Texas district judge ruled in favor of the university in 2021, but an appeals court reversed the decision.
Southern Methodist University was founded in the early 20th century by Southern Methodists who wanted to establish a flagship institution west of the Mississippi River. But today, the university and the church’s conference have relatively few practical entanglements. Representatives from the conference do not participate in hiring decisions, and the conference has made no direct financial contributions in “nearly a decade,” according to a brief filed by the university.
