High court: UMC can sue for control of Southern Methodist University
SMU students participate in campus Holi activities, hosted by the South Asian Student Association, in March. (Facebook)
The highest court in Texas handed a significant win to United Methodist efforts to maintain strong ties with Southern Methodist University.
In a mostly unanimous opinion released June 27, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the denomination’s South Central Jurisdictional Conference can advance its lawsuit to retain some governance of the Dallas university with “Methodist” in its name.
“We hold that the conference has statutory authority to sue SMU to enforce its rights” under both SMU’s 1996 articles of incorporation and Texas state law, said the ruling written by Justice Debra H. Lehrmann.
