This month, the Texas Supreme Court will hear a multiyear battle over whether Southern Methodist University may secede from the United Methodist Church.
On January 15, the Texas Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a lawsuit between Dallas’ 12,000-student private institution and the United Methodist Church’s South Central Jurisdiction.
In 2019, SMU’s leadership modified its articles of incorporation, declaring that its board of trustees, not the United Methodist Church, held the “ultimate authority” over the university. The institution’s articles of incorporation specify how the university is governed and by whom.
The university’s move to revise the documents and establish the board’s sole power over the school occurred during a turbulent period in Methodist church history. In 2019, members approved a ban on LGBTQ+ clergy and prevented pastors from officiating same-sex nuptials.
It prompted a tremendous internal conflict inside the church, driving thousands of conservative churches that were tired of fighting to disaffiliate and form their own more conservative church, currently known as the Globalist Methodist Church.
SMU President R. Gerald Turner told The Dallas Morning News at the time that the university was attempting to break away before the church made any decisions on how to divide so that it could “continue to educate everybody from all Methodist denominations, other denominations, and people who don’t believe at all.”
He also stated that he did not want the university’s Perkins School of Theology to be connected with simply one sect of Methodism.
Shortly after the board’s decision, the Southern Conference of the United Methodist Church sued SMU, claiming that the institution lacked the right to change the language in the articles of incorporation and that the conference must authorize the school’s departure.
The Methodist Church claims to have founded SMU in 1911, when it designated 133 acres of land for the institution. In their first complaint, church officials claimed that the articles of incorporation irrevocably granted the church various rights, including the ability to prevent revisions to the documents.
“Put simply, the trustees of SMU had and have no authority to amend the Articles of Incorporation without the prior approval and authorization of SCJC,” according to the claim.
The church’s South Central Jurisdiction encompasses eight states, including Texas. According to its website, it owns SMU, Lydia Patterson Institute, a K-12 school primarily educating Hispanic children in El Paso, and Saint Paul School of Theology.
In 2021, a district court decided in favor of SMU and dismissed the church’s claims. In 2023, Texas’ Fifth Court of Appeals overturned the ruling, agreeing with the conference that it was in charge of SMU and had the authority to suit.
A spokesman for SMU stated that the university does not comment on pending litigation. Jeffrey Parsons, a lawyer for the conference, did not reply to a request for comments.
Earlier this year, the congregations who remained in the United Methodist Church after the separation enacted legislation to repeal several of its anti-LGBTQ+ policies, such as the ban on LGBTQ+ clergy and the prohibition on pastors who officiate same-sex marriages.
The Texas Tribune collaborates with Open Campus on higher education coverage.