The case of whether or not SMU can split from the church was sent back to trial court for further proceedings.
DALLAS — The United Methodist Church can continue its legal fight over whether or not SMU can split from the church, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday.
In the 8-1 opinion, to which one justice dissented in part, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the United Methodist Church’s South Central Jurisdictional Conference “has statutory authority to pursue its claims regarding the validity of the 2019 amendments to SMU’s articles of incorporation,” but didn’t decide the merits of the case on either side. The case was sent back to the trial court for further proceedings. The UMC’s South Central Jurisdictional Conference runs the church’s congregations in eight states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Missouri and Nebraska,
Friday’s decision was first reported by our content partners at the Texas Tribune.
The legal case began with a lawsuit filed in 2019 after SMU voted in November of that year to update its governing documents “to make clear that SMU is solely maintained and controlled by its board as the ultimate authority for the University.”
SMU’s vote on its governing documents came amid a split within the United Methodist Church over issues of the ordination of LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriages within the church. The United Methodist Church voted in February 2019 to endorse the so-called “Traditional Plan,” which strengthened the church’s bans on ordaining LGBTQ clergy and hosting same-sex marriage.
The United Methodist Church’s South Central Jurisdictional Conference sued SMU over its governance changes, arguing it has jurisdiction over the university and that the university needed its approval to make the changes to its governing language.
The conference claimed in the lawsuit that it founded SMU in 1911 with an initial gift of 133 acres of land.
“This lawsuit has become necessary because of recent, unauthorized acts by representatives of SMU in violation of SCJC’s rights and interests,” the lawsuit read.
“Even as we value our historical relationship with the Church, SMU is distinct from the Church. Nothing changes in SMU’s day-to-day operations as a result of this action. In founding SMU, members of the Methodist Church and the citizens of Dallas created a University as a separate corporate entity governed by the SMU Board of Trustees,” SMU said in February 2019.
In 2021, a judge ruled in favor of SMU in the lawsuit and dismissed the conference’s lawsuit with prejudice.
The conference appealed that verdict, and the Texas Fifth Court of Appeals reversed that dismissal in July 2023, ruling that the conference had standing to challenge the school’s 2019 governing document changes. The case then made its way to the Texas Supreme Court.