The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in an ongoing case between Southern Methodist University (SMU) and the United Methodist Church’s South Central Jurisdictional Conference (SCJC).
Southern Methodist University / Video screenshot @SMU
The lawsuit, which began in 2019, relates to amended SMU articles of incorporation that same year that purportedly took away the SCJC’s authority to approve trustee nominations and school land sales and leases.
The SCJC claims to have founded SMU in 1911 and placed the assets of SMU in trust for the benefit of the SCJC in 1924. In 1996, the adopted restated articles of incorporation again acknowledged the university’s relationship with the SCJC.
SMU initiated the 2019 amendments after the UMC voted to approve the “traditional plan,” which continued the denomination’s ban on the ordination and “marriage” of people who identify as LGBTQ.
But in 2024, the General Conference of the UMC voted overwhelmingly to overturn that measure, effectively affirming and including persons who identify as LGBTQ into all areas of church life and function.
Because of that change, Justice Debra Lehrmann asked the SCJC if the resolution of the underlying doctrinal issue regarding homosexual clergy should impact the case.
The conference attorney, Sawnie McEntire, said he saw the doctrinal issue as a mask to justify the amendments to the articles of incorporation.
“They shut the door on us and we need relief,” McEntire said of the article of incorporation amendments foreclosing the SCJC’s involvement with SMU, adding, “Our rights have been totally disrespected and ignored.”
Much of the discussion during the oral arguments surrounded the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, explained by the U.S. Supreme Court as a doctrine allowing religious institutions “to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.”
That prompted the Texas justices to question if they should interfere in the matter because of the religious groups involved and the underlying doctrinal issue.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an amicus, or friend of the court, brief in the case because it is interested in the outcome and application of the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine and the precedent it may set.
The Becket Fund’s brief sides with the church over SMU, stating, “Over one hundred years ago, the Church created and controlled SMU to carry out its religious mission, and memorialized that decision in documents binding SMU to the Church ‘forever.’ Texas courts are bound to recognize and accept that decision.”
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The university’s attorney, Allyson Ho, argued that SMU cherishes its Methodist heritage, but that it has always been an non-member, nonprofit corporation under Texas law making its own decisions and never owned nor controlled by the church. She claimed that the 2019 amendments to the articles of incorporation simply brought the documents into conformity with both law and practice.
She asserted that the court can make a decision about the articles of incorporation because it involves matters of neutral legal principles and not ecclesiastical matters like doctrine.
McEntire claimed it was a hybrid situation because he believes the court should not interfere with an ecclesiastical function of SCJC in advancing its mission through SMU. But McEntire also asserted that the court could intervene to make a declaration that the SCJC prevails as the controlling entity of the university under Texas law.
“Should SMU prevail, they will have interfered with a 100-year history of control where the church has used SMU as a vehicle to advance its mission,” he told the court.
The oral argument also involved questions of Texas law under which nonprofit corporations operate and whether the SCJC had standing to bring the lawsuit against SMU.
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