The Texas Supreme Court will hear arguments 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, is trying to escape 2019, a time of intense doctrinal turmoil over whether the church should accept clergy or same-sex marriage.
At stake is the question of who ultimately controls the university: its own governing board or the church that founded it more than a century ago and wrote its ownership into the school charter. The case will determine whether one of Methodism’s top institutions will remain affiliated with the church, which is the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination.
The private university abruptly changed its charter in 2019 to name its own board of trustees as its “final authority.” That move displaced one of the church’s regional governing bodies, the South Central Jurisdictional Conference, which oversees churches in eight states, including Texas.
The university’s charter 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 convention sued Southern Methodist, arguing that the university had no 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 an iconic institution west of the Mississippi River. Today, however, the university and the church conference have relatively few practical entanglements. Representatives from the conference are not involved in hiring decisions, and the conference has not made direct financial contributions in “nearly a decade,” according to an update filed by the university.
The president of the university, R. Gerald Turner, said in 2019 that the school needed a formal separation from the church because of turmoil over its stance on gay rights — which the university argued was hindering its ability to attract students of all faiths. Among students who report religious affiliation at Southern Methodist, about 9 percent are Methodist Methodists make up less than 4 percent of the US population.
At the time, the denomination approved a plan strengthening bans on same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian clergy. Dr. Turner told The Dallas Morning News that year that the school wanted to sever official ties before the church collapsed.
But as the years passed, the dynamic in the church changed drastically. In 2024, the church overturned its long-standing ban on “self-confessed homosexuals” as clergy and officially allowed same-sex marriage. By that time, more than a quarter of the denomination’s congregations had already left because of their differences. Some have remained independent and others have joined the new Universal Methodist Church, a rival denomination that says it will not ordain or marry gays.
A spokeswoman for the university, Megan Jacobs, said the school does not comment on pending litigation.
Although there is no direct financial relationship between the school and the church, the relationship is important to the church and its dissolution risks “diminishing the distinct Methodist character that has shaped the university’s identity,” the Rev. Dr. Derrek Belase, president of the Mission Board of the South Central Jurisdiction, said in a statement.
In a document filed on behalf of the church, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty argued that if the court allowed the university to unilaterally secede from the church, it would violate the legal principle of ecclesiastical autonomy, bypassing church bylaws and effectively letting the government interferes in ecclesiastical affairs.
“At the heart of this case is the question of who decides” how religious institutions are structured, said William Haun, a senior adviser at the Becket Fund. He said it could have a “chilling effect” on churches and other faith-based organizations considering opening an affiliated college, hospital or homeless shelter.
Critics of the split said the university had done little to include the church’s input in the decision.
“It was deeply offensive for church leaders to step aside,” said Ted Campbell, retired elder of the Texas Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. “It felt like we were being ignored.” Dr. Campbell is also a professor at the university’s Perkins School of Theology.
Many prominent American universities were founded with clearly religious missions but later shed their official ties and Christian identity.
Vanderbilt University, another school founded by Southern Methodists, declared itself independent of the church before Southern Methodist University was founded, a dismissal that was ultimately upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court. In response, church leaders enshrined the church’s affiliation with Southern Methodist in the school’s charter.
In the century that followed, Southern Methodism grew in the direction its ambitious founders had envisioned. It now has 12,000 students and an endowment of more than $2 billion. Dr. Turner, who became president in 1995, acquired the George W. Bush presidential library in 2008. The school joined the Atlantic Coast Conference last year and its football team made the playoffs.
The board announced last week that Jay Hartzell, currently president of the much larger University of Texas at Austin, will be Southern Methodist’s next president.
