UT-Dallas Police Scandal

Brass Pig Award? What were you thinking?

The UT-Dallas police chief resigned without explanation in May, after having been placed on administrative leave in April. Hints of scandal hung over her head. Last week, clues to what was behind the actions began leaking out. According to Holly K. Hacker in a story in The Dallas Morning News

"The former police chief of the University of Texas at Dallas ran personal errands in her state-leased sport utility vehicle, several employees allege. They say she ordered employees to drive her family to the airport for vacations, and to do work for her consulting businesses. ... [O]fficers objected to the 'Brass Pig Award,' created by Ridge and given at an annual awards banquet to the officer 'with the most embarrassing mishap of the preceding year.'"

All in all, petty and tawdry. Good examples for that management training chapter titled "What Makes a Bad Boss."

Are there any larger lessons to learn here? That remains to be seen. How did the situation get out of control? Were these longstanding offenses that were widely known but overlooked? Was oversight of the police chief herself lax? Did the university discourage employees from reporting abuses? The sooner we can get past the juicy details about the chief's SUV and her brass pig and get on to the meatier details about who in the higher-up UT-Dallas administration let the campus police department get so far out of control, the sooner UT-Dallas can put this whole sorry chapter behind it.