Priscilla Slade and the TSU Three

Brown says that the university placed him on probation after an incident in which then-student government president Greg Taylor accused Brown of verbally threatening him, charges Brown still denies. (Taylor declined to comment to the Press on the incident.) Jordan says he was also put on probation, charged with intentional physical or mental harm and forgery, stemming from the Boney flyers. Jordan says he was forced to resign as freshman class president and Brown says he was barred from running for school president. In the end, Jordan was allowed to appeal his sentence and did so, successfully, while Brown says he was prohibited from appealing and was required to have campus police escort him to and from classes.

Meanwhile, Hudson had a run-in with an administrator that months later resulted in the university suspending him for a year. According to documents filed on behalf of the university in the three students' lawsuit, Hudson was at a meeting with Wiggins when Hudson became angry and began yelling, prompting Wiggins to call campus police and have Hudson removed. Hudson does not deny this, but says he was there trying to voice what he felt were valid concerns over a faculty member's salary and Wiggins was refusing to answer. As a result, the university charged Hudson with insubordination, campus disturbance and intentional mental or physical harm. Suspended from school, Hudson says he was no longer allowed on campus without a police escort.

In addition, says Glenn Hudson, the university wanted the family to repay the financial aid his son had been lent before they would release his transcript, keeping him from taking classes at another college during his suspension.

"They held his transcript hostage until I finally paid them," says Glenn Hudson. His son did eventually take classes at Houston Community College during his suspension.

William Hudson says he had been on schedule to graduate at the end of the summer of 2005 in the same class as his mother, Sharon. That family dream was no longer a reality; now they just prayed Hudson would be allowed to attend his mother's big day.

"When William finally was granted permission to come," says Sharon Hudson, "there were police officers standing in front of him, and it was so obvious they were not situated around other families like that. And everybody was staring. When I finally walked across the stage to get my diploma, they escorted him right out and would not let him stay for the rest of the ceremony. And afterwards, when we all wanted to take pictures together, we couldn't because William had to stand across the street off university property, just waiting for us all by himself. It just broke my heart."
_____________________

Hudson and Jordan's arrests were what Jordan calls "just the wake-up call we needed to start getting smart." The trumped-up criminal charges scared the three students, and they knew they had to get what they felt was really happening at the university on the record. So, Brown and Jordan started tape-recording their phone conversations with TSU officials.

The first phone call they recorded was between Jordan and then-regent Johnson. The TSU Three had heard rumors that the newly built Student Recreation Center's foundation was cracked and that nothing was being done to fix it because the performance bond purchased by the construction company in 2000 was no good. Jordan's conversation with Johnson confirmed the rumor, and in the students' minds, set off alarms that former chairman of the Board of Regents and current Secretary of HUD Alphonso Jackson, along with other regents and administrators, was covering it up.

According to the tape obtained by the Press, Johnson says, "I discovered the damn recreation center was crumbling. I walked over there one day and I am like, what in the hell? And what did they do, Justin? They tried to cover that shit up."

Later on in the tape, Johnson says, "And you know, but see, when Alphonso was the chairman, shit, he was the chairman. Man, please, you don't know the half of it. I got cussed out over the bogus bond."

The Student Recreation Center was built by KAI Construction out of St. Louis. According to the bond paperwork filed with the university, KAI's president, Michael Kennedy, secured a $10,378,022 performance bond in 2000 from National Assurance Guaranty Group Inc. out of Las Vegas. However, according to both the Nevada Division of Insurance and the Texas Department of Insurance, the bond company has never been licensed to sell insurance in either state.

When asked about the bond, TSU spokesman Terrence Jackson deferred to the Texas Attorney General. Attorney General spokesman Tom Kelly says that the state is monitoring the situation but that outside counsel is leading the effort to resolve the issue. So far, TSU's board of regents has decided not to file a lawsuit against KAI, says Kelly. The law firm Kelly says is handling the case, Andrews Myers Coulter, did not return the Press's phone calls.