Local News

Opponents Try Again To Stop Bush Library At SMU

DALLAS (AP) ― Keeping just a flicker of hope alive, opponents made a long-shot appeal to a Methodist council Friday to try to block Southern Methodist University's plans for the George W. Bush presidential library complex.

A day after most delegates at the South Central Jurisdiction conference endorsed a smaller council's decision last year allowing SMU to lease land for the project, a delegate sent the matter to the church's highest lawmaking body.

Jeannie Trevino-Teddlie asked the judicial council to examine SMU's leasing of the land below market value for the public policy institute, which is part of the presidential library complex.

She questioned whether the action met SMU and church rules, which require campus buildings to be used for educational or religious purposes. She said the lease "would subsidize a specific political and ideological point of view."

Bishop Robert E. Hayes Jr., presiding over Friday's session, said he would rule on the matter within 30 days and then submit it to the judicial council, which meets in October. The council determines whether proper procedures were followed, so it will not rule if the library should be built at SMU.

But SMU officials on Friday said their actions involving the library complex have been proper and said they were not worried about the judicial council's review. SMU was named the official site in February.

The university entered into a 99-year lease with the Bush Foundation for a total of $1,000, after the church's mission council in March 2007 gave its blessing for the land deal. The mission council is a smaller group that votes on important issues cropping up between the meetings of the jurisdiction every four years.

"This is a common exchange in leases of this nature," Brad Cheves, SMU's vice president for external affairs and development, said Friday. "There is tremendous value that comes to the university with attracting the library, museum and public policy institute."

He said in addition to more university endowments and visitors to campus, students will benefit from research at the presidential library center. The community's economy will benefit as well, he said.

Opposition started on campus from some faculty in the fall of 2006, just before SMU was named the lone finalist. Then some Methodist ministers joined in the fray, starting an online petition that has since garnered about 12,000 signatures.

Many say they support the library and museum but oppose the think tank, which would be independent of SMU and would further the Bush administration's views -- including the Iraq war -- that they say conflict with church teachings.

To learn more about the fight for and against bringing the Bush library to SMU, click here.

(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

---