U.S. Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) won’t be getting a Distinguished Alumni Award on Oct. 21 as was originally scheduled.
According to Dena Craig, Johnson’s communications director, the congresswoman had to back out of the event because of a scheduling conflict. SMU Alumni Relations said that honorees are required to be at the event to receive the award.
Craig said that Johnson’s conflict stems from a surgery that Johnson underwent on Aug. 12 to correct a problem with a vertebra in her back. Craig said the surgery pushed other important events forward and has made it impossible for her to attend because they “just couldn’t coordinate it with SMU.”
“She’s excited about it, she wants to,” Craig said. “But right now she just can’t. The recovery time for her took a lot longer than she expected, and it pushed a lot of stuff back.”
SMU spokesman Kent Best said Johnson would be receiving the award at a later date, but that date has yet to be determined.
Craig said Johnson “hasn’t even been to the district” because she physically could not due to her recovery, although Johnson was in the district this past weekend to attend a local church service at Saint John’s Missionary Baptist Church.
“There was a church service acknowledging some community service that she has done,” Craig said.
Johnson also met with The Dallas Morning News editorial board on Monday.
This announcement comes weeks after the DMN reported that Johnson had violated scholarship eligibility rules by awarding approximately one third of the scholarships she had available through the Congressional Black Caucus to her own family members and to the children of her top Dallas aid.
Johnson further violated the rules when she requested that the checks be made out directly to those individuals instead of to an educational institution.
The illegitimate awards totaled $31,000, which Johnson paid back after the DMN broke the story. The rules for the scholarships prohibit nepotism and the granting of awards to students living or attending school outside of the district. None of the relatives of Johnson or her aid who were granted the scholarship lived within Johnson’s district.
Johnson maintains that she broke the rules unknowingly. In a letter that Johnson wrote to the DMN, she said that she believed the article “cast [her] in an unfair light.” She wrote, “This article gave the appearance that I overlooked the needs of a segment of my constituency to benefit my family; this was not the case.”
Johnson is also currently involved in a heated re-election campaign against DeSoto pastor Stephen Broden.
In a statement to The Daily Campus Broden responded to the announcement that Johnson would no longer be receiving the award.
“Whatever the reasons behind the decision, it seems appropriate for her not to receive that award in light of the scholarship scandal she is currently immersed in,” Broden said. “There appears to be a rising chorus of voters becoming aware of the situation and feeling deeply disappointed that she betrayed the students in her own district.”
While the controversy over the scholarships has sparked calls for an ethics investigation, Patti LaSalle, SMU’s associate vice president and executive director of public affairs, would not speculate whether such an investigation would prevent Johnson from receiving the Distinguished Alumni Award in the future.
“The Committee chose her based on a lifetime of work, so I really would not speculate on that,” LaSalle said.