In 2015, U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack declared that the conditions for children in the Texas foster care system were so bad that it represented a violation of the children’s constitutional rights. Texas children, she wrote, had been “shuttled throughout a system where rape, abuse, psychotropic medication, and instability are the norm,” and where children “often age out of care more damaged than when they entered.”

Ten years later, dramatic changes have shaken the child welfare system in Texas. Much work remains, but the outcomes are nothing short of shocking. Texas now removes fewer children, keeps more children out of foster care, and protects more children from abuse and neglect than ever before. Accomplishing all three of these goals at the same time is something few people thought was possible.

Many Texans may not realize how quickly a child can be removed from their home if Child Protective Services believes there is an immediate risk. Even today, after years of reforms, a court has the authority to take a parent’s child even when the parent, CPS, and the judge all agree that the parent is most likely innocent of abuse and neglect.

Nationally, 1 out of every 3 children will experience a CPS investigation by age 18, according to a study published by the American Journal on Public Health. For Black and Native American children, it’s more than 1 out of every 2.

Once a child is removed, he or she will stay in foster care for an average of 14 months. In Texas, only a third of them will ever return home. Reform advocates often point out that a stranger who is accused of abusing a child is entitled to a litany of due process protections in a criminal trial that a parent is never afforded in a civil trial — even when the parent is accused of the same conduct. Yet, it is the parents who face the prospect of losing their child completely.

Termination of parental rights is often referred to as the “death penalty” of civil law. It’s not hard to see why. Most parents would sooner go to jail than lose their children.

In 2018, Texas removed 20,685 children from their homes. That same year, 211 children died from abuse and neglect in Texas. But since that time, the system has been shocked by a barrage of reforms. In 2024, Texas removed 9,220 children — a 55% drop in just six years. Furthermore, 99 children died from abuse and neglect in 2024 — a 53% drop.

Also in 2018, a new set of CPS reforms began taking effect, reforms that would set the tone for nearly eight years of earthshaking changes to the child welfare system in Texas.

State Reps. Gene Wu, D-Houston, James Frank, R-Wichita Falls, and Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, who is now the speaker of the Texas House, worked together in 2017 to craft and pass HB 7 with the help of Sen. Bryan Hughes. The bill included a long list of due process reforms to Texas CPS law. Among other reforms, the bill prohibited child removals based on a family being low-income, required CPS to end its practice of suing parents in multiple courts at the same time (one court for each child), and prohibited CPS from terminating the rights of both parents when they only had evidence against one. The bill passed the Legislature with near unanimous support. Due process in CPS cases had gotten the Legislature’s attention.

In the years following, due process reforms in Texas sped up. In 2020, the Texas Supreme Court ended a practice whereby a jury could terminate parental rights even when jurors could not agree on what the parent had done wrong — a rule change specifically set in motion by HB 7.

In 2021, HB 567 dramatically reformed the definition of child neglect. In 2023, HB 730 required CPS caseworkers to inform parents of their rights before questioning them, like police officers do with criminal suspects. Both bills included numerous other reforms as well, and they were accompanied by a slew of other bills each making additional “pro-family” reforms to the system — reforms ranging from narrowly targeted due process changes to broad new standards of training for CPS caseworkers. Almost all of the bills passed with broad bipartisan support.

In 2021, Rep. Wu put clear words to the problem when describing how HB 567 changed the definition of neglect to prohibit the removal of a child unless there was an immediate danger. “We’ve always looked at what we’re doing for kids, but we don’t consider often what we’re doing to kids. … We guarantee you, if you strip them from their family, they will be traumatized. The question that we’ve never asked is this: Is it worth it?”

Because fewer children are being removed from their homes, the total number of children sitting in foster care has also plummeted, according to Texas Department of Family and Protective Services data. Altogether, the shift in the system since the 2018 reforms began has been dramatic:

• Children removed by CPS each year: down 55%
• Child deaths from abuse and neglect: down 53%
• Number of children sitting in foster care: down 47%
• Number of children waiting for adoption: down 43%
• Six-month and one-year recidivism rates: both at the lowest levels ever recorded (five-year rates have been essentially flat since 2015).

The Texas Legislature is now well into the 2025 legislative session. More reforms to the system are already being proposed. There are many holes left to be filled. In his State of the Judiciary speech before the Texas House and Senate, Supreme Court Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock spoke for several minutes about the critical importance of ensuring due process for families in the CPS system. At the state’s highest court, due process for families is now a point of critical focus.

Doubtless, not all of the positive changes in the system are attributable to the due process reforms of the last seven years, but many of them clearly are.

One thing is apparent: Texas is embracing the theory of due process in the child welfare system, and seven years in, outcomes for families and children have dramatically improved.

Jeremy Newman is vice president of Family Freedom Project.

Trump Media & Technology Group said on Monday it has become the first company to be listed on NYSE Texas, handing an early boost to the exchange as it gears up for fierce competition in the Lone Star state.

The company, which operates Truth Social and is primarily owned by President Trump, said it will also list its warrants on the Texas exchange. Its primary listing, however, will remain on the Nasdaq.

The move could bolster Intercontinental Exchange-owned NYSE, which on Monday became the first exchange to operate in Texas.

The state is home to the largest number of companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with a combined market value of over $3.7 trillion, and is now seeing rising competition for market dominance among stock exchanges.

NYSE will have to contend with rival Nasdaq, which promised to open a regional headquarters in the state earlier this month, and the Texas Stock Exchange, a venture backed by heavyweights including BlackRock and Citadel Securities.

The Texas Stock Exchange submitted paperwork in January to operate as a national securities exchange, and is eyeing a launch in 2026.

“This listing, alongside our plans to reincorporate in Florida, shows we’re part of a growing movement to take our business to states that value free enterprise and personal freedom,” said Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes.

Trump Media is a popular stock on retail trading forums and has often seen wild bouts of volatility in the past, such as around the election in November.

Securing the listing is a major win for the NYSE, but some consider the move “symbolic” – a perception that the exchange will likely need to change, while also strengthening liquidity.

Still, the growing competition between listing venues could strengthen the state’s emergence as a financial hub and a challenger to New York.

“The Texas business-friendly environment — lack of all the political issues and a stronger focus on what business should be — has a really unique position,” said Derek Wilson, co-founder of Dallas Opportunity Partners, an investor in the Texas Stock Exchange.

The announcement came on the heels of a filing late on Friday that BlackRock’s iShares division has filed for SEC approval to launch a Texas-focused exchange traded fund. The asset management giant did not disclose the exchange on which it proposes to list the ETF.

The fund will invest in stocks of companies headquartered in Texas that make up the Russell Texas Equity Index, a subset of the Russell 3000 index Unless regulators block or delay the offering, it could begin trading by early June.

The Texas Legislature can’t resist getting in on the action. While the administration in Washington has bludgeoned Columbia University into overhauling its Middle Eastern Studies Department, not exactly placing it into “academic receivership” as the White House demanded, but instead folding it into another combination along with South Asian and African Studies, the Senate in Austin is gearing up again for its latest battle with state universities.

Two years ago, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick tried and failed to eliminate tenure for faculty members in the seven university systems of Texas, settling instead for a version of his Senate bill amended in the House to allow boards of regents to grant tenure. This was already “the case in Texas’ public universities” according to the Texas Tribune. In addition, the measure called for tenured professors to be reviewed every few years, also an accepted practice in American higher education. UT Austin President Jay Hartzell wrote a letter defending tenure, noting that without it recruiting top faculty would be problematic. In the end, the House saved the day, but not without fear taking root.

Those troubles reared again as legislators returned to town this year with Patrick gearing up yet again, this time to give governing boards the power to hire all leaders in their universities, not just the chancellors and presidents. By this time, Hartzell had fled to Southern Methodist University, my alma mater, where trustees respect their presidents and honor their authority.

Now UT Austin, proud flagship of a proud system that includes booming and blooming UT Dallas, must find a new leader, which won’t be easy, especially if the House concurs this time in legislation to give regents, appointed by the governor, decisive power to hire vice presidents, provosts, deans, et al., plus the ability to “vet and veto … courses and curricula” with an eye on preparing students for the workforce, according to the Texas Tribune.

This sounds like the end of the humanities to me and close to the prophecy in The New York Times of a department chair at Columbia that American universities — the envy of the world — would be “really, really more akin to a high school or a local community college.” He was talking about the death of research on campuses, but his point applies to courses directed by political pals/regents as well. It should be noted that Columbia Agonistes has been great for SMU and Texas Christian University. A woman I met at a conference last week said that friends in the East are sending their kids to college in North Texas because of all the upheaval closer to home.

Even so, we’ve been this way in Texas before. In 1971, just 17 years after emerging from censure by the American Association of University Professors, UT Austin lost four professors (supreme stars of the faculty) after a celebrated dean of the College of Arts and Sciences was fired, then was immediately named president of Boston University. He took the others with him. All left lamenting political interference in the work of the university. A regent appointed by Gov. John Connally, by then secretary of the Treasury under Richard Nixon, charged them with teaching too little and living too “high on the hog,” according to the Times.

Thirty years later, Gov. Rick Perry and his henchmen instigated spreadsheets that showed faculty “productivity” in one system and which professors brought in money and which didn’t in another. One proposal was to separate teaching and research budgets, seen by some as anti-research. In a rush of enlightenment, Dan Branch, then a Republican member of the House, managed to pass a bill to create more tier-one public research universities. The governor signed it. Now Texas has more tier-one universities than any other state in the Union.

Why jeopardize all that? Why aren’t Texas alumni, usually fanatical, rising up in defense of the Longhorns and their fantastic legacy in learning as well as linemen? Usually university presidents such as Jay Hartzell or Gerald Turner, whom Hartzell will follow at SMU, are masters at keeping their blockers with them.

Chances are that’s harder now because the turmoil in the Texas Legislature is reflecting a national mood of disenchantment with higher education. What bothers critics most, I suspect, is what they perceive as a leftward tilt among college professors. However, those professors may not have as much influence as some parents fear. In last year’s election, Kamala Harris won voters ages 18 to 29 by four percentage points where in 2020, this group favored Joe Biden over Donald Trump by 25 percentage points, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

I just had lunch with a sophomore major in political science at SMU who seemed more than able to measure her choices at the polls and in life. She had to leave early for her class on Northern Irish history. Does her professor mention the brutal, bloody 30 years of troubles? I hope so.

Lee Cullum is a Dallas journalist and former host of CEO on KERA TV.

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here. If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at letters@dallasnews.com