In 1998, South Texas College of Law Houston (at that time, called South Texas College of Law) tried to merge with Texas A&M University under a private/public partnership. Under the proposal, the law school would have remained a private school, but would have been branded as the Texas A&M Law Center and would have awarded law degrees under the A&M seal. The deal went sour after a lengthy legal fight with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the governing body of the state's public institutions. The courts ruled that the schools had failed to obtain the board's approval before entering into the agreement. The University of Houston and other institutions voiced concern about the partnership. In 2013, Texas A&M University entered into a similar arrangement with the Texas Wesleyan School of Law in Fort Worth, Texas, thereby creating the Texas A&M University School of Law.
