Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against a Dallas-area entity called TexAM University at Dallas, accusing it of illegally offering degree programs without state approval, misleading students about its legitimacy, and adopting a name designed to be confused with Texas A&M University.

The legal action follows a May 6 cease-and-desist letter from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which ordered the entity to stop advertising, enrolling students, and offering degrees immediately. Together, the moves amount to a full-scale effort by Texas regulators and law enforcement to shut down what Paxton called an "illegal, unaccredited degree mill."

The founder of the entity, Shahid A. Bajwa, told Fox News Digital he had already complied with state regulators and called the lawsuit a misunderstanding. He said the Attorney General's office sued the institute, him personally, and two other board members for $1 million.

What the state found

The coordinating board's May 6 letter laid out the case plainly. After a review, the board determined TexAM University at Dallas was not compliant with Texas laws and regulations governing higher education. The entity had no Certificate of Authority, the basic state credential required to offer degree programs in Texas.

Yet its website told a different story. The board's letter stated that TexAM's online advertising indicated the entity "publicly holds itself out as offering in the State of Texas STEM degree programs, including a master's degree in Artificial Intelligence and admissions to bachelor's degree programs in computer science, IT, cybersecurity, and health informatics."

The programs were advertised both online and at a physical Richardson campus, the letter said. The board gave TexAM until May 8 to sign an attached confirmation letter and return it, certifying the entity had ceased its offerings.

That two-day window tells you how seriously the state viewed the situation.

Paxton escalates with a lawsuit

Days later, Paxton announced the lawsuit. His office accused TexAM University at Dallas of "unlawfully presenting itself as a university, offering degrees it is not authorized to grant, and misleading prospective students about its legitimacy," Fox News Digital reported.

The attorney general's press release added another layer: TexAM University at Dallas had "adopted branding and a name 'confusingly similar' to Texas A&M University." That's a significant allegation. Texas A&M, based in College Station, is one of the largest and most recognizable public universities in the country. A name like "TexAM", paired with "University at Dallas", could easily mislead a prospective student or employer glancing at a résumé.

Paxton did not mince words in his statement:

"TexAM has repeatedly disregarded Texas law, misrepresented its authority to grant degrees, and risked deceiving students about its legitimacy. My office will not allow illegal, unaccredited degree mills to operate in Texas."

Fox News Digital reported reaching out to both the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Paxton's office for additional comment but did not immediately receive responses.

The founder's response

Bajwa, who identified himself as the founder and chairman of the board of trustees at the Texas American Muslim Institute for Technology, pushed back in a statement to Fox News Digital. He framed the lawsuit as an overreaction and said the entity had already taken steps to comply with the coordinating board's demands.

"We just learned that Attorney General's office has filed Lawsuit for non-compliance. They sued our Institute and personally me, along with two other Members/Directors of the Non-Profit corporation, for $1 Million. We fail to understand how the following facts of compliance were overlooked and not even mentioned in the Lawsuit. Still, we are ready to discuss and resolve any misunderstanding."

Bajwa said the entity emailed written compliance to the coordinating board on May 11, after the board extended its original May 8 deadline. He claimed the entity was no longer operating as a university, no longer using the word "University" in its name, and no longer offering degree programs or degree courses. He also said the entity had not charged any fees to students.

On the branding issue, Bajwa acknowledged that Texas A&M University had contacted the entity about the "TexAM" name, saying the real university "has given us a deadline to comply and stop using our Brand Name 'TexAM' as they suspected it's creating confusion, supposedly, due to some similarity." He said the entity was "looking into it."

Bajwa also said the entity had taken down its website and social media accounts.

A timeline that raises questions

The sequence of events deserves scrutiny. The coordinating board sent its cease-and-desist on May 6 and demanded a signed response by May 8. Bajwa said compliance was emailed on May 11, after a deadline extension he says the board granted. Paxton then announced the lawsuit on a Monday whose exact date is not specified in available reporting.

Several questions remain unanswered. What specific statutes did the attorney general cite in the lawsuit? What court was it filed in? Did the coordinating board accept Bajwa's May 11 compliance letter, or did regulators conclude the response was insufficient? And what exactly did Texas A&M's deadline to the entity require?

None of those details have been publicly clarified.

What's really at stake

Strip away the religious identity of the entity for a moment, and the core issue is straightforward: Texas has laws governing who can call themselves a university and who can offer degree programs. Those laws exist to protect students, often young people investing years of effort and thousands of dollars, from institutions that lack the authority or accreditation to deliver what they promise.

An entity advertising a master's degree in artificial intelligence and bachelor's programs in cybersecurity and computer science, without a Certificate of Authority, is not a minor paperwork oversight. Those are fields where credentials carry real weight in the job market. A student who earns a degree from an unaccredited institution may find that degree worthless when applying for jobs, graduate programs, or professional certifications.

Bajwa's claim that no fees were charged to students, if true, may limit the immediate financial harm. But it does not address the broader deception alleged by the state, that prospective students were being led to believe they could earn legitimate degrees from an entity that had no legal authority to grant them.

The name issue compounds the problem. Choosing a name "confusingly similar" to Texas A&M University, one of the most storied institutions in the state, raises obvious questions about intent. Bajwa's response that the entity is "looking into it" does not inspire confidence that the similarity was accidental.

Texas draws the line

Gov. Greg Abbott, in a related Fox News appearance on "Hannity," stated bluntly that the "Texas constitution does not allow Sharia courts or Sharia law." The comment came in the context of broader discussions about investigations into Sharia courts in Texas and the federal designation of CAIR as a Muslim Brotherhood-linked organization.

Abbott's remark signals a broader posture from Texas leadership: the state intends to enforce its laws and constitutional framework without carve-outs. Whether the issue is unauthorized degree programs, misleading branding, or institutions operating outside state regulatory structures, Texas officials are making clear they will act.

Paxton's lawsuit and the coordinating board's cease-and-desist are, at bottom, about accountability. A state that lets unauthorized entities hand out degrees is a state that has abandoned the students those entities claim to serve.

If you can't be bothered to apply for a Certificate of Authority before advertising master's degrees, don't be surprised when the state treats you like what you are: an operation that skipped the rules and hoped nobody would notice.