Texas Southern University, one of the nation’s historically black colleges, is battling to survive.

Meanwhile, its former president, Priscilla Slade, has been charged with misspending and keeping secret from TSU trustees hundreds of thousands of dollars on personal luxuries, including a $1,000 silk canopy for a four-poster bed.

Her lawyer, Mike DeGuerin, defends Slade’s expenditures: “She considered it, visionwise, an extension of T.S.U.,” adding “Yes, even the bed.”