THECB Ombudsman Announces Ryan D. Walters as Deputy Director and General Counsel
Contact: communications@highered.texas.gov
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AUSTIN — The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Office of the Ombudsman announced today that Ryan D. Walters, who previously served as Texas Deputy Attorney General for Legal Strategy, has joined the office as Deputy Director and General Counsel.
“Ryan is a distinguished lawyer and policy advisor who is known and respected nationally for his sage, innovative approaches to advocating for Texans. His service to this office will be a blessing to Texas students and our great institutions of higher education,” said Brandon L. Simmons, who leads the Office of the Ombudsman as Director of Institutional Policy and Oversight for Higher Education.
Walters recently served as a member of the Texas Attorney General’s executive leadership team as Deputy Attorney General for Legal Strategy and earlier as Associate Deputy Attorney General for Civil Litigation. Beginning in January 2021, he served in the Special Litigation Division — as Special Counsel, Deputy Chief, and eventually Chief. In those positions, he led the Attorney General’s most significant litigation against the federal government, including successful challenges to federal rules weakening immigration enforcement and those imposing mandates on Texas’s universities, schools, workplaces, and hospitals. Prior to his tenure in the Office of the Texas Attorney General, Walters served as an attorney with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, as an Assistant Attorney General in the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, and as a commercial litigator at two international law firms. He is a graduate of The Ohio State University and holds law degrees from the University of Michigan Law School and the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
Walters joins the office that includes a compliance and monitoring team as well as the Assistant to the Ombudsman Edgardo Mondolfi. Mondolfi is a graduate of the University of Texas, Austin, with a background in artificial intelligence, who previously worked at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.