Two months ago, there were hints that officials at Baylor University might still harbor faint hopes of housing the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, even though all indications were that the library would go to Southern Methodist University, which was named in December as the sole finalist for the library. Moreover, in May, 12 architectural firms were invited to submit designs for a building on SMU’s campus.

But no formal agreement between SMU and the Bush Presidential Library Foundation has been announced, and some parts of the library proposal have not been popular on the SMU campus. So Baylor might be forgiven for clinging to hopes, however slight, of winning the library after all.

Now, like a sixth grader caught scribbling “BU + GWB” in a notebook, Baylor officials will apparently be forced to confess their daydreams in public. A Texas judge on Monday instructed the university to answer questions about whether it believes its library proposal is a dead letter, the Dallas Morning News reported today.

The unusual ruling arose in a lawsuit filed against SMU by Gary Vodicka, a Dallas resident who asserts that the university improperly used eminent domain to buy and destroy the condominium complex where he lived in order to clear land for the library.

Mr. Vodicka would like SMU to turn over records of its library-planning process. Baylor is not a party to his lawsuit, but it was dragged into the quarrel because Mr. Vodicka believes that if Baylor’s library proposal is truly dead, then SMU has no legitimate reason to keep its library plans confidential.

For its part, SMU says that its plans should remain secret even if no other universities are in the running. At a hearing on Monday, the judge ordered Baylor to answer Mr. Vodicka’s questions, and said that he would rule by August 17 on Mr. Vodicka’s request for SMU’s records. —David Glenn