House bill to address biased policies, need for stronger free speech on campus

House Bill 1362, which aims to strengthen free speech on college campuses, is currently sitting in the House Higher Education Committee.

The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Matt Manweller (R), said he wanted to address violations of the First amendment at universities. College campuses are supposed to be the marketplace of ideas, Manweller said, but are no longer able to facilitate that.

The bill establishes the Campus Free Expression Act and the Academic Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act, in addition to creating an academic Bill of Rights, according to the bill’s digest.

Legislators stated in the bill that they found speech in college campuses was being regulated by biased policies.

“The First Amendment was supposed to protect everyone, everywhere,” Manweller said.

The bill would make the outdoor area of a college campus a public forum, where students could assemble.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education gave WSU the speech code rating Yellow, meaning it has at least one ambiguous policy that can be misinterpreted, regarding sexual harrassment and sexual misconduct.

Although well-intentioned, Manweller believes “the pendulum has swung too far” in the efforts to protect students with safe spaces and microaggression policies.

“You don’t need the permission of the university to speak,” Manweller said. “It’s the informality of it that gives it power.”

The bill protects all forms of peaceful assembly, but does not protect “fighting words, libelous statements, or obscene material,” as defined by the United State Supreme Court.

The bill is not against trigger warnings, allowing professors to enfore policies at their own disgression. In addition, it declares universities cannot make trigger warnings mandatory.

Manweller compiled and cited incidents from college campuses about how free speech was compromised in favor of maintaining political correctness into a word document called “Academic Horror Stories.”

Reporting by Jessica Zhou

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ASWSU chooses to modify resolution supporting athletic budget senate bill

WSU Athletics has a budget deficit of $50.7 million overall, according to their NCAA report.

If nothing changes in the athletic department budget, the debt will rise to approximately $66.7 million by 2019.

Because of this, Sen. Michael Baumgartner (R) authored and sponsored Senate Bill 5109, which would give the Committee of Commerce, Labor and Sports control over approving the athletic department budgets of WSU and UW. These universities’ athletic departments have now run at a deficit for three consecutive years.

“The bill has been introduced to the Senate, but there is no information by the process by which the Athletics budget would be approved by the Senate committee if the bill is enacted,” WSU Chief Financial Officer Joan King said.

The athletics department spending on coaching salaries, benefits and bonuses increased by approximately 200.3 percent between fiscal years 2010 and 2016, according to WSU financial records. Spending on support-staff and administrative salaries, benefits and bonuses increased by approximately 216.8 percent over that same time. Both of the fees are paid for by the university.

Overall, the WSU athletics department has increased its spending by 89 percent while revenue from ticket sales, student fees and other sources has increased by 49 percent since fiscal year 2010.

Currently, the football and men’s basketball programs are the only two programs within the athletics department that have a surplus or make more in revenue then they lose in expenses.

The WSU athletics department as a whole is headed for its third consecutive year of a budget deficit at the end of the 2016-2017 fiscal year on June 30.

“We were told donations were how the athletic department was going to pay for the increased spending,” ASWSU Sen. Austin Brown said. “However, there has only been a 12 percent increase in donations in six years.”

Brown is the author of ASWSU Resolution 46-11, which encourages the Legislature and Gov. Jay Inslee to pass and sign Bill 5109.

“I decided to write resolution 46-11 to show the administration that the students of WSU are going to hold them accountable,” Brown said. “Instead of reasonable spending, $10,976,841 has been spent on athletic student aid, $11,712,537 on coaching salaries and benefits, $12,819,276 on support staff and administration and $761,499 on meals for athletes. This spending is unacceptable.”

Brown believes that the administration has proven inadequate at balancing the budget. He is not alone.

“We should construct the university’s institutional checks in a manner which goes beyond any one president or athletic administration,” ASWSU Sen. Morrow, who co-sponsored resolution 46-11, said. “We should remember that every dollar spent on coaches, training facilities and fields is a dollar not spent on research, computers and course materials for our universities primary obligation—academics.”

ASWSU Sen. Kevin Schilling also co-sponsored and showed his support for Resolution 46-11 and Bill 5109. Even when asked if the resolution and eventual passing of Bill 5109 may hurt WSU sports’ competitiveness in the future.

“I do not worry that it will hurt WSU Athletics’ competitiveness,” Schilling said. “I have full faith in the operations of our PAC-12 athletic department to continue pushing forward to create programs that attract excellent student-athletes.”

Resolution 46-11 was tabled by the Senate at their meeting on Wednesday. They chose to modify the resolution in light of the possibility that the author of Bill 5109 may be leaving for Trump’s administration, which has not yet been confirmed by Baumgartner himself. The bill is still in the committee, of which Baumgartner is currently the chair, and has not yet had a public hearing, according to the state Legislature’s website.

Reporting by Tyler Watson

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Bill for transparent student loans passed to new committee

The student loan transparency act, designed to help students understand their debt, has passed from the Higher Education Committee to the Ways and Means Committee.

This action came after a majority vote at an executive session on Jan. 26 passed the Senate bill to the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax policy and costs associated with the state Legislature, according to its website.

Senate Bill 5022 seeks to make student loans more transparent by raising awareness of how much debt accumulates through the years. The bill would require institutions to provide written notification to students every time something new happens with their financial aid.

The bill will cost $429,000 to get started and then another $112,000 per year after. Locally, it will cost WSU $9,300 to implement in the first year, followed by an annual cost of $2,300 after that, according to the bill’s fiscal note. Most of the costs associated with the bill involve getting the notification system ready.

The bill is still in Ways and Means and does not have a set date for a public hearing.

Other states have passed similar legislation in the past couple years, and the bill is mostly based off legislation passed in California and Connecticut, according to a flier from the Washington State Attorney General’s office.

A similar bill in the house, 1440, had a public hearing on Feb. 1. It focuses on making a student loan Bill of Rights where loan servicers would have to file for a license to give out higher education loans in the state, according to the bill analysis.

The House bill, like the Senate bill, was in response to Bob Ferguson, Washington state attorney general, suing Navient, a loan servicer, for handing out predatory loans to students, according to a Jan. 18 news release from the Attorney General’s office.

Reporting by Danny Lochridge

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