Not real democratic, either – the fee was imposed without a student vote (for background on the fee in particular and yucky Arizona State in general, go here, here, and here), since they’d only vote against it… And as for its constitutionality, here’s the argument:
The state Constitution says that university “instruction …shall be as nearly free as possible.” The state Supreme Court has shied away from second-guessing the composition and cost of a college education, and how the costs should be allocated. But this fee is a clear-cut violation.
The athletic fee has nothing to do with the “instruction” a student will receive. Requiring that it be paid to gain access to that instruction, ipso facto, means that the instruction is not “as nearly free as possible.” It could be $150 closer to free.
Nor can ASU credibly argue that the athletic fee is a user charge, even though a certain number of seats at events will be set aside for students free of additional charges. After all, the fee replaces the ultimate user charge: If you want to see a game, buy a ticket.
The heart of this argument’s problem, of course, lies here: The athletic fee has nothing to do with the “instruction” a student will receive. The chair of the regents begs to differ:
There are no plans to end the athletic tuition waivers, he said. Sports is part of the universities, he said, just as the arts and the medical school are. ASU had 517 student athletes compete in nine men’s sports and 12 women’s sports in 2011.
“To think of sports as something that isn’t an integral part of the university is inappropriate,” he said. “Sports is part of the life experience we want people to have.”
Get it? The Dear Leader says thinking of university sports as in any way different from liberal arts or medical school courses is inappropriate and that sort of thinking had better be stopped right now. The Dear Leader wants you to have certain experiences and goddammit you’re going to have them, whether they’re only about coughing up money for other people to attend football games. Watching football games is part of your instruction at ASU, with the same status as watching a physicist lecture about the beginning of the universe. That’s just the way we roll in America’s stupidest state.
May 29th, 2014 at 12:16PM
AZ the stupidest state? I demand a recount. I live in OR, and no state is as idiotic as this state’s citizens. My evidence, the administrator meltdown at U of Oregon. The school is run by Phil Knight, who demands complete fealty to all things Nike, the AD/President did their best to cover up rape allegations of three of their bballers, one of which happened to have been thrown out of his previous school for the same thing. As the story leaks out, the AD was in a panic and consulted Uncle Phil as to what to as the crisis escalated, and how to manage it, despite the fact that the U of O spends millions on in house lawyers. The admins also hired their former pres’ outside law firm to do the lawyer thing. All of this came after the pay for play scheme involving football players, street agents, and head football coaches cutting checks for thousands of dollars for supposed recruiting reports on dead high school prospects. All paid with taxpayer money and escalating tuition.
Despite that, the football games still sell out, the state has the second highest high school drop out rate, the second shortest k-12 academic year, and no one, outside of a few students and some outraged faculty, seems to really care. Which underscores that as long as they have college football and forests they can knock down, Oregonians stay satisfied….