It didn't take long for Michael Crow to pounce.
Students are still reeling from the largest tuition increase in Arizona's history, and now the ASU president already has begun discussing another $500 hike.
Then again, it's very easy to prey on those who can't fight back.
Not that we haven't tried. During the first weeks of class, a handful of Arizona college students have made somewhat quixotic attempts to prevent the Arizona Board of Regents from raising tuition.
Four brave UA students filed a lawsuit against both ABOR and the state of Arizona, citing language in the Arizona constitution that tuition should be "as nearly free as possible." Meanwhile, ASU humanities graduate student Carrie Mycek took a more populist approach by circulating petitions in front of the newly revamped Memorial Union.
I applaud their hard work to combat Crow's influence, but their efforts ultimately will be ineffectual.
No matter how many signatures Mycek collects, her petition won't be worth the paper it's printed on when delivered to ABOR members. The same air of futility surrounds the pending legal drama in Tucson.
Here's why.
Legal interpretations made in 1999 by then-Attorney General Janet Napolitano and earlier precedents set in the Arizona Supreme Court have shown that ABOR isn't violating the state constitution if it sets tuition rates that are "are neither excessive nor unreasonable."
Furthermore, such a determination cannot be made as "a matter of law" in any court, which will cause the suit to be dismissed quickly by the first judge for whom it comes across the bench.
Despite the fact tuition still would be in the lower third of all universities nationwide - even if rates go up another $500 - Gov. Napolitano has admitted "Arizona is actually one of the least affordable states in the country to attend college."
So if legislation, litigation or consternation won't remedy rising tuition, we should consider transformation ... of ABOR, that is. We need to look to restructuring ABOR so its members and policies are held up to greater public scrutiny.
First, board members should be publicly elected, rather than appointed by the governor, to give voters and students more involvement in the shaping of their universities.
Currently, ABOR is insulated from the public it serves but is readily accessible to the whims of big business. Despite the recent appointment of Lorraine Frank, who appears to be very pro-university, half of ABOR members remain power players on the Arizona corporate stage or longtime political figures. This means that statewide captains of industry and politicos have more influence over ABOR than the average university student in the state.
Voter control over ABOR isn't as far-fetched as one might think. The trustees who oversee Michigan universities are publicly elected, as is the governing board for the Maricopa Community College District here in the Valley.
If there must be another tuition increase, voters should be given the power of a line-item veto, which would allows us to decide how the resulting monies would be distributed and spent. This option would require not only university presidents and ABOR members to justify each increase but also spell out where the cash is going.
So how would one go about restructuring ABOR in any of these ways? Through the initiative process built into our state constitution. Yes, the same process that brought to the forefront of Arizona politics such wacky issues as medicinal marijuana might be used to protect students from annual muggings when paying for classes.
An improbable task, to be sure, but not an impossible one. I think the quartet of UA students who had the chutzpah to contest the recent tuition hike in court probably have the stamina to collect the 100,000-odd signatures necessary to put such an initiative on the ballot in Nov. 2004.
They already have a strong ally in their legal counsel, Tucson lawyer Paul Gattone, who has built himself a reputation on fighting the powers that be over the past decade.
Some might say these changes all hinge on a decidedly apathetic electorate that cannot even muster a 60 percent turnout in recent elections. But any change is better than the current system.
As this week proved, there's nothing stopping Crow and company from requesting another tuition increase a year from now and having ABOR simply rubber-stamp it while we students have to foot the bill.
Benjamin Leatherman is a journalism senior. Reach him at benjamin.leatherman@asu.edu.
