The nation’s largest university is balking its years-long trend of growth and expansion with the closure of one of its campuses.
Arizona State University (ASU) announced earlier this week that it will close its Lake Havasu campus in the summer 2025, affecting over 200 students and 20 faculty members. The Lake Havasu campus opened just over a decade ago in 2012.
The university will also be increasing tuition for those on campus: full-time students will pay another $350, with part-time students to pay a lower, “proportional” amount.
ASU blamed state budget cuts for the campus closure in its Monday announcement, citing an $11 million reduction in funding. ASU President Michael Crow said this latest reduction was part of a longtime refusal by the state legislature and governor to fund higher education adequately.
“These necessary actions reflect the continuing lack of public investment from state government for higher education in Arizona,’’ said Crow. “ASU simply cannot be asked to fund the expansion of higher education across the state without state investment as a part of the financial structure to do so. These budget cuts put the state of Arizona even further behind in ensuring that Arizona has the talent and workforce necessary to advance its economy.”
Governor Katie Hobbs — often at odds with the slim Republican majority of the state legislature — was supportive of this most recent budget, including the cuts to higher education and nearly all other agencies.
“[T]his bipartisan, balanced budget puts our state on solid financial ground,” said Hobbs at the time.
A spokesperson for Hobbs told outlets that the governor remains supportive of the budget, but didn’t elaborate whether the governor was supportive of ASU’s decision.
However, lawmakers have refuted this claim. House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci, who resides in Lake Havasu City, issued a joint statement with Republican State Rep. John Gillette expressing disappointment with ASU’s decision and concern for the lack of public discussion or stakeholder involvement.
“ASU’s strong financial health simply does not justify its action. The State Legislature has made significant investments in ASU over the past few years,” said the lawmakers. “ASU’s budget has increased by 22 percent since FY20, and by 40 percent since 2015, with $408 million allocated to the university this year, reflecting our commitment to higher education, even while difficult decisions were made to balance the budget.”
Gillette also added the speculation in a separate post of his own that ASU’s decision was politically motivated.
“When times are good, it will receive new funds; when times are tough, it should tighten its belt — just like every other agency that serves the public,” said Gillette. “We call on ASU to immediately reconsider this closure and urge the Arizona Board of Regents to take a much closer look at this decision as it looks very politically motivated this close to the election.”
We are deeply troubled by ASU’s surprise decision to close the Lake Havasu campus,even more frustrating is that ASU’s financial standing clearly doesn’t justify such drastic action. The legislature prioritized higher education with significant investments in ASU over the past…
According to Lake Havasu City leadership, ASU kept the city out of their decision to close the campus. It was members of the community and city leadership that served on the committee that brought ASU to the city over a decade ago.
Mayor Cal Sheehy toldHavasu News the city wasn’t given the opportunity to seek an alternative to closing the campus.
“It’s really sad that ASU has made the decision to close the college at Lake Havasu City, but the real challenge is that we haven’t had a chance to discuss any alternatives,” said Sheehy. “They believe the legislature put them here, but Lake Havasu has shown we are innovative, starting with the $2 million it took to get it here in the first place, and a conversation about what solutions could be there and what the opportunities are.”
One of the committee members, business owner Steve Greeley, also didn’t buy ASU’s claim that financial woes had forced their hand.
“I saw the quote by President Crow in regards to the Legislature cutting back on funding. I understand that, but you would think they would have a workaround before making a decision so burdensome,” said Greeley. “It was a huge effort by the community all those years ago, that took a lot of time, resources and money. I’m hoping something can be resolved.”
Havasu News editorial staff reported that their community raised $2 million in an effort to assist ASU in coming to their city.
“Our community deserved a seat at the table,” said the outlet. “We should be angry about this. The closure will affect students, families, and local jobs. And ASU’s promise to relocate students doesn’t make up for the loss of a school that became a part of our town. ASU has broken its promise to Lake Havasu City, and they owe us more than a simple goodbye.”
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Arizona Department of Education Superintendent Tom Horne advised K-12 schools to look to Arizona State University (ASU) and University of Arizona (UArizona) for how to respond to Gaza protesters.
In a press release issued on Monday following a long weekend of higher education protests against Israel in Arizona and nationwide, Horne praised ASU and UArizona leadership — specifically presidents Robert Robbins and Michael Crow — for their handling of the mass protests compared to other universities, which he characterized as antisemitic.
“Robert Robbins and Michael Crow deserve exceptional praise for standing up to antisemitism on their campuses. This stands in stark contrast to how many colleges, universities and ideological faculty members have kowtowed to disruptive pro-Hamas demonstrations,” said Horne. “It is also an excellent template for K-12 schools in Arizona to follow should any attempt be made by students to copy the type of protests that have shut down portions of college campuses and caused Jewish students to feel unsafe.”
Horne warned that history would repeat itself, should those in leadership not be proactive with handling protests. The superintendent cited several incidents of violence that broke out at other campuses nationwide, including rocks reportedly thrown at Jewish students at Columbia University and a pole with a Palestinian flag being stabbed into the eye of another Jewish student at Yale University.
“Our DNA is no different from the DNA of Germans in the 1930s, and Nazis started with young thugs attacking people on the street,” said Horne. “We need to be vigilant.”
Law enforcement for both campuses were swift to deter and move out protesters as they attempted to establish encampments.
Of the two institutions, UArizona had the calmer turnout in terms of protestors. At ASU, over 70 arrests were made, 15 of whom were students, after protesters set up an illegal encampment as part of their protest.
Dozens arrested overnight at ASU campus following encampment protest.
— Jack | OnSceneTV Phoenix (@NewsPhotog_Jack) April 27, 2024
UArizona protesters also set up an encampment on Monday, but later dispersed. After those protesters left, officials barricaded the campus mall to prevent further encampments.
Law enforcement had to drive out the protesters and relied on assistance from fraternity members to assist in cleanup.
However, by Tuesday protesters returned to encamp again elsewhere on campus.
A majority of the Gaza protests were concentrated along the upper east coast. The following higher education institutions have experienced Gaza protests over the last few weeks:
California: California State Polytechnic Institute, Stanford University, University of Southern California Los Angeles;
Colorado: Auraria Campus;
Connecticut: University of Connecticut, Yale University;
D.C.: George Washington University;
Delaware: University of Delaware;
Florida: Florida State University;
Georgia: Emory University, University of Georgia;
Illinois: Northwestern University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign;
Indiana: Indiana University Bloomington;
Massachusetts: Emerson College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Tufts University;
Michigan: Michigan State University;
Minnesota: University of Minnesota;
Missouri: Washington University.
North Carolina: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;
New Jersey: Princeton University;
New Mexico: University of New Mexico Albuquerque;
New York: City College of New York, Columbia University, Cornell University, Fashion Institute of Technology, the New School, New York University, University of Rochester;
Pennsylvania: Swarthmore College, University of Pennsylvania;
Ohio: Ohio State University;
Rhode Island: Brown University;
South Carolina: University of South Carolina;
Texas: Rice University, University of Texas at Austin;
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Two Turning Point USA (TPUSA) journalists have been charged with harassment and assault in an altercation involving an Arizona State University (ASU) professor.
Last month, reporters Kalen D’Almeida and Braden Ellis attempted to ask questions of ASU professor and Drag Queen Story Hour co-founder David Boyles. In response to questioning from D’Almeida and filming from Ellis, surveillance footage shows Boyles lunge and grab at Ellis before D’Almeida pushes Boyles away. Boyles falls from the shove.
D’Almeida questioned Boyles about his involvement in sexual education and drag shows for minors, his writings, and whether he harbors attractions to minors. Boyles refused to answer D’Almeida’s questions.
D’Almeida and Ellis each face a charge of harassment, a class one misdemeanor carrying a prison sentence of up to six months and fines up to $2,500 (A.R.S. §§ 13-2921, 13-707, and 13-802). D’Almeida also faces additional charges of assault (A.R.S. § 13-1203 (A)(1) and (B)) and disorderly conduct (A.R.S. § 13-2904) both class two misdemeanors carrying a prison sentence of up to four months and fines up to $750.
Immediately after the incident last month, ASU President Michael Crow sided with Boyles in a public statement. Crow likened the TPUSA journalists to “bullies.” Crow also claimed that D’Almeida and Ellis “ran away” from the scene before police arrived, but surveillance footage shows the pair, along with Boyles, walk together in the same direction off camera after the altercation.
In a Facebook post, Boyles called D’Almeida and Ellis “right-wing fascists” and “terrorists,” echoing Crow’s claim that the pair “ran off” after the incident. Boyles said that he only moved to block the camera before D’Almeida pushed him.
“And the first thing we can do to stop it is to stop coddling these f*****g terrorists,” said Boyles. “These people should be shunned from society.”
ASU police confirmed they’re investigating D’Almeida and Ellis to determine whether the altercation was motivated by bias or prejudice.
In a statement responding to the charges against D’Almeida and Ellis, TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet declared that neither man committed any wrongdoing.
“Kalen and his cameraman did absolutely nothing wrong,” said Kolvet. “We will vigorously defend them and look forward to taking this matter into a courtroom where the very clear video evidence documenting what actually happened will quickly prevail over ASU’s gaslighting and the media’s propaganda. Our team members will be vindicated.”
OFFICIAL STATEMENT REGARDING CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST TPUSA JOURNALISTS FOLLOWING OCTOBER INCIDENT WHERE ASU PROFESSOR ATTACKED A TPUSA CAMERAMAN:
Kalen and his cameraman did absolutely nothing wrong. We will vigorously defend them and look forward to taking this matter into a… https://t.co/eg4DEteRl4
TPUSA CEO Charlie Kirk issued a statement of his own, in which he accused ASU of retaliation over their organization’s campaign to pull taxpayer funding from ASU.
“Our two @TPUSA journalists are expected to be charged and arrested for defending themselves against an aggressive weirdo professor at ASU who physically attacked them,” said Kirk. “ASU is retaliating against TPUSA because we’re rallying support to pull taxpayer $ from their institution.”
Unbelieveable:
Our two @TPUSA journalists are expected to be charged and arrested for defending themselves against an aggressive weirdo professor at ASU who physically attacked them.
ASU is retaliating against TPUSA because we're rallying support to pull taxpayer $ from their… pic.twitter.com/QoWuPZs0B2
Democratic lawmakers staged a last-minute boycott of the joint committee on free speech at Arizona’s universities.
On Monday, hours before the hearing began, House and Senate Democrats announced their boycott in a joint statement. They claimed that the Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Committee on Freedom of Expression at Arizona’s Public Universities had no purpose other than to allow lawmakers to grandstand and to sow misinformation and division.
GOP legislators formed the committee following a controversy earlier this year concerning Arizona State University (ASU) faculty members and a T.W. Lewis Center event featuring prominent conservative speakers.
The Democratic lawmakers also accused their Republican colleagues of furthering lies, and of endangering university students and faculty. Specifically, the caucuses cited an altercation last month between ASU professor David Boyles and Turning Point USA journalists.
“It was made clear that Republican elected officials continue to prop up falsehoods and possibly undermine the safety of students and faculty, as happened when an alt-right camera crew subsequently harassed and assaulted a professor who is a member of the LGBTQ community on the ASU campus,” said the caucuses. “We do not think that this committee will objectively help ASU to take the necessary steps to ensure respect for all speakers to be heard.”
PRESS RELEASE: Senate & House Dems say no to grandstanding, divisive committee attacking universities pic.twitter.com/Js1o1A9OL0
One of the Barrett Honors College (Barrett) professors who opposed the conservative speakers earlier this year, Alex Young, praised the Democratic lawmakers’ boycott. Young indicated that right-leaning lawmakers and other public figures had engaged in hypocrisy by similarly opposing an event featuring Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) earlier this month.
“Good call. The far-right forces waging a disinformation campaign against Barrett faculty in the name of ‘free speech’ never had any credibility, but their cheering the cancellation of @RepRashida definitively revealed their attacks to be nothing but a politically motivated farce,” said Young. “This hearing, as ridiculous as it was, should clarify for everyone what the entire disinformation campaign being waged against Barrett faculty is all about: an attempt to restrict free speech on campus, not an effort to protect it.”
Good call. The far-right forces waging a disinformation campaign against Barrett faculty in the name of “free speech” never had any credibility, but their cheering the cancellation of @RepRashida definitively revealed their attacks to be nothing but a politically motivated farce. https://t.co/UYwmTpgbtn
ASU issued a 75-page report summarizing its investigation into the state of free speech on its campus, namely concerning the controversy that occurred earlier this year, in compliance with the legislative committee’s directive issued at its last meeting in July.
The committee asked ASU to investigate whether Barrett faculty or administrators ran a national condemnation campaign, violated policy with actions in the classroom, censored speech or interfered with advertising or attendance, or publicly attacked T.W. Lewis Center donors. The university said it couldn’t find evidence to support the accusations.
Monday’s hearing lasted nearly three hours. The committee heard testimony from Tom Lewis, the principal donor of the now-dissolved T.W. Lewis Center, the entity behind the controversial event featuring conservative speakers that prompted the committee’s creation; as well as Lin Blake, the former events operator for ASU Gammage Theater; Brett Johnson on behalf of ASU; Jake Bennett, a policy director with the Israeli American Coalition for Action; and an ASU student identified as “Zack.”
Lewis noted that he began giving his millions to ASU years ago in the hopes of establishing a center to teach courses about success and entrepreneurship, but he reportedly discovered that faculty were reluctant to teach the content and that leaders were more interested in increasing enrollment than ensuring curriculum quality.
“I’ll say about the universities that they don’t take any responsibility for the classroom, but they are willing to sign gift agreements where they receive significant amounts of money from donors,” said Lewis.
In her testimony, Blake linked her termination from ASU with her involvement in allowing two conservative-oriented events to occur at the Gammage Theater. Blake claimed that the theater’s leadership reprimanded her for allowing those events, and that following the events her responsibilities were slowly sapped until she was fired. Blake said the fact that the controversial event still occurred didn’t mean the existence of free speech at ASU.
“If free speech was truly free at ASU, producing events with unpopular viewpoints would not have cost me my job,” said Blake.
Johnson disputed that claim entirely. Johnson also disputed the claim that Ann Atkinson, formerly the head of the T.W. Lewis Center, was let go from her position due to her arranging the controversial speaker event. Johnson indicated there was an impasse over Atkinson’s retainment on condition of her T.W. Lewis Center salary of over $300,000.
Atkinson didn’t testify at this meeting, but she did testify at the previous meeting.
In his testimony, Bennett touched on the trend of local and college student activists engaging in pro-Hamas activity. He suggested the employment of anti-terrorism statutes to defund and deactivate student organizations providing material support to Hamas, which is the designated terrorist organization that governs Gaza. Bennett also suggested the deportation of those terrorist sympathizers on student and temporary visas, as well as the enforcement of Civil Rights laws to secure college campuses.
In closing, the ASU student and self-described conservative political activist “Zack,” claimed that pro-Palestine students protesting the Israel-Hamas War were making general death threats to him and others protesting on behalf of Israel. This included threats like how Adolf Hitler “should have finished the job gassing the Jews,” and students mimicking throats being slit. Zack said that his Jewish friends reported these instances to campus police. Lawmakers encouraged Zack to bring copies of the police report(s) during their next meeting on Jan. 4, 2024.
State Rep. Austin Smith (R-LD29) said that this entire ordeal has made him lose faith in the Arizona Board of Regents’ (ABOR) ability to oversee the universities, which he called “a rubber stamp” for ASU President Michael Crow.
“Our job is not to have to govern the universities. Our job is to implement the laws that the board of regents enforces at these universities. I don’t think that they do,” said Smith. “The Democrats specifically do not want competition. You’re gonna go exactly where we tell you to go to school, and you’re gonna learn, and you’re gonna sit down and you’re gonna shut up and you’re not gonna question anything. And Michael Crow, who thinks he knows better than the Founding Fathers.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona State University President Michael Crow believes we are in such danger that we should amend the U.S. Constitution to empower the government to deal more expansively with climate change. Dr. Crow’s view that constitutional protections of our liberties should be eliminated when they become inconvenient wouldn’t square with the founders’, but his estimate of the dangers and required remedies for our changing climate are quite mainstream.
“Net-zero by 2050” has become an article of faith among our corporate and academic elites, no longer requiring proof or intellectual defense. The notion that we must eliminate all carbon emissions by mid-century if we want to save the planet is the organizing principle for environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) investing. In 2022, it was mentioned more than 6,000 times in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The SEC has helpfully proposed climate disclosure rules to help investors “evaluate the progress in meeting net-zero emissions and assessing any associated risk.” Skeptics are sidelined as “climate deniers.”
But mounting scientific evidence suggests that net-zero is wildly impractical and probably not even achievable. In September, the Electric Power Research Institute, the research arm of the U.S. electric power industry (which would seem to be naturally inclined to support proposals which increase reliance on electricity), released a sober report on the practicality of net-zero.
Their study concluded that “clean electricity plus direct electrification and efficiency…are not sufficient by themselves to achieve net-zero economy-wide emissions.” Translation: it can’t be done. No amount of wind turbines, solar panels, battery power, fossil fuel, or other available technologies will achieve net-zero by 2050.
Furthermore, even “deep carbonization”– drastic reductions in atmospheric carbon levels – is an impossible dream. With natural gas and nuclear generation forced to the sidelines, that would require options like carbon removal technologies, which would cost a quadrillion (million billion) dollars, which would…well, you get the picture.
Finally, the report concludes that living in a net-zero world may not be all that great. Supply chains operating only on electricity and the reliability and resiliency of a net-zero electricity grid could be highly problematic.
The response to this nonpartisan and obviously consequential report was silence. There has been essentially no media coverage. No climate activists rushed to dispute the methodology nor challenge the conclusions.
This is a significant tell. You could assume if the eco-activists were genuinely concerned about our climate future, they would have some interest in responding to this major challenge to their assumptions. But they ignored it to cling to their groupthink.
Yet other indications that the transition to renewable fuels is already off the tracks keep coming. The government-certified North American Electric Reliability Corp recently issued its 2022 Long-Term Reliability Assessment. NERC concluded that fossil fuel plants were being removed from the grid too quickly to meet electricity demand, putting us at risk for energy shortages and even blackouts during extreme weather.
But wait, there’s more. PJM Interconnection, a large grid operator in the Northeast, recently released projections indicating it will soon lose 40,000 MW, 21% of its generation capacity. The looming plant closures are mostly “policy driven” by onerous EPA regulations and mandatory ESG commitments.
Renewables, although lavishly subsidized to replace the lost electricity, consistently underperform and will be able to produce, at most, half of the electricity lost. Meanwhile the government is perversely mandating electric vehicles, appliances, and whatever.
Finally, the repeated assertions of settled science were unsettled by 1,609 scientists and professors worldwide signing a “No Climate Emergency” declaration. The document was issued by Climate Intelligence or Clintel, a nonpartisan self-funded, independent organization of scholars whose only agenda is “to generate knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change and climate policy.”
They point out that there is no basis for claiming an upcoming existential crisis. Carbon dioxide is not primarily a pollutant but a necessary basis for life. Moreover, there is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying natural disasters. Panic is dangerous, with the potential to plunge us into perpetual poverty.
They charge that climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on “self-critical science.” Historians of the future, reflecting on our era of hyper-politicized science, will undoubtedly agree.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
