Sunday, Oct. 15, 2006 | 7:26 a.m.
Nevada is going to pot.
Or at least Regent Stavros Anthony thinks it will if Question 7, the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana, passes. Anthony asked regents on Friday to approve a resolution against the initiative.
And why, you might ask, is the marijuana initiative important for the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents to address?
"Marijuana affects the way sensory information gets into the brain and affects how students learn," Anthony said.
The only purpose for marijuana is "to get high," Anthony said, and regents needed to send a message to students that was not OK. A police officer specializing in narcotics, Anthony went through a long list of statistics from the Office of the National Drug Control Policy.
"If you've never seen one before, here is a joint," Anthony said, holding up a color picture. "I'm sure no one in here has seen one before."
No one asked regents if any of them had ever inhaled, and no one disclosed that in his or her vote .
Anthony's resolution failed to get majority approval by one vote. Several regents were concerned that it set a bad precedent for the board to come out on a ballot initiative. Regents are not allowed to spend state money on political issues, and in a way they did that just by having Question 7 on the agenda, Regent Steve Sisolak said.
If regents are going to come out on one issue, they should address the other ballot initiatives as well, Regent Jason Geddes said.
But Regents Michael Wixom, Jack Lund Schofield, Dorothy Gallagher, Thalia Dondero and Bret Whipple supported Anthony's resolution because they believed legalizing marijuana would sufficiently impact higher education.
Regent Mark Alden, who is running for re-election, and Jill Derby, who is running for Congress, were conveniently out of the room during the vote.
In June, Anthony tried to get regents to ban at campus events rap music that promoted violence. The motion failed because system lawyers believed it would violate free-speech rights.
Chancellor Jim Rogers' ability to fire university presidents remains intact at least for now.
Regent Howard Rosenberg, Rogers' chief critic on the board in the aftermath of UNLV President Carol Harter's ouster last February, attempted to revoke Rogers' power at a board development meeting Oct. 6. Rosenberg used his power as chairman of the committee to add an agenda item eliminating all language in the regents' handbook that gave the chancellor authority to discipline presidents.
But Rosenberg's fellow regents thought the UNR art professor had sniffed too much paint. Regents voted 12-1 in February 2005 to give Rogers more authority. If they were to reverse that decision only 18 months later, they would look ridiculous, two regents told the Sun confidentially. Not to mention that it would hurt the entire university system to battle their chancellor with the 2007 Legislature only four months away.
The bottom line, several regents said, is that Rosenberg is alone in wanting to revoke Rogers' power. While there are others who are concerned about exactly how Rogers' elicited Harter's resignation, they believe the chancellor has to have the ability to function as the chief executive officer, and that includes the ability to fire.
Regents previously declined to look at the issue in February, after the UNLV Faculty Senate voted 32-7 to ask regents to revoke the policy.
Rosenberg said he was acquiescing to his peers through the Legislative session.
Regents on the Academic and Student Affairs committee didn't much like the news from system lawyers that they couldn't - and shouldn't - get involved in degree revocation. Regents asked staff to look at the issue in August because some regents wanted to revoke the degrees of 10 School of Dental Medicine students who were caught cheating just prior to graduation in May. Regents also found that the system had no policy on how and when presidents could revoke degrees.
If the Board of Regents' name is on the diploma, Regent Thalia Dondero and others reasoned, shouldn't regents have some say in who gets degrees?
Regents should set the policy for presidents on when and how degrees might be revoked, but they should leave that decision up to the president, system lawyer Brooke Nielsen said. The board is supposed to be the last court of appeals, and if regents get involved in the decision process they would have to be involved from the initial hearings on up.
Regents also initially wanted presidents to be able to revoke degrees if a student was found guilty of a felony after graduation, but attorneys again nixed that idea. Degrees are given for academic work only, not for the character of the student.
If, for instance, Executive Vice Chancellor Dan Klaich is found to have cheated on a test required for graduation, the president could revoke his degree. But the president can't revoke it if Klaich turns into an "ax murderer."
"You may not like to have me as an alum of the institution, but we don't think it reflects on the academic quality," Klaich said.
archive
