Keep up with important Senate business
By Paul Markham | October 3rd, 2009 | Category: Senate News | 2 comments
We have created an easy way for you to keep up with important Senate business. From the Senate homepage, go to the “Issue, Response, & Dialogue” link. You will see a list of concerns submitted to the Senate for consideration followed by a response from the appropriate committee or individual. This page allows you to add any comments you wish in order to contribute to any relevant, ongoing dialogue. As always, thanks for your participation!
I was thinking about the idea of a tobacco ban on campus and a legal question came to mind. Since we are a state/public university can we even impose a tobacco ban outside of our buildings? It seems that if we are a state entity that some sort of state legislation would have to mandate that ban. Unless a private owner makes his/her business or property smoke free, they cannot be forced to ban smoking without a referendum. A city ordinance would no doubt help.
Its a good question! The management and oversight of universities and university owned property is delegated by statute to the governing Boards of the universities, who generally delegate authority to the Presidents. I assume this is the authority under which UL decided to go “smoke free.”
Having said this, I wouldn’t want anyone to think that the universities are entirely “free” to do what they like. The Governor appoints the Board members. It is possible that if a Board took action that the governor didn’t like, he/she could address that by not reappointing the offending members, and the legislature could certainly make us miserable in terms of funding, programs, etc. Some years ago, a governor got unhappy with our Board (who were feuding). Someone got to the legislature on it, they passed a law that allowed him to go in and remove everyone and start afresh. But that was a pretty serious matter.
Anyway, I don’t know of a legal prohibition such as Molly describes.