Travelers, including students, looking to leave the U.S. will soon need passports to get into Mexico or Canada.

The change is taking place in two steps. All U.S. citizens traveling by air into another country must have passports after Jan. 23, 2007. Citizens traveling by land or sea will not be required to carry a passport until Jan. 1, 2008, according to U.S. Department of State Web site.

That means travelers can still drive across the Canadian or Mexican border in 2007 without a passport. This year’s spring breakers only need a passport if they fly.

But once the requirement takes full effect, U.S. border officials will ask everyone entering the country to show a passport, citizens included, said Karl Schmidt, SDSU director of international affairs.

“If you travel outside the U.S., you need a passport,” he said.

Passports are available through the U.S. Post Office. The Brookings office offers applications from 10 a.m. to noon, and 2 to 4 p.m. Applicants must compete the form and supply a small photo.

Currently travelers only need a birth certificate and marriage license to enter Canada or Mexico.

Those countries haven’t announced any changes in travel policies-only the U.S. has. So while Americans may not be asked for passports upon entering Canada or Mexico, they will be upon re-entering the U.S.

Travelers taking day trips off of cruise ships are excluded from the passport requirement, said Lisa Hurd, a postal clerk at the Brookings Post Office

Schmidt called the requirement a U.S. security issue. Hurd blamed the change on terrorism.

The U.S. wants more documentation from travelers entering the nation, to prove “you are who you say you are,” she said.

Karen Gores is a travel agent for Village Travel in Brookings. She doesn’t believe the requirement will change how Americans travel, despite the added expense of a passport.

“People are always going to travel,” Gores said.

Village Travel has always recommended passports, she said, because they’re more convenient than other forms of documentation. Agents always advise travelers about their destinations.

“We encourage people to get passports,” Gores said.

If Brand New’s previous album, “Deja Entendu,” “is the sound of Brand New painting itself out of a corner,” (from letssingit.com, but I believe the band’s website originally) then their latest effort, “The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me”, is the sound of the band existing comfortably outside it, no longer trying to prove anything.

“The Devil and God” retains all the passion and guts of “Deja” without its slightly immature desperation. Here I’m referring to what drove the album, not its sound. Brand New have grown up and grown out.

“The Devil and God” reveals a shifty, complex sound that wasn’t on previous albums. It also sounds less “punk,” which makes it, philosophically speaking, much more so. In fact, this album really defies classification. It escapes formulas, guidelines, and especially genre. The songs feel more natural-like the band is playing just what they want to, regardless of fan-base or marketing.

If anything, “The Devil and God” is less “punk” sounding and more “hardcore.” Couple that with a more pronounced degree of intimacy musically and lyrically, and I’ve just confused the hell out of you. Good. Now you get how I feel about the album.

What sold me about “Deja” was that I’d never heard anything quite like it. I didn’t get it right away; it was something else. “The Devil and God” is something else all over again. That doesn’t necessarily make it good.

I’m not going to go through analyzing “The Devil and God” track by track. Its a tired method anyway.

The album’s packaging doesn’t give any full song names or lyrics anywhere, which retains some mystery in the listening. I’m not spoiling that. It’s a bold (and hopeless?) move in an industry where all the songs, all their words, and even the guitar tabs to play them will get plastered all over the Internet in minutes anyway.

It shows gall, though. Brand New appears more comfortable and confident this time; it seems they’re enjoying the freedom their last album earned them.

So they experimented. Vocals are softer in places, and the album definitely feels more intimate at times. It contains some excellent transitions as well as some really great heavy spots. Some you hear coming, some you don’t, but one gets the impression that’s how Brand New wanted them. They threw some string in the background occasionally, too. It adds some nice depth.

No one can blame Brand New for not having earnest lyrics either. Jesse Lacey still manages to sing touchingly and arrogantly-together.

The experimentation and lack of genre sort of alienates the album. Even excellent songs can sound cheesy if they’ve been over-produced. I can’t tell yet whether the professionalism of “The Devil and God” comes from mixing production or the artists’ talent. I hope it’s the second.

I suppose that would make them progressive. Brand New–a prog-rock band? I dunno. Evidence from “The Devil and God” almost links Brand New closer to Pink Floyd or Tool than anything on the Warped Tour. Listen to something off their first album “Failure by Design”; then, play the new song “Luca.” What an evolution.

In the end, you don’t have to understand music to like it. For a band that started out with such a “punk” sound, “The Devil and God” show Brand New becoming so much more. Wherever this band’s going, they’re doing a good job getting there.

Thornbird, a three-member band from Los Angeles, promises a dynamic, interactive concert on Nov. 13, unlike anything else SDSU audiences have seen.

“Anything I’d say would just belittle it,” said Spanky, the band’s bassist, about their live show. “You’ll see and hear and do things you’re not going to do at other concerts. You’ll have to be at the show to get what I’m saying.”

(Two members of Thornbird phoned the Collegian office from a Hampton Inn in Marlboro, Mass. In the effort of having a good time, band members present for the interview, Bella and Pat, requested all their statements be attributed to Spanky, who was not present, so he would feel included in the article. When Spanky doesn’t remember giving any phone interview to some college reporter in South Dakota, “We’ll tell him he was drunk,” Pat said.)

Spanky wouldn’t say much else about the band’s live show, except that it differed from their recorded sound. Some of their recorded tracks are available on the band’s Web site, thornbird.com. Their CD can also be heard at times outside the University Program Council office in The Union.

Spanky answered a challenge to describe the band’s sound without using any musical references. He likened the band’s sound to a combination of Red Bull and Stolichnaya vodka, with a little orange juice.

“That way you get some nutritional value with a little kick,” he said.

Spanky said most bands today have boring live shows filled with self-absorbed schmucks. Thornbird tries to avoid having either. They also haven’t taken a significant break from touring since they started three years ago.

“We’re as totally indie as it gets – no support from anyone,” Spanky said.

When the band does make it home for a spell, it takes some adjustment.

“We learned not to unpack, since we can’t really get settled in,” Spanky said. He said it’s hard to breathe back home as well.

“L.A.’s not known for quality air.”

The recorded tracks available on their Web site have a distinctly polished, poppy sound.

The song “Captain Picard” features some quirky, yet touching, lyrics in conjunction with vocal harmonies and acoustic picking. All the Web site’s songs have a pop-ish, radio-rock sound to them, but none sound too much like each other.

Spanky asked that this article “create a magical journey. Say we opened for the Stones – or they opened for us – back in ’62.”

Were any of the band members alive in ’62?

“No,” said Spanky, laughing. But it would make the band sound cool, he said.

The fact that Thornbird will say so little about their live act adds a sense of mystery and intrigue to their coming to SDSU. Whether or not they live up to their game remains to be seen.

From food to friends, Jacks fans no longer enjoy football solely from the stands.

Tailgating makes a home football game an all-day event, said Micah Grenz, head of SDSU athletic marketing and promotions. He said the athletic department is completely behind the big party in The Backyard, north of the Coughlin-Alumni Stadium.

“We love it. It engrosses people in everything Jackrabbits,” he said.

The activities that come with tailgating involve people of all ages, said Grenz. Whether fans are four years old or forty, they can participate in the games.

Dana Dykhouse, a prominent SDSU alumni, said tailgating gives people a more social way to celebrate a game than only sitting in the stands.

“When you are tailgating, you really get a chance to visit with friends and family,” said Dykhouse, a former Jacks football player. We have had reunions there with players we used to play with. It’s just a great time to get together.”

Alumni aren’t the only tailgaters. Justin Larson, a senior mechanical engineering major, said, “I go for the social scene, (to) talk to people I don’t see often.”

Senior biology major Matt Anderson agreed.

“I go mainly to socialize before the game, play some bags, hang out with friends. Get away from classes for the week.”

Things aren’t always that relaxed, though. A lot of things happen in SDSU’s tailgating area, said Anderson. Fans sometimes run around the area in body paint. Anderson said he saw a port-a-potty get tipped over last year as well.

Even students who don’t tailgate often seem to enjoy the experience. But many correlate tailgating with drinking.

Darin Waldner, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, tailgated at last year’s Beef Bowl. “It’s a good thing because everyone is there. Stupidity is contained in one localized area.”

The popularity of tailgating has one irony: People tailgating for a football game at Coughlin-Alumni Stadium can’t watch the game. Fans who want to actually see the game must leave the tailgating area and enter the stands.

“If you can do both, that’s what I like to do,” said Larson. But, he admitted, “it’s hard to get a good seat if you tailgate.”

Anderson said sometimes he goes into the game, sometimes he doesn’t. “Depends on how coherent I am,” he said.

Dykhouse said the length of time tailgating depends on the weather. On nice days, he and his friends will tailgate for a few hours. But his plans change further into the season.

“By November, it is usually a pretty quick tailgate.”

‘The Backyard’ Tailgating area info

SDSU has separate areas for student and alumni tailgaiting. Spots come in three sizes: Blue, yellow and white.

Blue spots: 60 feet by 50 feet and cost $100 per game or $350 per four games. Blue spots fit six vehicles.

Yellow: 30 feet by 50 feet and cost $75 per game or $210 per four games. Yellow spots fit four vehicles.

White: 30 feet by 25 feet and cost $50 per game or $140 per four games. White spots fit two vehicles.

#1.884149:952594492.JPG:pregame017.JPG:A Jackrabbit tailgater tends to some hot dogs and burgers on a propane grill in this undated file photo. :

Coffee wasn’t the only thing available over the counter at Cottonwood Coffee this summer. Some people were getting organic vegetables there as well, although they weren’t exactly buying them.

“It’s all kind of connected in a way,” said Jacob Limmer, who owns Cottonwood Coffee. He and store manager Sarah Trone also farm a small plot of land near Lake Norden, S.D., 45 minutes northwest of Brookings, near Watertown. Trone manages the farm, Limmer owns it.

Last summer, they backed off their crop production in order to start up the new coffee shop. Once opened, customers could pick up their vegetables at the coffee counter. Thirteen Brookings-area families were getting organic vegetables this way. Limmer has customers outside the Brookings area as well.

But customers don’t actually buy the vegetables. Instead of selling the produce, Limmer sells shares of his organic farm.

“Almost like a stock share,” Limmer said.

This makes the customer more like a share-holder in a corporation. They get a portion of the produce and have a say in what the farm does. The price of a share varies by the customer’s level of involvement. Shares start at $300.

The farm’s level of production varies depending on the season. The area planted varies from year to year as well.

Despite this, Limmer said an acre of the farm can feed 20 families of four per week. All the labor is done by hand until they till the ground at season’s end. Limmer has a small tractor and a five-foot tiller for that. They plant crops in five-foot beds with a small path between.

“It’s a very highly productive method,” said Limmer.

While productive, organic farming doesn’t include the use of chemicals. The way they farm, said Limmers, they don’t need chemicals. The two explained further.

Ideal growing conditions make for a healthy plant, said Trone. In healthy soil, a plant can take care of itself. Limmer used an analogy to help describe their agricultural Children that grow up playing outside and in the dirt are exposed to more bacteria and microbes than ones raised in more sterile environments. These less-doctored children develop more natural antibodies and stronger immune systems because their bodies have, too. Studies have shown children who grow up in more sterile environments are more likely to develop allergies later, said Limmer.

For the USDA to certify a farm as ‘organic,’ it must follow certain guidelines and the ground must be free from all chemicals for three years. Limmer and Trone’s farm isn’t certified.

“It’s a bureaucratic nightmare,” said Limmer.

The process is expensive, complicated, and Limmer doesn’t plan on getting it. Trone added that the process is tailored toward bigger businesses.

“We would need to hire an accountant,” she said.

Limmer and Trone’s farm exceeds the government standards for ‘organic;’ they simply chose not to getofficial designation. Limmer said his customers don’t care. They know where their vegetables are coming from.

Some SDSU students don’t. Some students don’t seem to care much about eating organic, either. Nick Curry, a junior English major, was more concerned with the quality of food on campus than he was with anything organic.

“I just acknowledge it as another part of the grocery store. I wish there was a cheaper way to do it.”

Organic food may have something of a reputation for being trendy or not viable, but the methods Limmer and Trone use are very traditional. One of the most useful tools Trone has, she said, was a hoe that dates back to the ’50s. For clearing areas of grass, they use a scythe. What today we call ‘organic,’ farmers have been doing for a long time, said Trone.

“Organic is what they used to do until the ’50s,” she said.

This year’s growing season is past, so coffee drinkers won’t see vegetable baskets being passed over the sandwich counter any longer. But those looking for fresh, locally-grown food next summer don’t have far to look.

“Come down here and talk to us,” said Limmer.

#1.884108:2428877161.jpg:Organic2.jpg:Organic grower Jacob Limmer works at his other job – as the owner of Cottonwood Coffee in Brookings. Limmer uses a unique ‘share’-type system to sell the produce from his organic farm.:Christy Wey
#1.884107:2591858245.JPG:Organics01.JPG:Organic foods line the aisle of the Brookings Hy-Vee grocery store. A local grower uses farm ‘shares’ to sell his produce.:

Two political campaigners are coming to SDSU Oct. 1 to explain to students the different sides of the Amendment C “gay marriage” debate.

The advocates will speak in Rotunda G at 7:30 p.m. The forum is designed “to educate and inform, not to persuade [students] to vote one way or another,” said Bob Chell, pastor at the University Lutheran Center.

Chell is also a member of the Campus Interfaith Council, the group that is hosting the event. Other religious groups, as well as the SDSU College Democrats and SDSU College Republicans, are co-sponsoring it. Chell said inviting sponsors from these

alternative backgrounds, along with presenting advocates from both sides of the issue, makes the event itself unbiased.

The two speakers are Jon Hoadley, campaign manager for South Dakotans against Discrimination, and Robert Regier, executive director of the South Dakota Family Policy Council.

Regier said the amendment will legally define marriage in South Dakota as between one man and one woman. Future state judges would not be able to alter this definition. Hoadley said the amendment isn’t about homosexuality.

“It’s being sold as something it’s really not,” said Hoadley. “Gay marriage is already banned in South Dakota.” Amendment C doesn’t change that.

It will change married status into something legally different than other forms of partnership, said both speakers. One such partnership is civil union.

In Vermont, a civil union is legally the same thing as marriage, said Regier. That won’t be the case in South Dakota if the amendment passes. It would prevent the state from granting other forms of partnership the same legal status as marriage, Regier said.

“We’re protecting against counterfeit marriages,” said Regier. “Relationships that pretend to be marriage, whether they’re heterosexual or homosexual,” would not receive the same benefits as marriage.

Hoadley said that while the bill tries to frame the situation in concrete terms, it actually would complicate state law. Rights could be taken from people the law didn’t intend. In Michigan, for example, people were being sued over health care coverage 48 hours after the state passed a similar bill, he said.

SDSU students have used their artwork to decorate buildings all over campus. Now their talent is spilling over into the community.

Cottonwood Coffee recently displayed an exhibit featuring student artwork. Some of the pieces are for sale. The current series of works will remain on the walls until October.

The SDSU Art Club sponsored and organized the affair, said Norman Gambill, head of the visual arts department. He then approached Cottonwood with the idea.

“I was a go-between,” he said.

Cottonwood liked the idea, and the art went up Sept. 4. Before decorating the walls with art, the shop had “a lot of empty space without anything to look at,” said Stefan Limmer, manager at Cottonwood.

“We always planned on doing it,” he said.

Cottonwood’s interior compliments artwork well, becaust it is new and has great space, Gambill said. He said it’s not unusual for a coffee shop like Cottonwood to feature art on its walls.

“The first thing I said when I came in here was, ‘This place needs art on the walls.’ Now I guess they have it,” said Brent Hardie, a junior global studies and journalism major. Organizing the exhibit prepares members of the Art Club for their future careers, said Gambill. In planning and orchestrating the exhibit, they’re doing what they’ll be doing for their career.

Student artists featured are Al Constanzo, Kristin Dalton, Eileen Hall, Angie Jennings, and Klaire B.L. Pearson.

Cottonwood plans to continue hanging art after October. A new series will then replace the works currently hanging inside.

#1.884290:3777345467.jpg:artshow01.jpg:Jennifer Tiernan, a professor in the Journalism Department, is enjoying the artwork displayed at Cottonwood Coffee.:Lena Thompson

The type of baloney that Helen “the Larson Lunch Lady” Donley serves isn’t the kind typically served in a food line-it isn’t even the kind that goes on a plate.

Helen’s baloney is the humorous kind. It warms your heart and makes you ask for seconds.

As an 11-year Aramark veteran, she has touched the lives of hundreds of SDSU students with large helpings of her sense of humor and hospitality.

“If I didn’t come to work full of it, my kids wouldn’t know what to do,” she said.

She uses humor as a way to interact with students and make them feel good. For instance, Helen claims the pop dispensers contain moonshine. She tells students drinking too much will make their hair curl.

“Plain water’s all it is,” she smiled, “but they don’t know the difference.”

In addition to her comments and affection toward students, Helen is known for making some pretty righteous omelets.

“Her love” makes Helen’s omelets worth getting up for in the morning, said Sarah Manthey, a sophomore media productions major. How the omelets are cooked isn’t what makes them memorable. Manthey was so taken away with Helen that she forgot how the omelets tasted.

“I just remembered the experience.”

When Sarah and her suite-mate told Helen they loved her, Helen replied “I love you more honey, you aren’t going to win this one.”

The students make Helen’s job worthwhile. Ask her about her job, and she’ll go on about the students. It’s all about the smiling students walking through the door, she said. Being around them makes her happy. It’s what she enjoys most about her day.

“Kids are the most wonderful thing in the whole world. To me, they’re like angels from heaven,” she said.

Helen likes to think of the students who eat at Larson as own children. Her “kids”, she calls them. She treats them as her own as well, and wouldn’t think of working anywhere except Larson Commons.

“I got 10,000 kids and I love every one of them. My life is in this building.”

Some of those 10,000 “kids” returned some love by creating a Facebook group in her honor. “Helen the Larson Lunch Lady Fan Club” has over 340 members who rave about her omelets and the decorations she puts up during holidays.

“I think it’s sweet,” she said.

Helen buys inflatable holiday decorations herself, said Dave Menzel, Aramark’s food service director at SDSU. Once, he said an inflatable cow of Helen’s was stolen from the commons. Some students responded by putting up wanted posters asking for the cow back.

Helen is invaluable, said Menzel, because of the atmosphere she creates in the cafeteria. Students leave their comfort zone in going to college, he explained. Helen makes Larson Commons a place where that relaxed, comfortable feel of home can return.

“She sincerely cares for all students,” he said.

Helen said she enjoyed giving her kids baloney. It cheers them up and makes them smile, she said.

At a campus food service, Menzel wants employees who chatter with students and make them feel welcome. Service like that cultivates relationships and can even become a bigger drawing-point than the food. He isn’t the only one who feels that way.

Aramark Vice President Lorne Lebster met Helen during his first SDSU visit. Undaunted, Helen greeted him with her typical “How are ya, sweetheart?” Menzel wasn’t sure what his superior would say. But Lebster was impressed.

“Every campus needs a Helen,” he told Menzel. “I could use a hundred of her.”

Helen doesn’t just serve food. That’s why Menzel likes her. She gets to know every student in a personal sense. She jokes while the eggs fry. She asks how much bacon to put in instead of just tossing some in. Students respect that, and come back for it.

In fact, Menzel insisted that some students buy block food-plans not for Larson’s food, but for Helen.

Students decided they weren’t the only ones who should get a taste of Helen’s personality. A year ago, Menzel said they called her in to KELOland’s “People You Should Know.” The crew came and interviewed her in the commons.

If Helen doesn’t seen uncommon enough already, look at her home. Helen lives on Sixth Street near Pioneer Park. Various ornaments dot the outside, likening it to a Christmas tree. Helen said during the Brookings Arts Festival, visitors would ask to add things to the outside of her house.

“If they want to put it up, I let them,” she said.

She leaves all the knick-knacks decorating her home wherever the people place them. It “provides scenery,” she said.

Family is a very important part of Helen’s life. She has a son, Harvey, a daughter, Linda, and four grandchildren. Her husband, Lester, recently returned home from the hospital due to pneumonia. Helen was as characteristically optimistic about him as she is for her kids at SDSU.

That love for her family she returns to students. Everything she does at Larson is to make her students feel better. Being away from home doesn’t have to make students sad, she said.

Helen arrives at Larson at 6 a.m. every weekday to serve breakfast and lunch. Be ready. Helen has plenty of baloney in store to go on top of that omelet.

#1.884365:3116521189.jpg:Helen4.jpg:Helen Donley, commonly known as ‘the Larson Lunch Lady’, preps cheese for another hungry batch of her ‘kids’.:

Students looking to go downtown in the evenings don’t have to find a ride or drive themselves. The Students’ Association’s Safe Ride Home shuttle, in conjunction with Brookings Area Transit Authority, will become a full-time service this year, starting tentatively Sept. 14. The Safe Ride Home shuttle debuted last spring as a pilot program and was considered “a very huge success,” said BATA’s director of transportation, Brenda Schweitzer. Two busses will run separate routes every Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Rides are free with an SDSU student ID card and $5 for all other riders.

The shuttles begin at the downtown 72-hour parking lot west of Main Avenue. They begin at 10 p.m. and run every 25 minutes. The last departure is 2:25 a.m. Shuttle routes are tailored towards heavy student-populated areas in town, says SA President Alex Halbach. Shuttle routes and times were coordinated by the SA.

Stops include the Campus View apartments north of Wal-Mart (nicknamed “the blues”); residence halls Berg, Bailey, Young and Binnewies; and Prairie Lanes bowling alley. The bus will also stop near the Old Sanctuary building on Medary Avenue, the Village Square apartments and the Cedar Apartments by 5th Avenue South.

The east route drives past Hy-Vee as well. Adding a second shuttle allows Safe Ride to cover a bigger area with less wait, said Halbach. Last year, one bus ran two 20-minute routes, “so really a 40-minute route,” he said. No food or drink is allowed on the BATA shuttles, including alcohol. No smoking either. Each bus will include a monitor that is a volunteer SDSU student. The monitors are there as peacekeepers, Schweitzer said. Safety and security training is required for the job. Monitors also document the amount of riders during the night. But age is not a concern; they do not ask for anything other than a student ID card. “We’re not checking IDs. That’s not the purpose,” Schweitzer said.

#1.884373:3326920748.jpg:map06A.jpg:New safe ride routes.:

A new required statement in course syllabi guaranteeing academic freedom has sparked campus-wide discussion, some faculty consternation and the creation of an informal discussion group.

The South Dakota Board of Regents made the statement mandatory earlier this year.

The statement says students’ opinions should have no effect on grades. It also provides complaint guidelines for those students who feel they’re being discriminated against by professors.

The new statement doesn’t actually change any school policy. Bob Burns, political science professor, said the BOR called for the change to deter the South Dakota Legislature from more aggressive regulation.

The South Dakota Legislature killed a bill in February requiring state institutions to report steps taken to promote intellectual diversity and free exchange of ideas.

The BOR decision shows the legislature “that we can do this ourselves,” said Carol Peterson, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs.

But not all faculty agree with the BOR’s move.

“I would like to see it withdrawn,” Meredith Redlin, sociology professor and faculty spokeswoman aid. “The statement sets up an adversarial relationship between professors and students … undermining what we do as faculty. The point of doing it is political. That’s just what we’re not supposed to be.”

Redlin said the board issued the statement as a reaction against conservative political pressure.

Burns admitted the BOR’s decision has “invited some mixed reaction by faculty.”

“We [as professors] have always been expected to be fair and unbiased,” he said.

Delmer Lonowski, political science professor, said the passage is “necessary,” because it allows for a true diversity of ideas rather than merely playing “lip service” to the notion.

Burns said students have always had the right to appeal when they have a problem with their instructor, and this statement only makes students more aware of that. Its addition “doesn’t require more of professors than has been the case,” he said.

It’s not altogether unreasonable that students question the grades they’re given, said Burns. However, it does make it possible for professors to be charged without justification. Even though that opportunity has existed for years, it hasn’t been a problem, he said.

But in response to the BOR’s requirement, an informal discussion group has been formed to debate the statement’s implications in the classroom, said Mary Kay Helling, Academic Affairs associate vice president. Details concerning the group, when they will meet and who will be involved in the group, have not been determined.

If a student believes he or she is being evaluated unfairly, Helling and Peterson advise talking to the professor first. If still unsatisfied, go to the department head, then the dean.

“Many students aren’t aware of [this process] until they need it,” said Helling.

The existing process of speaking to the professor, then the department head, and finally the dean hasn’t changed. It’s meant to protect both parties-professor and student-against false charges.

“The burden of proof is on the student,” Peterson said.

U.S. Congress has debated regulations on college professors for years. According to Jim Shekleton, lawyer for the BOR, some well-funded organizations claim that state colleges are “all infused with left-wing, political values” that are against conservative, political and religious beliefs. He said these groups perpetuate the idea that liberals are unfair to conservatives, using voter registration trends as proof.

“Their whole thesis is pretty questionable,” he said.

While he didn’t deny that individual cases might happen, Shekleton said there really is no evidence that South Dakota has a problem with its professors. He also said the laws regarding this subject haven’t changed.