Arizona bill would allow students to appeal grades 'influenced' by political bias

Republican lawmakers in Arizona have proposed a bill that would allow students at state universities and colleges to challenge their low grades if they believe their teacher was swayed by political bias.

Senate Bill 1477 — a first in the nation — would create a "grade challenge department" run by the Arizona Board of Regents, a body that oversees the University of Arizona (UA), Arizona State University (ASU) and Northern Arizona University.

If the department determined that a student's grade had been influenced by a teacher's bias, the faculty member could be required to regrade the student's work.

State Senator Anthony Kern, a Republican, introduced the bill by telling the state Senate in February that it was because "a lot of students that I met with at ASU, they do not feel they can debate issues according to their politics or according to what they believe because they're afraid their grades are going to be lowered".

The policy would task the Arizona Board of Regents with selecting the staff of volunteers to run the challenge department.

Any student who lost the case with the challenge department would be able to launch an appeal by contacting the Arizona Board of Regents.

The board would then be able to "order any faculty member of a public university to regrade a student's assignment or reevaluate a student's overall class grade consistent with the Board's guidance".

UA, ASU and the Arizona Board of Regents didn't respond to a request for comment.

In February, the proposed legislation passed in the state Senate 16-12. House education committee members passed it 4-3. To become law, it would need to pass the full Arizona Legislature next, then be signed into law by Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs, who would also have the option to veto it.

Concerns over the growing influence of political bias in everyday life, including education, comes just months before the 2024 general election. The deeply partisan rematch will take place between former Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden.

Arizona's Republican politicians decided to act to address a perceived bias at universities after the fallout over a February 2023 event at ASU with conservative commentators Charlie Kirk, Dennis Prager and Robert Kiyosaki who visited ASU.

While the event was billed as being about "health, wealth and happiness", 39 of 47 faculty at ASU signed a letter to the dean condemning the gathering, accusing the hosts of having a history of making derogatory comments about women, minorities and the LGBTQ+ community.

Prager is a conservative talk show host who founded the PragerU video website. Kirk is founder of Turning Point USA, and Kiyosaki wrote the book Rich Dad Poor Dad along with other books with Trump.

Ann Atkinson, former executive director of ASU's T. W. Lewis Center for Personal Development and organizer of the event, was ousted from her role shortly after it took place, and her center was closed. She believes it was because of faculty opposition to the event.

"I thought that Arizona State University, my alma mater and employer, was different from other schools when it came to free speech," Atkinson wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "But beneath ASU's written commitment to intellectual diversity lies a deep hostility toward divergent views."

After Atkinson criticized ASU, Kern and other Republicans expressed anger that the conservative panel faced widespread opposition. In November, the lawmakers formed a committee on "Freedom of Expression at Arizona's Public Universities".

Kern, the author of the bill, has described himself as "not a university guy", as they (universities) are "anti-American indoctrination camps", the Arizona Mirror reported.