Bravo to the softball team for becoming one of the few ASU teams to sweep UA this year. The Sun Devils’ women’s basketball and women’s soccer teams are the only other ASU squads to go undefeated against the Wildcats this season. The softball team completed its three-game sweep of its rival on Sunday afternoon after coming from behind for the third straight game. Freshman third baseman Haley Steele came up huge in the series when she hit her first career grand slam to propel the Sun Devils past the Wildcats.
Boo to the Maricopa County Community College District banning tobacco products on all 10 of their campuses. The ban will take effect July 1. Smoking and tobacco consumption is bad for your health, it makes your teeth yellow, it makes your car smell and cigarettes are expensive. However, the right to partake in destructive behavior is exactly that: a right. Could this ban ever reach major university campuses? Who knows. What will it mean for Sun Devils if it did? Fines, disciplinary action and perhaps a poke from Sparky’s trident (probably not the latter).
Bravo to a minor (with the potential to be major) victory for the ladies in the “War on Women.” The Senate approved an amendment to House Bill 2625 on Wednesday, the controversial “contraception bill,” which clarified that an employee would not have to provide an explanation to an employer for purchasing contraceptives, instead only to their insurance company. The real victory ,however, is that the entire bill was voted down Thursday. General rule of thumb: when it comes to our bodies, men or women, the only regulation the government should have is the ability to ban the flattop or Jerry curl hairstyles.
Double Bravo to the end of Senate Bill 1474, which would have allowed firearms and concealed weapons on college campuses. This probably won’t end the debate, but it’s finally a step in the right direction.
Boo to banning ethnic studies on university campuses. In 2011, Arizona Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal declared the Tucson Unified School District in violation of House Bill 2281, a measure he proposed as a senator to eliminate programs that promote racial resentment, among other provisions. This eliminated a Tucson ethnic studies program and, as he told Fox News Latino, has Huppenthal looking to expand this ban to UA and other universities, the institutions where “this toxic thing,” or Anglo resentment, starts.
Bravo to senior Orry Night, who will be walking across the stage to receive his diploma after listening to a speech from Tom Brokaw in Sun Devil Stadium on May 2. After battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma and coming out on top, Night will be graduating after eight semesters as a Sun Devil. He is a great inspiration.
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