POLICE PATROLS ALLOWED BACK IN DORMS

The WSU Board of Regents passed a temporary rule Monday to allow
police, fire and emergency crews unrestricted access to residence halls.

The change to a Washington Administrative Code came on the heels of
a May decision by Whitman County Superior Court Judge David Frazier
that barred police patrols in WSU dorms. That ruling was based on
the university's definition of "guests" to residence halls, which
the regents changed at an emergency phone meeting at 9:30 a.m. Monday.

Guests are now defined as people who are not WSU employees with work
duties at dorms and who are not police, fire or emergency officials,
according to a different WAC. Formal university policies are written as WACs.

The new rule, which under emergency rules lasts 120 days, raises the
question of whether university officials are circumventing a court
decision that ruled in favor of students' reasonable expectations of
privacy in residence halls. But the barring of police patrols was
based on the amended WAC's prior definition of a guest.

"If we thought we were passing a rule that was against the law, we
wouldn't have passed it," Ken Alhadeff, chairman of the Board of
Regents, said in an interview Monday afternoon.

Steve Martonick, partner at Snyder and Martonick Law Offices in
Pullman who represented a student defendant in the May court case,
said the change is legal but raises some constitutional questions.

"[Does] this directly run afoul of the judge's ruling?" he said.
"No, probably not."

But Martonick wondered whether the university's concern for student
safety, which was the main thrust in changing the WAC, was genuine.
In the May case, he argued against police "sticking their nose" in
doorjambs to sniff for marijuana. He told The Daily Evergreen on
Monday that he thought the university's "safety" defense during the
case for that behavior was "completely disingenuous."

"So that makes me wonder if the real issue is liability, if the real
issue is safety, or if the real issue is crime detection," Martonick said.

Common areas in residence halls, by legal standards, should have a
reasonable expectation of privacy because dorm doors are locked, he
said. Judge Frazier based his ruling in May on that idea, too. For
example, Martonick said, the general public wouldn't be allowed into
the hallways of condominiums.

"The normal rule is that government can behave as a normal citizen,
or a police officer can behave as a normal citizen," Martonick said,
"but nothing more than that."

He added: "My feeling is that, let [students] have privacy, for
God's sake. Otherwise, how would they learn to be adults?"

But when students signed their housing contracts this summer, they
agreed to police searches if they signed after Aug. 4. That gave
police the go-ahead to patrol as much as they wanted -- as soon as
patrols were allowed again.

WSU Police should resume patrols by the end of this week, as soon as
the WAC is filed in Olympia, said Rich Heath, senior associate vice
president for Business Affairs.

After the May court decision, resident advisers caught wind of
students bragging about being able to get away with more illegal
activities, and the university was worried about a "potential
incremental" rise in parties, noise and infractions, said Al
Jamison, interim vice president for Student Affairs.

ASWSU President Zach Wurtz, who was a resident adviser at
Streit-Perham Residence Hall from 2004 to 2005, said he thought the
WAC change was "a good temporary fix."

"I think it's necessary to put emergency personnel in there," he
said. Wurtz was not in the phone meeting because he had a class exam.

WSU must juggle its standards of safety and security, and this
change -- which puts the police patrol policy back where it was for
years -- strikes a good balance, Wurtz said.

Regent Chris Marr said during the phone meeting that bringing back
police patrols could compel residents to close their doors and cut
off interaction, but he voted for the change anyway.

At the Sept. 15 Board of Regents meeting in Seattle, Regent Rafael
Stone, who heads the regents' student affairs committee, said
routine police patrols were "not the goal at all" of the regents.

But patrols were just what the board wanted with the WAC change.

Chairman Alhadeff said Monday afternoon that he hopes the regents
will have a permanent solution for the policy once the amendment's
120-day scope expires. He plans to get "a great deal of input" from
students and officials before then.

A public hearing on the matter is scheduled for Oct. 19, according
to a WSU news release.

Staff writer Emily Luty contributed to this report.