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As with the rest of the country, it appears New Hampshire is pretty divided on the Paris Climate Agreement. At the state level, Republicans are applauding President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the global climate pact, while Democrats are hoping to use the issue as political ammo in next year’s elections. At the local level, a couple cities, colleges, and universities are figuring out how they can commit themselves to reducing carbon emissions to show the rest of the world that not everyone agrees with Trump.

That division was very apparent Thursday during one of the last full House sessions of the year. Several House Republicans staged a walkout after Rep. Lee Walker Oxenham, D-Plainfield, was granted the right to speak on the House floor about Republican Gov. Chris Sununu’s decision not to join the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group of 12 states and Puerto Rico that are committed to upholding the Paris climate deal.

NH Reps narrowly ok member to speak on Climate Change. GOP choose to walk out. Forced to return. pic.twitter.com/uhO10aNfX7

— Raymond Gagnon (@gagnon03743) June 8, 2017

The representatives that walked out were forced to return to their seats because House Speaker Shawn Jasper needed quorum in order finish the day’s business. In her speech, Oxenham mentioned Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and Republicans let out a cheer. The New Hampshire Democratic Party was quick to criticize Republican members for their actions.

“Rather than hear their colleague on a key issue, Republicans decided to continue to plug their ears in ignorance on climate change,” said Ray Buckley, NHDP chairman, in a statement. “In doing so, they are standing with Governor Sununu and President Trump against the rest of the world. This Republican walkout is symbolic of their willful ignorance on basic science.”

Sununu stated last week that he “stands by” Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Climate Agreement and he said Monday that New Hampshire would not join the U.S. Climate Alliance.

“Not at this time, especially when we do not yet know its impact on our economy and environment,” he told the Concord Monitor.

That drew criticism from U.S. Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, and U.S. Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Annie Kuster — all four members of New Hampshire’s Democratic congressional delegation — who wrote a Wednesday letter to Sununu encouraging him to change his mind.

“Governor, we write in support of New Hampshire joining the U.S. Climate Alliance. It is vital that the Granite State continues to be a leader on climate change and clean energy,” they wrote. “Just as the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord cedes American global leadership, New Hampshire’s refusal to acknowledge the clear consensus on climate science will similarly damage our state’s reputation.”

New Hampshire already participates in a regional cap-and-trade pact with nine other states in the Northeast that works to reduce carbon emissions. Under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, fossil fuel power plants have to buy allowances for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit. Sununu has previously indicated he would be support withdrawing from RGGI, but only if other states also did it.

While lawmakers battle it out at the State House on climate change, several cities and universities in New Hampshire are reaffirming their commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A national movement called “We Are Still In” has gained steam since Trump made his announcement last week. As of Monday, a total of 1,219 governors, mayors, businesses, investors, and colleges and universities across the country declared their intent to ensure the United States remains a global leader in the effort to combat climate change.

“In the absence of leadership from Washington, states, cities, colleges and universities, businesses and investors, representing a sizable percentage of the U.S. economy will pursue ambitious climate goals, working together to take forceful action and to ensure that the U.S. remains a global leader in reducing emissions,” the statement reads.

While no Granite State cities have signed on to that specific statement, two colleges have joined the cause — the University of New Hampshire and Southern New Hampshire University.

In a separate statement from the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, 274 mayors committed to adopt, honor, and uphold the Paris Climate Agreement goals.

“We will continue to lead. We are increasing investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. We will buy and create more demand for electric cars and trucks,” the statement reads. “We will increase our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a clean energy economy, and stand for environmental justice

Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess and Portsmouth Mayor Jack Blalock have signed on to that statement, but not the one from “We Are Still In.”

In other communities in the Granite State, Durham officials held a Tuesday forum about the feasibility of scaling down the targets of the Paris agreement to a municipal level. The town of Hanover also voted in May to establish a goal of transitioning to 100 percent clean and renewable energy by 2050.

Dartmouth College President Phil Hanlon didn’t sign on to the “We Are Still In” statement, but he signed onto a similar letter with the presidents of 11 other leading research universities. That letter commits the universities to transition to low-carbon energy and enhance sustainability practices on their campuses.

In the letter released Monday, the presidents “reaffirm that commitment, which is consistent with the Paris Agreement and recognizes the concerted action that is needed at every level to slow, and ultimately prevent, the rise in the global average temperature and to facilitate the transition to a clean energy economy. Universities have a critical role to play in reducing our own greenhouse gas emissions, continuing to advance evidence-based understanding of the causes and effects of climate change on the environment, the economy and public health, and developing solutions.”

The other signatories include all the Ivy League institutions, except Princeton University, and also Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University.

Earlier this year, Dartmouth announced it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from campus operations by 50 percent by 2025 and by 80 percent by 2050. They also pledged to transition their campus to renewable resources by 2025.

In its announcement, Dartmouth admitted that it had fallen behind some of its peer institutions on a number of sustainability fronts.

“Although Dartmouth has substantially reduced campus energy use and made other significant advances over the last decade, we lag our peer institutions with respect to commitments, actions, and reporting in the sustainability domain,” the college released in its sustainability report. “Our report recommends principles, standards, and commitments in the areas of energy, waste and materials, water, food, transportation, and landscape and ecology.”

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With a legislature like New Hampshire’s, one would think that it would be easier for women to be elected into office and serve their local communities. A recent Dartmouth-led study has found that might not be the case.

The research states that volunteer-based state legislatures may perpetuate gender inequality in political representation. The work-family balance appeared to disproportionately affect female legislators than their male colleagues, since women often take on more family obligations for their households, which then, compete in time and priority with their legislative responsibilities.

“So even though we began this project thinking that the volunteer aspect of the legislature would actually lower the barriers of support for women’s entry into the political sphere, the unpaid and often undervalued nature of the work, actually may heighten them,” said study co-author Kathryn Lively, a professor of sociology at Dartmouth College.

In a volunteer or citizen-based state legislature, for which there is little to no compensation and a lack of resources or staff, members usually draw on their own personal time to fulfill their role as a lawmaker.

The qualitative study focused on the experiences of 17 women legislators in New Hampshire. On average, the women were 60 years old and over, married, and had three children under 18 years old and still living at home. The sample skewed to the left, with 15 respondents affiliating with the Democratic Party and only two with the Republican Party. However, women in the N.H. House tend to be more blue, with 76 representatives in the Democratic Party and 38 lawmakers in the Republican Party out of 400 total legislators. In the N.H. Senate, there are 24 members, and seven are women (four are Democrats and three are Republicans).

Two-thirds of the women in the sample spoke about the stress of juggling work-family obligations with their legislative duties. Respondents said they often were forced to choose between attending committee meetings and staying late to vote in an executive session versus leaving in time to take care of loved ones.

“They’re not going to say, ‘Don’t go take care of your mother,'” one respondent said in the study. “But you feel really bad because you’ll get to [Representatives’ Hall] and your colleagues will be like, ‘Oh, you weren’t here last week, and we had this vote.’ On most votes, you wouldn’t make a difference. But every once in a while, there’s a vote that’s close. If you’re not there, it could change whether it becomes a law or not.”

To juggle their responsibilities, women legislators adopted coping strategies such as bringing their children with them to committee hearings. The women lawmakers often found themselves at a disadvantage, where they simply could not participate as fully in the political process due to the demands and scheduling conflicts associated with child or elder care, the study found.

“If we’re trying to figure out a meeting time or date, those who aren’t divorced will say, ‘Oh my wife is home, she’ll take care of the kids. I don’t have to be home until whenever,'” one lawmaker said. “But the women, you’ll see every woman pull her iPad, phone, or calendar out and say, ‘Oh I’ve got to take my kid to soccer…’ and that’s what happens, because we do have more and I think our values are greater. So then, the men are the ones who go to the meeting.”

In addition, two-thirds of women legislators indicated that their work seemed to be devalued in comparison to paid employment. Some women said their spouses did not seem to take their role as a legislator seriously given that their work only brought in $100 a year, and was therefore, perceived as if it was charity or volunteer work.

“Oh, my husband teases me about it every day, for 12 years,” one woman lawmaker said. “He calls it my hobby. And I know that doesn’t sound very professional, but he says, ‘You’re doing that for free.’ But you know, it’s my community service.”

Many women also discussed having feelings of guilt for missing family time to perform legislative work. Some stated that they felt like they weren’t being “good mothers,” as defined by gender norms. In prioritizing their work-family and legislative responsibilities, they ended up putting themselves last with little to no personal time. In some cases, this ultimately led to them leaving the legislature all together, even if they would have preferred to keep serving.

This problem isn’t unique to New Hampshire. With over two-thirds of the state legislatures falling somewhere in between a “professional” and “volunteer” system, women legislators may often be experiencing the tensions between legislative and work-family responsibilities. The National Conference of State Legislatures classifies only 10 states as true professional legislatures, and 16 are considered part-time legislatures, with the majority falling somewhere between the two.

Instituting changes, such as by scheduling meetings and votes during times that are more agreeable for all, would help address some of the political inequities and enable women to participate more fully as legislators. Although the number of women politicians at all levels of government has been increasing since the 1970s, women still make up only about one-quarter of state legislators in the United States.

Lively’s co-author, Morgan Matthew — a Dartmouth alum — is  beginning to look at how women participate in the political process in institutions like a volunteer-based legislature. Other research topics could look at how gender intersects with other aspects of women legislators’ backgrounds, like socioeconomic status, race, geographic location, and how that shapes their individual coping strategies.

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Dartmouth College joined 16 other leading universities in a legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order, arguing that the travel ban has “damaging effects” on its research capabilities and is preventing them from recruiting and educating the world’s best talent.

The amicus brief was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, supporting a civil action brought by the attorney general of New York and several colleges including, Brown University. Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Duke University, and others.

The brief argues that “because [universities] seek to educate future leaders from nearly every continent, attract the world’s best scholars, faculty and students, and work across international borders, they rely on the ability to welcome international students, faculty and scholars into their communities. The executive order at issue in this case threatens that ability and creates significant hardship for [the schools’] valued international students, faculty and scholars.”

The controversial executive order was one of the first actions Trump took since his inauguration in January. He has vowed to keep radical Islamic terrorism out of the United States and he signed the order last month creating a temporary ban on allowing people to enter the country from Iran, Iraq, Libya Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, as well as a temporary suspension on allowing refugees into the country.

Supporters of the ban agree with the stricter vetting of immigrants coming into the United States and a tightening of borders. Opponents say the ban is nothing more than a religious test, as Trump tries to keep Muslims out of the country.

Lawsuits attempting to block the ban were quickly filed and a federal appeals court upheld a hold on the order last week, allowing for people to enter the United States who were previously blocked. Trump’s team said they were still weighing their legal options as they work to put the order back in place.

Some of the biggest news stories when Trump’s order was in place were from college campuses. For many students, faculty, and staff, their semester was just starting when Trump signed the order, leaving many academics from the seven-banned questions to worry if they would be able to return to their studies.

“Dartmouth College counts among its core values embracing diversity with the knowledge that it significantly enhances the quality of a Dartmouth education, as well as fostering lasting bonds among faculty, staff, and students, which encourage a culture of integrity, self-reliance, and collegiality and instill a sense of responsibility for each other and for the broader world,” the college said in the brief.

In the brief, the colleges argue that the order deters international students, faculty, and scholars from studying at American institutions.

Dartmouth claims 9 percent of its undergraduate students and 29.4 percent of its graduate students are international, with 15 students, scholars, and staff coming from Iran or Iraq.

The college also pointed to notable foreign leaders and diplomats among its alumni, including Kul Gautam, a citizen of Nepal and the former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, Paavo Lipponen, the former Prime Minister of Finland, and Gordon Campbell, the former Premier of British Columbia.

The brief argued that the order would “impede successful academic collaboration” in the United States. Since thousands of conferences and symposia are held at universities every year, they have become “incubators for innovation and thrive on the free flow of information and ideas.”

“A faculty member at Dartmouth planning a conference for next fall has expressed concern that participants may not be able or willing to travel to the United States, and one keynote speaker wonders whether it ‘sends the wrong message’ to attend a conference in the U.S. at this time,” the brief states.

Dartmouth has been one of the leading academic institutions offering resistance to some of Trump’s immigration policies.

College President Phil Hanlon and nearly 50 other college and university presidents sent Trump a letter on February 2, after he signed his order, asking him to “rectify or rescind” it.

“The order specifically prevents talented, law-abiding students and scholars from the affected regions from reaching our campuses,” the letter states. “American higher education has benefited tremendously from this country’s long history of embracing immigrants from around the world.”

In a campus-wide email sent on January 29, Hanlon advised students affected by the seven-nation ban to avoid all international travel.

In November 2016, Hanlon signed a statement in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Programs — a program where more than 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally obtained temporary relief from deportation.

Dartmouth students were concerned after Trump was elected that he would overturn former President Barack Obama’s executive order creating the program, so they started an online petition asking for Dartmouth College to become a “sanctuary” school for undocumented students. University officials pledged to protect and support those students “within the bounds of the law.”

It remains to be seen what will happen as a result of the brief filed by the colleges opposing the executive order, but university officials believe that “safety and security concerns can be addressed in a manner that is consistent with the values America has always stood for, including the free flow of ideas and people across borders and the welcoming of immigrants to our universities.”

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When Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders held their respective rallies at the University of New Hampshire this past year, Joshua Fox and other members of the UNH College Republicans wanted to stand outside the venue, hold signs, and protest.

When they were protesting, a police officer approached them and told them they needed to move to a “free speech zone” because they could potentially cause some safety problems. Fox, a sophomore at the public university, said they were forced into a small area to carry out the rest of their protest, farther away from where people were waiting to enter the rally.

“A diversity of opinions is important to college,” he testified during a House Education Committee hearing in Concord on Tuesday. “I believe every American should have their right to speak their opinion.”

UNH says presidential candidates and their Secret Service teams are allowed to put some policies in place that the university would not normally do.

But Fox said he still believes universities and colleges sometimes go too far in stifling free speech.

He supports House Bill 477 that would limit “the ability of an institution within the university system or community college system to restrict a student’s right to speak in a public forum.”

The bill states that no university or college that receives state funds “shall restrict a student’s right to speak, including verbal speech, holding a sign, or distributing fliers or other materials, in a public forum.”

Rep. Eric Schleien, R-Hudson, is the prime sponsor of the bill, which has five other cosponsors on it — all Republicans. But he said this bill shouldn’t be a partisan bill.

“The broader principle is if I am a student at a public university or college, I shouldn’t have to ask people for permission to hand out a flyer,” Schleien said.

He is referring to UNH’s policy on students needing a permit to “distribute literature” and for “outdoor assemblies.”

“Individual students and non-students who wish to solicit for contributions, distribute literature…and engage in sequential, incidental, brief and transitory verbal interactions with passersby on the sidewalks and in the parking lots on campus must first obtain a permit from the University of New Hampshire Police Department,” states Section 23.2 of UNH’s administrative rules and regulations.

That’s where Joe Cohen, legislative and policy director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), has a problem.

He doesn’t believe students should have to get a permit to assemble a protest or pass out flyers to passersby. He also said having the police in charge of the permitting process is a problem.

“We’re not really changing the law in anyway,” he said. “We’re just changing the mechanism to give students the power to exercise their First Amendment rights.”

According to FIRE, most public colleges and universities in the Granite State do not have a high “speech code rating.”

Only Plymouth State College has a “green light” rating — when a college does not “seriously imperil speech.”

UNH and Dartmouth College received a “yellow light” rating. That’s when an institution’s policies “restrict a more limited amount of protected expression or, by virtue of their vague wording, could too easily be used to restrict protected expression.”

Keene State College received a “red light” rating, which “clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.”

Cohen criticized the state’s college and university system for not having uniform free speech policies. He believes this bill will help fill that gap.

Reports of free speech violations on college campuses have reached national media outlets in the past year. One of the most recent incidents was at Kellogg Community College in Michigan where members of the Young Americans for Liberty chapter are suing the school after they were arrested in September for passing out pocket-sized copies of the U.S. Constitution without administrative permission.

While no incidents like that have been reported in New Hampshire, the Granite State public universities have seen an increase in hate crimes in the past year. A swastika was burned into the ceiling of a Keene State College dorm and at UNH. President Mark Huddleston said several students and staff had experienced harassment or threats.

Educators on New Hampshire college campuses have been trying to have an open dialogue with students about where freedom of expression ends and hate speech begins.

But Karyl Martin, assistant general counsel for UNH, said the new bill on free speech could be seen as redundant since students are already allowed freedom of speech in the First Amendment and some restrictions exist to keep students safe.

“The safety and health concerns are real,” she said. “The permitting notice allows them [the university] to be flexible to needs of the students.”

Lawmakers were also critical of the law, asking if there were any limits to free speech on college campuses.

Schleien said the courts would ultimately decide what limits exist when they interpret the law.

But Martin said it’s difficult to legislate what are reasonable restrictions.

“It also puts the expense of litigating these issues on the taxpayers when they go to court,” she said. “It would ultimately end up on them and the students.”

THE EDELBLUT WILD CARD

This isn’t the first time a bill like this appeared before the committee. In the last legislative session, former Rep. Frank Edelblut, R-Windham, introduced a similar bill (House Bill 1561) that ultimately didn’t make it out of committee.

Republican gubernatorial candidates Executive Councilor Chris Sununu, right, and state Rep. Frank Edelblut shake hands during a news conference in front of the Statehouse Wednesday Sept. 14, 2016 in Concord, N.H. Edelblut conceded the race for the Republican nomination for governor after Sununu won by fewer than 1,000 votes. He will run against his Democratic primary winner fellow Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

The main differences between the two pieces of legislation are that the 2016 bill included a clause for “spontaneous and contemporaneous” demonstration. Cohen said he would prefer that to be in the current legislation, but UNH says that could lead to more costs.

Last year, the committee referred the legislation for interim study to look more at what the cost would be for the public university and college systems.

They claimed that the law could increase costs due to litigations and a change in their current permitting system, including additional funds for police officers for those spontaneous protests.

The bill was not recommended for future legislation.

Now, without the spontaneous clause, maybe the bill has a fighting chance. Especially, with the Edelblut wild card.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu recently nominated Edelblut, who also came in a close second to Sununu in the Republican gubernatorial primary last year, to be the next state education commissioner. As education commissioner, he helps set the tone of the department and implement policy for K-12 education, as well as higher education, which includes the state universities and colleges.

His nomination is already controversial since he doesn’t come from an education background. But now that it’s likely he will be approved by the Republican-controlled Executive Council, Edelblut could help push this legislation forward. After all, he was the one who first proposed it last year.

With Edelblut in Sununu’s ear, he could give this bill a nudge forward in the Legislature.

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