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The UNH staffer charged with threatening to kill Vivek Ramaswamy and at least one other GOP politician was ordered released Thursday.

Tyler Anderson, 30, had been jailed since his arrest Saturday at his Dover apartment after federal agents connected him to the threats to kill Ramaswamy at a Portsmouth event.

According to court records, Ramaswamy’s campaign team sent text invitations to a list of potential voters on the Seacoast on Friday, ahead of the “Breakfast with Vivek” event slated for Monday.

Anderson got an invitation and allegedly responded with grisly and obscene threats.

“‘Great, another opportunity for me to blow his brains out!’ Anderson reportedly replied. He followed up with, ‘I’m going to kill everyone who attends and then f*** their corpses.’”

Ramaswamy isn’t the only GOP official Anderson has threatened, according to court records. Investigators found another series of alarming messages Anderson sent in response to another campaign text from a different candidate.

 “Fantastic, now I know where to go so I can blow that bastard’s head off.” “Thanks, I’ll see you there. Hope you have the stamina for a mass shooting!” “And then I’m gonna f*** (names) corpse.” “And don’t worry, (name), I’ll make sure to f*** yours too.”

The name of the other candidate is not being released. Anderson reportedly told investigators he had sent similar texts to other campaigns.

Anderson had no intention of following through on any of the threats, his attorney Dorothy Graham argued. He had no criminal record prior to the arrest.

Anderson is free on several conditions, including:

• He has no contact with Ramaswamy or members of his campaign staff;
• He stays away from all presidential campaigns;
• He takes medication for mental health conditions;
• His roommates’ guns must be removed from the apartment they share.

A 2018 UNH graduate, Anderson recently started a new job as an administrative assistant at the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. UNH administrative assistants typically earn between $35,000 and $45,000 a year.

The University did not respond to NHJournal’s request for comment.

Brought into court by federal agents and wearing the Strafford County House of Corrections’ inmate uniform, Tyler Anderson managed to stay quiet for Monday’s short hearing.

If he had mastered that same self-control before he allegedly started threatening GOP politicians, Anderson might not have been in court at all.

Anderson, 30, threatened to kill Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy at a campaign event planned for Monday morning, U.S. Attorney Jane E. Young said in a statement. And days before that threat, Anderson allegedly threatened a mass shooting at a different Republican presidential candidate’s events and made threats to multiple other candidates, according to court records.

“I’m very grateful to local law enforcement here in New Hampshire, including a retired cop who has worked with our team, for their swift response,” Ramaswamy said when he sat down with NHJournal to record an episode of Diner Table Economics on Monday. “I continue to pray for everyone involved in this process.”

GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy records an episode of Diner Table Conversations at the Airport Diner in Manchester.

Anderson, a Dover resident, is charged with allegedly sending two disturbing and threatening messages to Ramaswamy’s campaign. The threats came after Anderson received a text invitation to the “Breakfast with Vivek” campaign event in Portsmouth. 

Like many political candidates, Ramaswamy and his campaign use text messages to invite voters to campaign events. Anderson allegedly responded to one invitation with grisly and obscene threats.

“Great, another opportunity for me to blow his brains out!” Anderson reportedly replied. He followed up with, ‘I’m going to kill everyone who attends and then f*** their corpses.’”

Federal agents tracked Anderson to his Dover home on Saturday, placed him under arrest, and executed a search warrant. During the search, agents checked Anderson’s phone and found text threats to another GOP candidate, according to the affidavit filed in court. Again, Anderson allegedly sent the threats in response to a campaign text inviting him to an event.

“Fantastic, now I know where to go so I can blow that bastard’s head off.” “Thanks, I’ll see you there. Hope you have the stamina for a mass shooting!” “And then I’m gonna f*** (names) corpse.” “And don’t worry, (name), I’ll make sure to f*** yours too.”

When confronted with the text messages to one candidate’s team, Anderson told agents he sent more threats to many other candidates, according to the affidavit.

Anderson, 30, is a 2018 UNH graduate who recently started a new job as an administrative assistant at the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. UNH administrative assistants typically earn between $35,000 and $45,000 a year.

The University did not respond to NHJournal’s request for comment on Monday, but it is a safe bet Anderson won’t be at work for a while.

The government plans to ask that Anderson remain jailed pending a trial. Anderson will stay in custody until at least Thursday’s detention hearing.

Anderson faces a potential sentence of up to five years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.

Ramaswamy told NHJournal that while the threats were disturbing, his experience campaigning for president has been overwhelmingly positive.

“I think we’re far more united in our basic values than most Americans would believe from turning on social media or looking at the cable news media,” Ramaswamy said. “Eighty percent of us in this country share the same values in common. Meeting people in the [Portsmouth] diner this morning, we had a lot of warm conversations and made new friendships that I’m incredibly grateful for. And I think that’s a good thing in this country.”

Jewish students at the University of New Hampshire say they are feeling fearful as the anti-Israel slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is heard across the campus and swastikas appear on the walls. The chant was also heard at an anti-Israel rally in Manchester on Saturday, along with attacks on Israel as an “apartheid state.”

Thus far, New Hampshire’s elected officials are largely standing with Israel. All four members of the state’s federal delegation have condemned the use of the “from the river to the sea” language, and Gov. Chris Sununu has declared the phrase “nothing short of requesting another Holocaust.”

But New Hampshire’s far-left activists denouncing Israel are getting support from some members of the UNH faculty, including a nationally-known progressive academic who is using her large social media following to attack Israel as an “apartheid state” and to compare Hamas terrorists to the Polish Jews who fought Nazi SS troops during the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Assistant Physics Professor Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is paid close to $100,000 a year to teach physics and gender studies at UNH. In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that claimed the lives of 1,400 people and injured another 3,400, Prescod-Weinstein has kept up a flurry of anti-Israel posts on the X social media site. Her feed, which has more than 115,000 followers, includes denunciations of what she calls Israel’s “setter colonialism” and defenses of antisemitic Rep. Rashid Tlaib (D-Mich.)

“Everyone harassing Rashida Tlaib — who is wildly popular with her constituents — looks like a complete *a**hole* attacking her while her people are facing *genocide*,” Prescod-Weinstein posted on X. “Complete a**hole. Cannot stress this enough.”

Particularly troubling, critics say, is her Nov. 9 tweet in which she appears to compare Hamas terrorists to Polish Jews during World War II.

Describing the current political conversation surrounding Israel’s military response to the Hamas terror attack, Prescod-Weinstein posted, “The people in charge are those who would have condemned the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.”

Prescod-Weinstein did not respond to an email from NHJournal seeking clarification on her tweet. She has tweeted almost nonstop in support of Palestine, and in strong opposition to Israel over recent weeks. NHJournal could find no tweet or written statement from Prescod-Weinstein in which she condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Asked directly by an X user if she is “saying that condemning Hamas is like condemning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?” Prescod-Weinstein responded cryptically: “If that’s what I wanted to say, that’s what I would have said. Instead, I said what I said.”

This isn’t Prescod-Weinstein’s first political controversy.

In the past, she signed a letter opposing a call for more free speech and intellectual diversity on campus. And she argues that human beings should rethink going to Mars over concerns of “colonialism.”

“Can we be trusted to be equitable in our dealings with each other in a Martian context if the U.S. and Canadian governments continue to attack indigenous sovereignty, violate indigenous lands, and engage in genocidal activities against indigenous people?” Prescod-Weinstein asked at a 2018 symposium on “Decolonizing Mars.”

 And according to a January 2020 story by Campus Reform, Prescod-Weinstein wrote posts claiming Black people cannot be anti-semitic. Prescod-Weinstein describes herself as an “agender queer” Black feminist. She grew up in Los Angeles with a Black mother and a White Jewish father.

“Antisemitism in the United States, historically, is a White Christian problem, and if any Black people have developed antisemitic views, it is under the influence of White gentiles,” she wrote. “White Jews adopted whiteness as a social praxis and harmed Black people in the process … Some Black people have problematically blamed Jewishness for it.”

In June, UNH rewarded Prescod-Weinstein with her tenure. A university professor with tenure can only be fired for cause, or under extraordinary circumstances. 

After news of the “river to the sea” chants at UNH, Sununu told NHJournal he hoped “the leadership over at UNH was swift and firm to condemn this language.”

Instead, the university released a statement merely acknowledging the phrase is “hurtful” to many.

“The university is proud of its record of protecting free speech on campus, including speech that may be objectionable,” UNH said in a statement. “The individuals in the video participated in an assembly to speak out on an issue, as is their right. We understand the phrase used in the video has deep and hurtful meaning to many. Neither these individuals nor anyone exercising their free speech rights on campus speak on behalf of the University of New Hampshire.”

Within hours of the pro-Palestinian protest on campus, students reported finding fresh swastika graffiti. Student Mark Rittigers found a swastika drawn on the bathroom tiles in his dorm.

“It’s gross; no one wants to see that in their bathroom,” he said.

The 18-year-old said there is a sense of hostility on campus when it comes to Israel. The pro-Palestine rally was an effort to direct hate at Jewish people and those who support Israel, he said. Rittigers is not Jewish, but he supports Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. Those are not opinions he is always comfortable expressing on campus.

“It feels unsafe,” he said. “There are people who I am sure would get violent over this. There are people who are quite passionate about their beliefs and more than willing to use violence.”

UNH did not respond to NHJournal’s request for comment on the swastikas. 

Democrats are celebrating the latest Granite State Poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which found Gov. Chris Sununu’s approval rating continues to decline.

“Passing an unpopular abortion ban and failing to lead during COVID is coming back to haunt Gov. Chris Sununu,” the NH. Democratic Party tweeted. “Lowest approval since taking office. 1st time since 2003 that voters think NH is moving in the wrong direction. Record low approval of his handling of COVID.”

And it’s true Sununu’s numbers have been slumping for months — though he’s still got a 52-47 percent job approval.

The more fascinating finding is the change in Sen. Maggie Hassan’s standing over the past two months. Simply put, her numbers have soared.

In October, Hassan’s approval/disapproval was a dismal 33 percent approve, 51 percent disapprove, leaving her underwater by -18 points. Two months later, that number in the UNH Survey is +3 points, at 43/40. That’s a dramatic, 21-point swing.

So, what happened?

The new poll was taken before Hassan announced she was abandoning the filibuster in order to back a new federal election law. That was by far the most high-profile political move she had made in months.

And while millions of dollars have been spent promoting Hassan and her support for Biden’s spending packages, a similar amount has been spent attacking her on issues like rising inflation and deficit spending.

What makes the Sununu v Hassan divide interesting isn’t the net number, but the trends. Sununu’s seem to make sense. Hassan’s don’t.

The story of Sununu is the story of COVID-19. He was one of the country’s most popular governors, according to polling, before the pandemic hit. Then, as he dealt with the public health emergency, his numbers shot through the roof. From April 2020 until February 2021, he was essentially at 70 percent job approval or higher in the UNH Survey. In May 2020, he hit a jaw-dropping 82 percent approval rating.

But COVID-19 has lingered. The economy has been a troubling mix of rising inflation, disappearing workers, and an unsteady supply chain. Despite having one of the lowest rates of unvaccinated citizens, the state hit the number one spot for COVID-19 cases. And then there are the millions of dollars in attack ads accusing him of banning abortions in New Hampshire (only abortions after six months are prohibited).

Put all that together and the steady decline of Sununu’s polls is hardly a surprise. When the state’s COVID-19 numbers improve, it is likely Sununu’s will, too.

But Hassan? For months, her approval has hovered in the low to mid-30s. Her current 43 percent approval is the highest it has been since February 2020. There is no storyline, just a sudden surge. Why?

Some veteran New Hampshire politicos refused to discuss the UNH numbers, rejecting the “panel” system Dr. Andrew Smith and the UNH Survey Center use as unreliable.

However, its findings are wildly off from the recent Trafalgar Group poll — one of the most accurate pollsters since 2016 — which showed a 46-40 percent Hassan lead in a match-up against Gen. Don Bolduc. And an October St. Anselm Survey Center poll put her at 44 percent approve, 50 percent disapprove, not too far from the UNH Survey number that month.

One theory several strategists suggested to NHJournal is Democrats are rallying around Hassan as their party’s fortunes appear to be fading.

“Partisanship is back,” said GOP strategist Dave Carney. “The [political] team jerseys are back down from the attic. They might have been under the Christmas decorations.”

It may seem an odd time for a Democrat’s poll numbers to rise. The party has been plagued by in-fighting for months over the Build Back Better bill. There is a split between the progressives and the rest of the party. And the issues Americans say are their top priorities — inflation, spending, jobs, even COVID — aren’t breaking their way. Plus, President Joe Biden’s approval dropped to a new record low of 41 percent just last week.

That partisanship gets Hassan to the mid-40s. If there’s not a third-party candidate splitting the anti-Hassan vote (in 2016 there were two), that’s not enough to win.

More bad news: According to the UNH survey, she is underwater with independent voters 26 to 49 percent. In the St. A’s poll in October, that number was 27 to 64 percent.

There aren’t enough Democrats to make up that gap, particularly in a “red wave” midterm election when, it appears, Republicans are likely to be highly motivated voters.

Still, the poll is a reminder that the Democratic Party is very strong in New Hampshire. It is no coincidence the entire delegation is Democratic, or that Republicans have only won the presidential election here once since 1988.

The UNH Survey adds more evidence to back up the theory that Hassan is viewed by the public as “Generic Democrat,” and her fortunes will closely follow those of her party.

Although Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million, she still lost the 2016 presidential election to Republican Donald Trump. A closer look into the votes cast reveals that one of the factors of Clinton’s loss could be attributed to her underperformance in rural areas. New research suggests that while she nearly matched Barack Obama’s 2012 performance in most urban areas, she failed to match the Democratic presidential nominees in the last five elections in the less populated areas of the country.

The research was released this week by the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire and was conducted by Dante Scala — associate professor of political science and a faculty fellow at the Carsey School — and Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the Carsey School and professor of sociology.

The researchers examined voting along a rural to urban continuum, rather than treating rural and urban as a polarity. They found significant variations in voting behavior among both urban and rural places that persist over the last five presidential elections.

“Yet, defining 2016 as the tale of two Americas — one urban, one rural — hinders a nuanced understanding of the country’s political geography,” the researchers stated. “Many political commentators mistakenly caricature rural America as a single entity, but our research … shows that complex variations in voting patterns persist among both urban and rural places.”

Several headlines after the election pushed the urban-rural divide that existed in the election. “How the Election Revealed the Divide Between City and Country,” read a piece by The Atlantic. The researches suggest that while the overall premise is true, it’s a lot more complicated than that because political pundits don’t often include suburban voters or towns adjacent to suburbs.

Clinton received 2.1 million fewer votes in rural America than Obama did four years earlier even though 531,000 more votes were cast there in 2016. Large urban counties are the base of the Democratic Party as well as their suburbs and the cores of smaller metropolitan areas. The outer edges of smaller urban areas and the vast rural regions tend to be Republican territory.

“Through the last five presidential elections voting patterns were consistent along a rural-urban continuum,” the researchers said. “Democrats did best at the urban end of the continuum and Republicans at the rural end. What is distinctly different in 2016 is that Hillary Clinton did far worse across the entire rural end of the continuum than any Democratic candidate in the previous four presidential elections.”

Image Credit: University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy

At one end of the continuum are the urban core counties of large metropolitan areas. This is where Democrats have received their greatest support in the last five presidential elections. Al Gore and John Kerry averaged slightly less than 60 percent of the vote in these areas in 2000 and 2004. Barack Obama boosted the Democrats’ urban vote share in 2008 and 2012, and Clinton maintained it in 2016. Also, the suburbs of these large metropolitan areas gave both Obama in 2012 and Clinton slightly less than a majority (49.6 and 47.8 percent, respectively).

Next on the continuum, the suburbs of smaller urban areas are more strongly Republican. It is at this point on the rural–urban continuum that the contrast between earlier elections and 2016 is evident. Here the gap between Democratic support in 2012 and 2016 widened, which ultimately led to Clinton’s loss.

At the rural end of the continuum, counties tend to be more Republican, but there is variation within these rural areas. Democrats consistently did worse in counties remote from urban areas, and in those without large towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people. This pattern continued in 2016, but there was a substantial decline in support for Clinton across all types of rural counties. For example, in 2012, Obama received 41.6 percent of the vote in rural counties adjacent to metropolitan areas that contained a large town and 38.9 percent in those that did not. Clinton received just 33.1 percent in these adjacent large town counties and 29.7 percent in other adjacent counties.

“Certainly, these rural vote totals are dwarfed by those in urban areas. But, from the suburban periphery of smaller urban areas to the most far-flung rural areas, Clinton’s inability to match the performance of any Democratic candidate since at least 2000 contributed to her defeat in crucial swing states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,” the researchers said. “Though many commentators argued that the faster population growth and growing diversity on the urban side of the rural-urban continuum would give Democrats a significant advantage in 2016, the election demonstrated that what happens at the rural end of the continuum remains important.”

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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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After the bombshell report came out last week that found a disturbing number of faculty and staff members at St. Paul’s School committing sexual misconduct with students, advocacy groups are looking for political solutions to ensure that those incidents don’t happen again and justice is given to the victims.

St. Paul’s announced the findings Monday and admitted there were times when administrators at the elite prep school in Concord failed to adequately protect students on campus over a 40-year period from 1948 to 1988. The independent investigation by the Casner & Edwards law firm began after allegations surfaced against a former faculty member in 2000.

The investigation looked into allegations involving 34 faculty members and staff at St. Paul’s School, referred to as SPS in the report. The investigation determined that 13 school employees, 12 of whom were male, committed sexual misconduct and there were unsubstantiated claims of sexual misconduct by an additional 11 current and former faculty and staff.

“Put simply but starkly, several former faculty and staff sexually abused children in their care in a variety of ways, from clear boundary violations to repeated sexual relationships to rape,” the report found.

Substantiated cases included two chaplains, three teachers who ended up marrying students soon after they graduated St. Paul’s, and a top female administrator whose relationship with a male student in 1980 was well-known on campus.

The investigation found that the school has been willing to overlook alleged sexual misconduct in exchange for a teacher leaving, even giving one accused teacher letters of recommendation for a new job.

In a letter to the St. Paul’s community about the investigation, school officials said they wanted to make it public to be fully transparent and to learn from the school’s past mistakes so they can do better in the future.

“It is especially difficult when trust, the foundation of community, has been compromised. Our history with regard to sexual abuse and sexual misconduct is a painful one,” wrote Rector Michael Hirschfeld and Board of Trustees President Archibald Cox, Jr. “From the Board of Trustees to those charged with executing the mission on the grounds, the School is committed to confronting this history squarely so that it will remain a source of our continual improvement into the future.”

To make change, the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV) believes lawmakers should reform the statute of limitations in sexual assault cases. Under current state law, child victims of sexual abuse only have until their 30th birthday to file a lawsuit and until their 40th birthday to press criminal charges.

“It is a huge injustice to victims and it doesn’t acknowledge the true trauma of sexual assault,” said Jessica Eskeland, public policy specialist at the NHCADSV. “Sexual assault is not like any other crime. It can cause trauma and there is so much shame since the abuse usually happens at the hands of someone who they trust and respect. For many, they don’t feel ready to come forward until their 40s, 50s, or even 60s.”

There are two bills currently in the Legislature that would eliminate the statute of limitations on sexual assaults for children under 18 years old. Senate Bill 98 and Senate Bill 164 are both tabled in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the next legislative session in 2018.

“We’ll be working with lawmakers next year to tighten this up and have victims access justice whenever they’re ready,” Eskeland told NH Journal. “We want to make sure everyone is on a level playing field regardless of where they experienced violence.”

The NHCADSV would also like to fix what they see as a glaring loophole in the New Hampshire’s Safe Schools Act. Under the act, schools are not legally required to report misdemeanor sexual assault to police, leaving the decision to report up to the discretion of school officials. Misdemeanor sexual assault would are cases involving sexual contact between minors and other minors or young adults. The N.H. Safe Schools Act only refers to felony-level sex crimes and exempts simple assaults if the school has a policy for notifying parents.

Yet, the act directly conflicts with the state’s Child Protection Act, mandating schools report suspected instances of child abuse and neglect. Schools often have agreements, known as memorandums of understanding, with police agencies. St. Paul’s and the Concord Police Department signed an agreement in September 2012 and it remains in currently remains in effect. The current agreement is written in compliance with the N.H. Safe Schools Act and states that misdemeanor assaults should be handled on a case-by-case basis. There is nothing in the agreement, though, mentioning misdemeanor sexual assault.

Eskeland said one of the most important ways a school can help is to educate its staff, faulty, and students on sexual assault prevention. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes against Children Research Center and a professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, agreed in a Sunday op-ed in the Concord Monitor outlining steps schools should take to reduce their vulnerability.

He said schools need to send a clear message “that the era of ‘managing’ these offenses is over.” Schools need rules, training, and reminders about the high-risk situations in schools, they need to talk openly to students and faculty about the problem and about the responsibility of bystanders, and teachers need self-management tools.

Yet, he cautioned about trying to solve all the sexual misconduct issues in schools through legislation. He said research has found that the most effective solutions are through education and not through increasing sentences or penalties, which lawmakers might try to do.

“The schools are being asked to do so much and have various mandates that it is hard without additional resources and additional incentives to step up to the plate,” he told NH Journal. “I’m not sure…[it’s] best handled by legislation. They [lawmakers] might well end up creating more problems than solutions.”

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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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