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November 6, 2025
The committee of lawmakers tasked with rooting out alleged censorship and civil rights violations by Montana universities was spiraling out of control.
Republicans at the Civil Rights Violations and Censorship by Montana University System Committee’s inaugural hearing Nov. 3 wanted to know if student loan money was being spent on “partisan political events and/or causes like, say, either LGBTQ or pro-life.”
Another lawmaker asked: “And were there any campus gun groups?” And what about quotas for hiring or student admission based on race, gender or religion, also known as DEI?
The Democrats, meanwhile, after hearing Montana University System Chief Legal Counsel Ali Bovingdon speak for an hour about campus free speech and civil rights policies, wanted to go home.
“Given our really good discussion this morning and the fact-informed information we were given in the questions answered by Ms. Bovingdon, I move that we indefinitely adjourn this committee,” said Sen. Mary Ann Dunwell, of Helena. The Democrat was not successful in her attempt to kill the committee.
Dunwell, who Zoomed into the meeting from home where she was recovering from COVID-19, was identified by opponents to her motion as a one-woman wrecking ball after blocking Republicans from electing the committee chair of their choice. She also solicited legal advice from legislative staff regarding the legality of the committee’s actions.
The Montana Constitution grants autonomy to the university system’s Board of Regents, an appointed panel that has repelled two prior attempts by the Legislature to regulate campus freedoms. Dunwell asserted that the same autonomy would apply to this latest endeavor, too.
“Sen. Dunwell, are you saying you don’t want to hear from students who have had their civil rights violated on campuses?” retorted Republican Rep. Caleb Hinkle, of Belgrade. “Or do you want off the committee, and deal with the SNAP program, or something like that? Because other people seem to care.” SNAP is the food assistance program that lost full funding on Nov. 1 because of the federal government shutdown.
It was Hinkle who brought House Bill 284 during the 2025 Legislature earlier this year, where it passed along partisan lines. The purpose, as Hinkle explained during the session, was “to investigate civil rights and censorship violations within the Montana University System, and officially report those incidents across official channels.”
The agencies on the receiving end of the expected reports included the president of the United States, the federal departments of justice and education, Congress, and state government agencies.
“I have had students and former students reach out to me, sometimes multiple times a year, asking, ‘What can I do about the university?’ which they are, and have been, paying money to and going into debt for, playing games with their rights,” Hinkle explained to lawmakers in February. “I believe we need a bit more time beyond a singular bill to research how deep this rabbit hole of violations within our universities goes.”
Hinkle, who attended Montana State University in Bozeman, was flanked in February legislative hearings by several Montana members of Young Americans for Liberty, a Ron Paul-inspired Texas-based libertarian youth group also known as YAL.
In February, the Montana YAL students testified about alleged injustices at MSU, including feeling pressured to suppress conservative commentary and or face low marks. The censorship narrative was amplified by the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk during a stop at a Utah college campus in September. Kirk’s critics have faced backlash and even suspension from work, including a professor at Montana State University-Northern.
Testifying in February for the creation of Hinkle’s committee, student Caterina Jones told lawmakers about getting an F grade on her final paper in freshman composition, allegedly because she wrote about why rural America might have voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Jones said her professor handed the graded paper back with a sticky note that read “I do not agree with your paper.”
The assignment was to respond to an article, which Jones said she did, by interviewing rural Montanans and doing some research.
“The professor failed my paper based on the fact he did not like Trump,” Jones testified in February. “Because of this, I took it to the Montana State University appeals, practically begging them to help me. They refused to do anything about it.”
Other YAL students told of being threatened on campus by a man with opposing views, whom police wouldn’t arrest. One student said a university employee tried to stop him from setting up an unauthorized information booth, but there was no requirement for approval.
When the students testified, no one from the Montana University System was present to contradict anything they said. There was no one with YAL to counter what Bovingdon offered Nov. 3.
A search for bills supported by YAL proposed in other states addressing alleged campus censorship and conservative civil rights found versions like Hinkle’s in Texas, Florida and Arizona. The Montana bill was unique in its creation of a bipartisan committee and an intent to turn student complaints into legislative findings forwarded all the way to the president.
YAL is not a student group on a carwash budget. Tax filings for the national group show $18.6 million in revenue in 2023. Donors to YAL’s foundation include large libertarian philanthropic nonprofits Donors Trust and Stand Together; the latter is affiliated with conservative billionaire Charles Koch. The group has a political arm, Operation Win at the Door, that campaigns for libertarian-minded state government candidates.
Hinkle’s committee was the Legislature’s sixth attempt since 2019 to protect conservative speech on college campuses. Most bills died in process. At least one was declared unconstitutional by the Montana Supreme Court.
— Tom Lutey
Ponying up for CA Prop 50
As the campaign to gerrymander California’s congressional map crossed the $200 million mark, Montanans were buying in. Finance records for Yes on 50, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $122 million PAC, show about $51,436 in Montana donations, which numbered 639. Donors sorted by city and zip code were scattered across the state, but there was a concentrated strand of donors along U.S. Highway 93 from Whitefish to Hamilton. The highway connects the Flathead and Bitterroot valleys, two of western Montana’s most reliably Republican regions. In the dead center of the 226-mile run is Missoula, but Missoula accounted for just $8,378 of Proposition 50 supporter donations.
Bozeman donors threw in the most of any city at just over $9,000. Neighboring Livingston was third at $6,000, more than double the haul from Montana’s largest city, Billings.
There were no identifiable Montana donations to defeat Proposition 50. That’s because most of the opposition funding came in large lump sums from Republican congressional PACs, leaving no way to trace the money back to individual donors.
For fun, we tracked Montana donations to candidates for New York mayor, but the race wasn’t a hot ticket in the 406. Democratic Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani collected $1,290 from Montanans; Independent Andrew Cuomo, $900; Republican Curtis Sliwa, $420.
— Tom Lutey
Exit stage left
Democratic Rep. Ed Stafman has resigned from his southeast Bozeman House district. Stafman tells Capitolized that with only four interim committee meetings on his legislative schedule and a new grandchild in Seattle, the timing was good to step down.
“It may look kind of weird. I get it. Why resign now?” Stafman said. “Some people have thought, ‘he’s got a health problem.’ … It’s nothing like that. It was mainly wanting to give somebody else an opportunity to get started. But also at a personal level, I have a new grandbaby.”
Stafman was first elected to the Legislature in 2020. Term limits would have allowed him to seek reelection once more.
Legislative replacements are selected by the incumbent’s county commissioners in Montana. The candidate’s party gets to submit three possible replacements for commissioners to choose from. The process usually takes a couple weeks from start to finish.
Stafman is the second legislator to resign in recent weeks. Republican Rep. Bill Mercer, of Billings, resigned in late October after being confirmed to U.S. District Court judgeship by the U.S. Senate. Yellowstone County Republicans planned to discuss Mercer’s replacement after municipal elections.
— Tom Lutey
