By: Nathan Tippmann and Ella Colwell
The Evergreen State College has always been considered a joke by conservatives, a useless place to get your education if you’re a so-called low-life, a hippie, or couldn’t get in anywhere else. Despite these negative connotations from those who simply don’t understand, students have been thriving in the liberal arts and science programs that Evergreen has offered for years. On January 23rd, 2025, chaos erupted in the unofficial Evergreen Discord server with the news of Senate Bill 5424 proposed by Senator John Braun, which, if passed, would eliminate Evergreen and turn campus powers over to the University of Washington by July 1st, 2026. All credits earned at Evergreen would be turned into UW equivalencies, and the new campus would be geared towards health science classes. This would repurpose Evergreen to take on the “Silver Tsunami,” a term used to refer to the rising number of elderly people in our population who will require significant healthcare needs. While this is undoubtedly alarming, especially for a student in their first year, bills such as this have been seen before and they continuously fail to pass. On January 24th, 2025, Sandy Kaiser, Evergreen’s Director of Government Relations, sent out an email to address community concerns:
Dear Evergreen Community,
The 2025 legislative session is ending its second week, with the first rush of bills arriving for consideration. On January 21, Senator John Braun (R-Centralia), the minority leader in the Senate, introduced SB 5424, which would close Evergreen and make the Olympia campus a health-sciences branch of the University of Washington.
I wanted to share some facts as we consider this:
- This week, I’ve taken soundings with several key higher-education legislators, and they are not enthusiastic about this bill. They have seen other attempts to defund or close Evergreen in past years, all of which have been defeated.
- The bill was not requested or initiated by Evergreen nor the University of Washington, which already operates branch campuses in Bothell and Tacoma.
- Evergreen’s outstanding service to students, successful alumni, and public service are well-known to legislative leadership, who will not support the bill.
- Most importantly, Evergreen’s enrollment growth – adding 450 undergraduates in the past three years and a 19% increase in overall enrollment – is an extraordinary bright spot in Washington State higher education and a strong argument for Evergreen.
- The major topic of this year’s legislative session is the $12 billion deficit and how to reduce spending and raise revenue. This bill would come with an unknown but staggering cost.
- The legislative session has just begun and there are many committees who would have to hear and agree upon the bill before it could advance.
What comes next? To move forward in the legislative process, the bill must be heard by the Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee. If the committee decides to give the bill a hearing, there will be an opportunity for public comment. It would have to be heard and passed by that committee by February 21. The 2025 legislative session is set to end on April 27.
Evergreen has several strong allies in the Legislature and many parts of the college are deeply engaged on a wide range of legislative topics this session. We are on the Capitol Campus every day making the case for Evergreen funding and support.
Best regards,
Sandy Kaiser”
Senator John Braun’s bill, SB 5424, which was introduced to the Washington State Senate on January 22, 2025, draws significant parallels to a bill sponsored nearly 50 years ago by infamous Washington “political animal,” the now long-dead former Tacoma Senator, and the eventual Mayor of Tacoma, A.L. “Slim” Rasmussen. This was not the first, nor will it likely be the last of such bills.
1973
1977
Just four years later, Evergreen received heat from a collection of Democratic party leaders and a lone Republican in the form of Senate Bill 2866, which, similar to John Braun’s Senate Bill 5424, would shut Evergreen down and turn it into an annex of the University of Washington. Sponsored by Senators A.L. “Slim” Rasmussen (D), Hubert Donahue (D), August Mardesich (D), and Sam Guess (R), in an exclusive interview between Cooper Point Journal managing editor Brad Pokorny and Senator Rasmussen featured in Volume 5, Issue 15, the then Chair of the State Government Committee failed to acknowledge the fact that the University of Washington at the time had no interest in absorbing Evergreen. Co-sponsor August Mardesich even remarked that he saw no point in stepping foot on the Evergreen campus.
1981
In 1981, another Spokane Republican floated a bill to undo Evergreen. According to former Evergreen student Ty Rosenow’s paper, “Myths Unveiled: The Social History of the Evergreen State College” (2009), Representative Dick Bond’s House Bill 793 would abolish Evergreen as an institution, leaving the campus infrastructure to be bought up and used as a minimum security prison or government offices for the Department of General Administration. Just like 1973, Democratic Senator H.A. Goltz of Bellingham addressed the legislative lunacy with a poem. “A Kuehnle-like man from Spokane/Introduced a budget-cut plan./Dan Evans, once hero/Got a Bond-rating zero/Shed tears for the Evergreen clan.”
2017
Then, in 2017, Evergreen made national headlines when they decided to flip-flop their yearly tradition where BIPOC employees and students would leave campus for a day and rally, a day of absence. This time, white people were asked not to come to campus that day. A now departed professor sparked controversy online, spreading emails saying he would not participate, encouraging others to do the same, and further inflaming the controversy with high-profile, right-wing media interviews. The fallout of the 2017 controversy caused one of the greatest declines in enrollment at Evergreen, then producing Senate Bill 5946, which sought to turn Evergreen into a private institution. Senator Phil Fortunato (R), who proposed the bill, stated, “When this bill passes, they can still feed each other all the Marxist nonsense they want, they just won’t be able to do it with money from my constituents unless my constituents choose to donate to it – which I doubt.” Impressively, the bill managed to reach a third special session, where it died yet again.
Now, What?
Many of us know that we will continue to make the same mistakes without a clear understanding of history, a line of advice we might extend to our friend John Braun. Like the well-dressed Slim Rasmussen, Braun neglected to properly stakeholder with the communities he was making legislation about, thus failing to see or even care why so many call Evergreen home. It is crucial to think critically in the face of inflammatory legislation and avoid descending into hysterics while at the same time staying engaged so that we can best mobilize to confront legitimate threats to higher education, such as the second Trump administration and Washington State’s $12 billion budget deficit. With the words of Dylan Thomas in mind, we remind everyone that Evergreen will not go gently into the good night, but rage, rage against the dying light. The Geoduck Student Union, alongside the Washington Student Association, is closely tracking various bills in the Washington State legislature and working with strong allies on the hill. Those wishing to stay engaged and support important higher education legislation, follow the Geoduck Student Union Instagram @gsu.evergreen to see how you can help, and those wishing to flex the power of your pen, submit your poetry here with us at the CPJ.
