A group of Republican students at Whitman College in Walla Walla claim the college’s student government showed political bias against them last semester when it denied the group affiliation.
The Republicans eventually shared their story with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on First Amendment issues, to publicly advocate for them.
For now, though, the Whitman Republican Club has decided not to re-approach the student government to seek affiliation.
Whitman College staff and the club’s faculty advisor say the collision is an example of students learning how to engage with each other across ideological differences.
The Whitman Republican Club is a registered student group — meaning it can use campus spaces and resources, plan programs and hold events like other clubs.
In the second semester of the 2025-26 academic year, the club applied to become affiliated with the student government, the Associated Students of Whitman College, or ASWC. Affiliation comes with benefits, including funding opportunities.
At a March 8 meeting, ASWC senators voted to deny the group’s affiliation 25-0.
In the meeting, the senators questioned the club’s beliefs, including about a plank of the 2024 Republican Party platform, the alleged danger of inviting pro-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement speakers to campus, and other topics, according to the minutes.
Senators also raised concerns about possible conflicts between the club’s and ASWC’s constitutions, and whether the club, as a partisan entity, would qualify for funding, even with affiliation.
In an Aug. 31 letter to Whitman president Sarah Bolton, FIRE wrote the senators’ “line of questioning suggests that outside factors, such as bias against the WRC [Whitman Republican Club] and the Republican Party generally, influenced the ASWC’s decision.”
As a private nonprofit, Whitman College isn’t bound by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, assembly, etc. But, FIRE points out, the school’s policies say that students’ rights include “freedom of speech, expression, and association.”
Marie McMullan, a FIRE attorney who signed the letter, said in an interview that Whitman “voluntarily promised free speech to its students, and if you make a promise, you should keep it.”
The FIRE letter requested Bolton to confirm that “Whitman will provide this group an opportunity to seek ASWC affiliation via viewpoint-neutral criteria and intervene if ASWC engages in viewpoint discrimination.”
In a statement to Northwest Public Broadcasting, Bolton said:
“Whitman’s administration supports all student clubs that follow our basic requirements, and approved the Whitman Republican Club as a registered student organization last year. That’s the administration’s role, and the WRC is fully operating.
“ASWC affiliation is a separate thing, and is managed by the ASWC (student government) itself.”
The Republican Club’s advisor, philosophy professor Patrick Frierson, said the college gives students a lot of autonomy.
Unless the students do something criminal, he said, “Sarah’s going to not override the Republicans if they send out an email that she thinks is offensive, and she’s not going to override ASWC if they make a decision that she thinks is wrong.”
Frierson said the idea that ASWC denied the club’s affiliation because of ideological bias on the part of Whitman is incorrect: “The college, as an institution, was not biased at all. It has fully supported the Republicans.”
But, he said, “insofar as the spin is about ‘students in liberal arts colleges in the United States are left-of-center, and treat each other from their political perspectives,’ this is an example of that.”
Although Whitman has no student Democrat club, the student government has funded several ASWC-affiliated groups with left-of-center politics.
Frierson said the Republican Club has brought an active conservative presence to campus that Whitman hasn’t had in the last few years.
He wants the club to continue seeking ASWC affiliation, he said. The Republicans, however, recently voted not to move forward.
Some club members aren’t convinced the interaction with student government would go differently, Frierson said in an email.
Becoming affiliated also requires a lot of paperwork, and club members wonder whether, if ASWC chose to fund them, ASWC’s bylaws could limit the club’s political speech.
The Whitman administrator who served as ASWC's advisor last semester directed NWPB’s questions to the college’s spokesperson, and noted that student government has changed leadership. This semester's ASWC advisor could not be reached.
The college, Frierson said, “lets students be leaders and practice leadership in a relatively insulated context … One of the advantages of being relatively insulated is (that) students aren’t always going to do things perfectly, and so they can lead, learn from the experience of leading, lead differently the next time.”
