St. Olaf College

The day after the Minnesota Independent contacted Minnesota Court of Appeals Judge David Minge about his assignment to a case involving his alma mater, St. Olaf College, Minge recused himself. He was replaced on the three-judge panel by retired Judge James C. Harten — another Ole (Class of ‘57), who also promptly recused himself. Third [...]

Some graduating seniors at Rep. Erik Paulsen’s alma mater, St. Olaf College in Northfield, will be protesting the freshman congressman at next week’s commencement. Students will be pinning gold ribbons to their graduation gowns to protest commencement speaker Paulsen’s vote against including sexual orientation and gender identity in the federal hate crimes law.

Two graduation speeches that President Obama agreed to give are proving that, as someone once said, no good deed goes unpunished. Arizona State University decided to stiff him on an honorary degree at its graduation last night, and his actions on abortion-related issues have the University of Notre Dame in convulsions ahead of his speech [...]

Norm Coleman wasn’t the only one whose Minnesota court appeal this week got noticed in the national press. Thursday’s Wall Street Journal highlighted SaveWCAL’s legal effort to up-end the 2004 radio-station sale by St. Olaf College that created Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current. Static between St. Olaf and its alumni provided some crackle to a [...]

Overexuberant support for Gov. Tim Pawlenty has come back to bite a major Minnesota company — for a second time. First, an executive with Piper Jaffray, Minnesota’s top municipal bond underwriter, gave too much money to the state’s top elected official. Then the firm did not abide by its penalty — an industry-imposed ban on [...]