## Facts

- The Oregon State Board of Higher Education (the Board), acting through Southern Oregon State College (SOSC), offered housing, food service, and transportation (the services) to certain organized groups attending a Shakespeare festival in Ashland, Oregon.
- The festival was a nonprofit organization that was not affiliated with SOSC or the Board.
- SOSC limited access to the services to groups that (1) had at least 15 members and (2) claimed an educational mission for attending the festival.
- Many festival attendees who used the services were not SOSC students; some were not students at any Oregon institution.
- SOSC’s facilities used for lodging and related services had been constructed or improved using bond proceeds issued under Oregon Constitution Article XI-F(1) and related statutes authorizing financing for buildings and projects “for the purpose of higher education.”
- A group of Ashland-area private businesses (including hotel/motel operators, taxi drivers, and caterers), led by Jansen (d/b/a White Hotel), sued the Governor and other state officials along with the Board and SOSC.
- Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging the Board lacked authority to provide the services to festival attendees who were not SOSC students and that such use of bond-financed facilities was not “for the purpose of higher education.”
- The trial court granted partial injunctive relief: it barred providing the services to non-SOSC students and to out-of-state SOSC students, but allowed the services for students of Oregon educational institutions that were not part of the State Board of Higher Education system.
- The Board appealed the injunction’s limits; plaintiffs cross-appealed, seeking broader limits on SOSC’s ability to provide the services.

## Issues

1. Whether at least some plaintiffs had standing to seek declaratory and injunctive relief based on competitive injury from SOSC’s provision of the services.
2. Whether SOSC’s provision of housing, food, and transportation to qualifying festival groups (including nonstudents and out-of-state students) exceeded the Board’s statutory authority or violated the Article XI-F(1) requirement that bond-funded facilities be used “for the purpose of higher education.”
3. Whether the trial court’s injunction could lawfully draw lines based on SOSC student status and Oregon residency, rather than on whether the use served higher-education purposes.

## Decision

- The court held that a justiciable controversy existed and that at least some plaintiffs had standing, including businesses alleging direct competitive injury from SOSC’s activities.
- The court held the Board had discretion to allow use of SOSC facilities for the challenged services when the use was sufficiently connected to higher education, including structured group activities tied to educational aims.
- The court rejected the trial court’s student-status and in-state limitations as the controlling test and reversed the injunction to the extent it imposed those categorical restrictions.
- The court declined to grant the broader relief sought on plaintiffs’ cross-appeal.

## Legal Principles

- A private competitor may have standing to challenge public actions as ultra vires when the plaintiff alleges concrete competitive injury and the dispute turns on statutory or constitutional limits on government authority.
- The Article XI-F(1) limitation “for the purpose of higher education” does not require that every person receiving an incidental benefit be an in-state SOSC student; the legal question is whether the facility use is sufficiently connected to higher-education functions.
- When the legislature uses broad terms such as “higher education,” it may confer discretionary authority on the Board to make policy choices within that general standard, subject to judicial review for exceeding the standard.
- Incidental competition with private businesses does not itself establish illegality; the controlling inquiry is whether the challenged activity falls within the authority granted to the Board and is consistent with the constitutional and statutory purpose for which the facilities were financed.

## Conclusion

The Oregon Court of Appeals held that the Board, through SOSC, could provide housing, food, and transportation to organized Shakespeare-festival groups that met SOSC’s size and educational-mission criteria when that use was connected to higher-education purposes, and it reversed the trial court’s injunction insofar as it categorically barred services based on SOSC enrollment or Oregon residency.


Jansen, d/b/a White Hotel v. Atiyeh, 743 P.2d 765 (1987)