Lingua Franca

By SILLA BRUSH

North Dakota students who cannot understand their professor's accent could have gotten their money back under an early version of a state legislative proposal that has since been watered down.

The Republican lawmaker who sponsored the bill in the state House of Representatives, Bette Grande, said that students at state-run universities should have their tuition refunded for any course in which the professor's speech is unintelligible. Under Ms. Grande's bill, if 10 percent of the