Conservative Concerns - Valley News, June 30, 2006

It no doubt speaks well of Dartmouth College that its graduates feel so
passionately about the institution that a full-scale controversy has blown
up over the way alumni members are elected to the board of trustees.
And the fact that The New York Times would see fit to devote 35 column
inches and two pictures to the subject last week certainly suggests that
it's important. Apparently, conservative bloggers and publications all over
the country think so. The Times reports that the dust-up has drawn their
intense interest because changes being proposed by the Alumni Association to
its constitution would allegedly restrict the ability of insurgent
candidates to be elected to the board of trustees -- or something like that.
Anyway, as far as we can tell, conservative dissidents are disgusted by the
direction in which Dartmouth is allegedly headed -- to a place where
hallowed traditions such as the social supremacy of fraternities, strong
sports programs and the college's emphasis on undergraduate education are
broken on the wheel of political correctness by liberal academics whose
pernicious business it is to infringe on free speech.
Although the proposed electoral changes themselves are arcane, we are more
than willing to acknowledge that people are all riled up about them. We
can't help but wonder, though, whether this conservative angst isn't a bit
myopic: While all this has been going on at Dartmouth, has anybody noticed
that the Bush administration has assembled a vast centralized security state
that systematically violates Americans' civil liberties, all the while it
asserts that executive power may not be checked by the Congress, the courts
or the press?
Now there's something that ought to truly outrage those of conservative
persuasion. Grover Norquist, a conservative icon and normally a Bush
supporter, is quoted to telling effect in a recent article by Elizabeth Drew
in The New York Review of Books: "If you interpret the Constitution's saying
that the president is commander in chief to mean that the president can do
anything he wants and can ignore the laws, you don't have a constitution:
You have a king." He added, "They're not trying to change the law; they're
saying that they're above the law and in the case of the NSA (National
Security Agency) wiretaps, they break it."
Indeed. Warrantless wiretapping and surveillance of other types of records
on a large scale is only part of the story. Bush asserts the right to hold
hundreds of "enemy combatants" indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay without
affording them recourse to court review; to disregard at his discretion
legal prohibitions on torture of prisoners; to ignore laws passed by
Congress or interpret them as he sees fit; and, contrary to the First
Amendment as it has historically been interpreted, to prosecute the press
for publishing government secrets.
And although we can understand conservatives' desire to stamp out the last
vestige of American liberalism by taking control of the universities, we
can't help thinking that their time might be better spent reining-in the
gross overreaching of right-wing Washington. After all, someday a Democrat
might get elected president again. As Norquist notes: "These are all the
powers you don't want Hillary Clinton to have."

Widespread Media Exposure

As most of the readers of this blog know, the proposed new constitution and some of the recent decisions by your Executive Committee have gotten some widespread exposure in the media lately. The two previous posts are responses by two separate AGTF members to a recent N.Y.Times article. We invite other alumni to give their thoughts here about that piece, the AP wire story, the talk radio exposure, or any of the other areas where alumni issues have been in the news.

JB Daukas Response to the NY Times

The following is the letter to the editor of the NY Times sent by JB Daukas in response to the June 21 article.

Dear Sir:

Your article concerning efforts to democratize alumni governance at
Dartmouth College misquoted me as saying that the current system for
electing alumni trustees is unfair because nominated candidates do not
know who the petition candidates will be at the time of their
nomination. I do not believe this. To the contrary, the current system
arguably is unfair to nominated candidates because it requires the
Nominating Committee to put up three candidates for one open trustee
seat who may split the vote of those satisfied with the direction of the
College when running against one petition candidate. Indeed, in recent
elections petition candidates (some of whom I actively supported) won
election with a mere plurality of the vote. The current system is also
unfair in that it allows petition candidates actively to campaign during
two months when nominated candidates are prohibited from campaigning.
The proposed system is designed to level the playing field by
encouraging head-to-head races and the election of candidates with
majority support, and actually makes it easier for petition candidates
to get on the ballot by cutting in half the number of signatures they
must obtain - from 500 to 250. In addition, the proposed Constitution
allows the alumni to elect half of the Nominating Committee (which
nominates trustees) and the leadership the Alumni Assembly; presently
the alumni-at-large do not elect any of these officers.

As a conservative member of the task force that drafted the new
Constitution with tremendous input from many different factions of
alumni over the last two years, and as someone who ran as an outsider,
petition candidate for president of Dartmouth's Alumni Association
recently, I have seen this issue from many sides. The primary thrust of
the new Constitution is radically to increase democracy and transparency
in Dartmouth's alumni organizations so as to ensure that the voices of
all alumni are heard and respected by the College.

Very truly yours,


John B. Daukas

Josiah Stevenson Response to the NY Times

Dartmouth Alumni Battles Become a Spectator Sport was published on June 21 in the Education section of the NY Times. The following is a Letter to the Editor from Joe Stevenson, Chair, AGTF.

To the Editor:

Re: "Dartmouth Alumni Battles Become a Spectator Sport" by Diana Jean Schemo (National Report, June 21, 2006).

You imply that the construction of Dartmouth's proposed new alumni constitution is a highly political attempt by "insiders" to control the destiny of the College and stifle the opinions of many alumni. This simply is not true.

The task force was charged with developing the most open and democratic processes for electing trustees and creating the best alumni organization to support the mission of the College. Its members represent a wide political spectrum. This has not been an exercise in protecting the establishment or advancing the agenda of an administration. It was an exercise in transparency and inclusiveness.

The proposed constitution significantly improves the democratic processes of electing alumni trustees and creates a vastly stronger alumni organization. It makes it easier for anyone to run for trustee (petition requirements are greatly eased and simplified) and levels the campaign "playing field." A dramatically increased number of Alumni Assembly and Association of Alumni members are elected by all alumni through "all-media voting" (electronic, paper, etc. balloting).
The task force made every effort to engage all alumni in the creation of the new constitution. Over a five-year period, all alumni were asked to contribute, in meetings, on blogs, via email, during a live Webcast, by mail, and in person. Everyone was welcome. The dissident trustees you mention-Messrs. Rodgers, Robinson and Zywicki-were repeatedly pressed for their input. Members of a historically critical but constructive alumni group-Dartmouth Alumni for Open Governance (DAOG)-made enormous contributions to the project. The task force has been making every effort to forge a constitution of consensus and agreement.

This purported "battle" over free speech and dissent is a thinly veiled attempt by a small number of alumni to politicize and divide the alumni body and take over the board of trustees. Constitution reforms, such as head-to-head elections and equal campaign time, don't work in their favor. The task force's efforts make College governance much, much more transparent and democratic.

Josiah Stevenson IV
Chair, Dartmouth Alumni Governance Task Force

The Purpose of the Blog

In recent comments several of you have noted that the Executive Committee have not answered some of the questions you have asked.

This blog was created to provide a forum for open dialogue on alumni association issues . It is a great medium for gathering feedback and for encouraging dialogue among the association members. We monitor comments and do our best to address topics of interest.

We encourage others to join in, to comment on the postings and to recommend other topics of discussion.

From time to time, we may answer questions directly, or answer questions as part of a posting. You are always welcome to ask a question directly to any of us via the links provided.