Dartmouth Dumbocracy

You folks may recall the outstanding demonstration that I conceived and we held at Dartmouth College last year to support alumni candidates Zywicki and Robinson against the "official" candidates for the board of trustees. Dismayed at the results of the election, the powers that be are rewriting Dartmouth's constitution to make a mockery of democracy. Read on:

Currently, petition candidates can declare their candidacies after the Alumni Association has announced its official slate. The new rules would reverse that, so the Alumni Association would know of any outside challengers before selecting its candidates.

Mr. Daukas said the current system put the official candidates at a disadvantage because they did not know whether they would face outside challengers at all or who they might be. The chairman of Dartmouth's board, William H. Neukom, class of '64 and retired general counsel for Microsoft, in an interview called the proposed constitution "a sincere effort" to create "a more democratic, more participatory form of alumni self-governance."

Merle Adelman, a vice president of the Alumni Association, said the election for new officers, which had been set for October, was not postponed to extend the terms of incumbents but because the new constitution would change the structure of the association's leadership and could render the election results moot.

But critics said the changes upended the whole rationale for petition candidacies — created as a mechanism for expressing discontent with the status quo — and gave the official Alumni Association the upper hand.

Editors of the on-campus Dartmouth Review and The Dartmouth Free Press, conservative and liberal publications that seldom agree, called the new constitution "a slap in the face to open democracy" that "makes a mockery of the spirit of dissent and free speech."

Mr. Robinson agreed. "This is as much a reform as when Joseph Stalin decided to hold elections in Eastern Europe," he said. "Voting? Yes. Democracy? Not at all."

Indeed Mr. Robinson. I have hereby proffered the services of this states Libertarian Legions to demonstrate in support of liberty and democracy, once again, on the Dartmouth Campus. We shall teach these so-called "liberal arts" majors, what the true meaning of liberalism is...