Alumni Constitution: Path to Victory; Over-aggression Comes Back to Bite DACS

By Daniel F. Linsalata | Thursday, November 9, 2006

Finally, the battle over the deservedly maligned Alumni Constitution has concluded. If it had been fought as a traditional military campaign, rather than on the pages of various publications and websites, the aftermath would have left the Hanover Plain looking much like the fields of Gettysburg after those bloody July days. Unlike Gettysburg, however, the underdogs emerged victorious, as, on November 2, the College grudgingly and quietly released a press release announcing that the constitution had been soundly defeated in a vote that saw a record turnout of Dartmouth alumni.

If At First You Don’t Succeed
The proposed constitution was the second attempt in four years by the “alumni leadership” to merge the two alumni organizations—the Association of Alumni (AoA, comprised of all 66,000 plus living Dartmouth alumni) and the Alumni Council (a “representative” body of 96 alumni from classes, geographic clubs, and minority “affiliated” groups)—into a single, unified body. It was also the latest confrontation in an unfortunate ongoing process aimed at diminishing alumni self-governance [see TDR, 11/3/2003]. The 2003 constitutional proposal, like the recently-defeated iteration, was contentious, albeit less loudly so than the latest version. The now-defunct Dartmouth Alumni for Open Governance (DAOG) led the opposition charge, and the document ultimately came up just a handful of votes short of the 75% supermajority needed for passage. Undeterred, the Alumni Council soon appointed a volunteer task force—the Alumni Governance Task Force (AGTF)—to set about drafting another proposal.

In the interim between the selection of the AGTF and last month’s vote, several pivotal events occurred. Two former members of DAOG, J.B. Daukas ’84 and Bill Hutchinson ‘76, earned seats on the AGTF. A vote during a poorly attended Association meeting reduced the requirement for passage of a new constitution from three-fourths to two-thirds. And, most importantly, three alumni of conservative and libertarian inclinations were elected to the Board of Trustees, each finding his way onto the ballot by petition: T.J. Rodgers ’70, Peter Robinson ’79, and Todd Zywicki ’88.

In their campaigns, each of these gentlemen cited speech codes, declining academic standards, curricular initiatives, and attacks on the Greek system as fundamental issues they wished to address as trustees. Although the message hit home with many alumni, all three failed to achieve a majority of votes in earning his respective seat on the board (though Rodgers came within single percentage points), leading to accusations of unfairness and imagined ‘illegality’ from opponents. Few bothered to acknowledge that, under the system in place, their elections fastidiously followed the relevant regulations. Instead, many concluded that petition candidates were simply exploiting a flaw in the election process, and critics sought to rectify this matter by means of a new constitution.

The AGTF released a preliminary report on its proposals in early 2005. Many of the most contentious (read: objectionable) elements of the 2003 draft remained in the early proposals. Despite objections from the remnants of DAOG, these same elements found their way into the final draft of the constitution. We will not belabor the specific points here, as they have been well-documented in The Dartmouth Review over the past twelve months.

The campaigning both for and against the constitution began in early 2006, as the draft approached its final shape. In the ensuing months, the mud slung from both sides made it clear that the campaign would be about as clean as AD’s basement.

Let’s Get Dirty
And so it was. The AGTF presented the first public draft of the constitution (already dubbed the “penultimate” draft, strangely enough) at a webcast event in Boston in April, 2006 [See TDR 4/7/2006]. The majority of the AGTF sat on a panel, addressing all questions and concerns from the audience and those watching online. With a lone exception, all questions and comments were critical of the proposed constitution, yet a side-by-side comparison of the penultimate draft and the final proposal revealed only minor changes, none of them substantive. In other words, the AGTF roundly ignored all suggestions, regardless of their merit.

In the aftermath of the webcast—the first truly public exposure of the document’s flaws—the fun really began. During its May meeting, the Alumni Council unanimously approved the constitution, the first required step towards a vote of the full alumni body, and potential ratification. Critics, including The Dartmouth Review, quickly jumped on a fundamental flaw in this vote: a unanimous vote, by definition, means that all parties approved of the constitution. By extension, a unanimous vote of representatives also implies widespread support on the part of their constituents. In light of the already vocal opposition at that time, the notion of hearty support amongst all alumni was naught but a farce. Rather than acknowledging the unavoidable truth that the Alumni Council was failing in its role as a representative body, Councilors simply wrote off the opposition as a small, radical minority.

Like Turning a Battleship on a Dime
One month after the unanimous vote, the Alumni Council took another vote, and one Councilor, Bill Carney ’75, announced that he had changed his vote upon more careful consideration of the proposed constitution. In a letter, he cited a concern that it placed too much power in the hands of the Nominating Committee, and desired that it place more separation between the election of trustees and other volunteer functions that alumni organizations perform.

At approximately the same time, the AoA Executive Committee unilaterally decided to cancel its own previously-announced elections, originally slated for October 15, 2006. In a letter to all alumni, AoA First Vice President Merle Adelman ’80, explained that maintaining the current officer slate would help smooth the transition into the system to be adopted under the newly proposed constitution. The missive dodged the question as to the validity of this maneuver per the AoA’s current constitution, and, in so many words, assured alumni that everything would be okay. She also failed to delineate any contingency plan in the event that the new constitution failed, as it did last week. The AoA has yet to announce new plans regarding when (or if) the mandatory elections will actually take place. In private conversations with TDR staff members, several members of the Alumni Council expressed displeasure and hesitancy regarding the AoA’s cancellation, not least of which was how the larger body of alumni would perceive the move. As predicted, they received it as well as Iran receives Israel.

Following the AoA’s sudden switch in the spring, the pro- and anti-constitution forces quickly split into organized factions, often bringing together unlikely allies. This paper’s editor, Daniel Linsalata ’07, and Andrew Seal ’07, editor of the Dartmouth Free Press, the campus’s far-left paper, penned a joint editorial in the Daily Dartmouth expressing common opposition to the constitution (see Daily D, 5/31/06). Shortly thereafter, the respective presidents of Dartmouth’s College Republicans and Young Democrats published a similar piece in the Manchester Union-Leader, effectively nullifying the argument that opposition was rooted in partisan politics, a favorite talking point of constitution supporters.

Outside of Hanover, anti-constitution alumni incorporated the organization Supporters of a Democratic Dartmouth. Democratic Dartmouth was primarily a website, collecting and printing articles against the constitution, and publicly exhorting alumni to vote it down. With the aid of several private financial backers, it sent several overland mailings to a number of alumni.

For their part, the pro-constitution camp created Dartmouth Alumni for Common Sense (DACS), headed by Susan Dentzer ’77—former chairman of the Board of Trustees—and Dick Page ’54. In their opening salvo, DACS circulated a letter to chosen groups of alumni, urging them to not only vote in favor of the constitution (with no other reason than “It’s just common sense”), but also to vote against all future petition trustee candidates, regardless of who they may be. In lieu of explicitly outlining their case for supporting the document, Dentzer and Page used their initial letter to launch attacks against the opposition, stating, “Opponents of the Constitution are making false claims and sowing dissension where there should be none.” Although they failed to elucidate this point, their criticism of “dissension” within the AoA’s voting process revealed a commitment to democracy akin to that of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Through the summer, the battle raged on the pages of the Daily Dartmouth and innumerable weblogs. The national media entered the ring in August, when the New York Times ran a feature article about the controversy in its Education section, and the Wall Street Journal later published an unsigned editorial opposing the constitution. As proponents got their knickers in a bunch, whining about the alleged ‘unfairness’ of external publicity, DACS soldiered on. They contracted a telemarketing firm to make unsolicited phone calls to alumni at home, encouraging them to vote in favor of the constitution. Complaints of receiving five or more such phone calls were not uncommon. DACS also employed a public relations firm, and contacted alumni themselves via pre-recorded phone messages. Certain supporters of DACS, still employed by the College, frequently used College-based e-mail lists for mass e-mailings. So much for the College’s official impartiality.

During the summer months, the common theme in local and national media, was little more than character assassination. Rodgers, Robinson, and Zywicki were individually and collectively accused of: mounting a conservative coup against the Board of Trustees; driving Dartmouth into the ground; disloyalty to the College; and devouring the supple flesh of newborn babies. Time and again, they found themselves defending their characters, rather than debating the constitution on its own merits (or demerits, as the case happened to be). By late Summer, all conversation of the document itself had effectively ceased, and similarly exogenous issues became the focus; one received the impression that any substantive point, for or against constitution, had already been raised several times over. So, the conversation shifted elsewhere before the voting even began.

Oh, So NOW it Matters
With the turning of the leaves came the beginning of the all-media voting period, and the start of the academic year followed shortly thereafter. It was only then that the battle touched down in Hanover. Students immediately put themselves into action. The College sponsored a “Vox the Vote” phone bank effort, in which the College’s Alumni Relations department offered student organizations financial incentives to call alumni and ask them to vote. A large number of organizations did, in fact, take up the College on its offer, as callers packed Alumni Hall during every scheduled time slot for nearly two weeks. Before each session, students pledged to remain neutral during their conversations and simply ask alumni to vote. Not that it made a difference; eyewitness accounts report members of several groups engaged in propagandizing nonetheless, as they slipped in menacing warnings of certain affiliated groups losing their scholarships should the vote fail, and similar dire exaggerations.

For their part, more clearheaded students did not remain silent on the issue. An informal group, spearheaded by Andrew Eastman ’07 and Joe Malchow ’08, coalesced to mount a similar effort. The aforementioned gentlemen, with many other student volunteers (including not a few TDR staffers), spent hours in the library searching old year books for alumni who might oppose the constitution. During a week of dedicated phone-calls from secret underground command centers (their dorms), the students contacted thousands of alumni and encouraged them to vote and ask their friends to do the same. This grassroots cold-calling produced tremendously positive feedback from most of the alumni who were contacted.

Renewed alumni electioneering, however, soon overcame the student voice. Peter Fahey ’68 launched one of the more toxic attacks of the campaign. He published a letter in the Daily Dartmouth, viciously setting upon Rodgers, Robinson, Zywicki, and other opponents of the constitution, labeling them a “radical minority cabal” intent on wresting control of the Board of Trustees. He further declared that failure to pass the constitution would send Dartmouth into a “downward death spiral,” both in national rankings and in quality of education, as major donors would withdraw contributions. It just so happens that Mr. Fahey himself has been one of the most important donors to Dartmouth this decade—his assertion was less an apocalyptic prediction than a threat to hold the College hostage to his own whims: Got that, Dartmouth? If we don’t play by my rules, I’m taking my ball and going home.

For many, Fahey’s letter shifted sentiment against the constitution. The letter made it explicit that DACS and its allies had gone too far, causing some to question whether they were placing their own preferences above the interests of the College. For as much effort as they had expended trying to reveal the ‘ugly’ motives of the anti-constitution camp, they, like Dorian Gray finally observing his own portrait, showed themselves to be even worse.

Be Careful What You Wish For
On November 2, the College finally announced that all votes had been tabulated, and only 49% voted in favor of the constitution; the AGTF came up 18 percentage points short of the necessary two-thirds supermajority. The message rang clear: the failure was no accident, nor a narrow margin that can be attributed to miscommunication and malicious back-room machinations. A majority of alumni genuinely disliked the proposed constitution, and are unwilling to accept bullying by a group of insiders who want to make decisions for them.

It wasn’t even close. Fahey’s small, radical, minority cabal turned out to be a myth. DACS was certain that a 30% voter turnout would be enough to override the small group of discontents who were to be the only source of “no” votes. Voter turnout was 38%, and the constitution still came up radically short, as it were. The results speak for themselves: the AGTF constitution simply did not incorporate the types of the changes that the majority of alumni desired for their own governance system. Though many may have been on the fence before casting their vote, it seems that DACS and the powers that be overplayed their hand. By using a need for constitutional reform as a front to impose their own vision of alumni governance, the AGTF et al. pushed many reform-minded alumni into the ‘no’ camp.

On the same ballot, four other proposed amendments to the current AoA constitution also failed by similar margins. The first of these would have mandated that all AoA meetings be subject to procedure as prescribed by Roberts’ Rules of Order; the remaining three would have allowed all-media voting for procedural matters, constitutional amendments, and officer elections. Although all-media voting and stricter procedural guidelines were a major component of the AGTF constitution, DACS and its supporters count the defeat of these amendments as a victory. They readily admit, however, that these other amendments were very likely collateral damage of the new constitution, as they received little attention or discussion during the campaigning process and were essentially lost in the mix.

The Board of Trustees, the Alumni Council, and the Association of Alumni have all stated, in so many words, that they will take some time to nurse their wounds. However, there can be little doubt that another constitution will be forthcoming. Dartmouth alumni are nearly unanimous in the sentiment that the current system of alumni governance is inefficient, wrought with loopholes, and very much exclusionary to most alumni. The high turnout for this vote underscores the demonstrated passion that so many alumni still feel for the College; hopefully, reinvigorated alumni interest will make the course to compromise on the next draft much easier.

Until that time, alumni who wisely voted against the proposed constitution can proudly count themselves as members of a ‘radical majority cabal.’

Alumni Constitution: Path to Victory; Over-aggression Comes Back to Bite DACS

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