Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2008/02/08/wright_to_step_down_in_june_2009.php
Friday, February 8, 2008
On the morning of February 4th, President Wright announced to the Dartmouth Community that he would be resigning following the Commencement of 2009; this would coincide with the end of the Capital Campaign to raise $1.3 billion. I would quote from his letter, but each paragraph is so banal that I could find nothing suitable. Speculation had been rife for some time that Wright was preparing to resign, but the timing of his letter on the 4th came as a surprise nonetheless. It was not until later that same day that things became clear.
In the late afternoon The Dartmouth Review received the Grafton County Court’s decision concerning the College’s motion for dismissal of the Alumni Association’s suit: it was denied. The court wrote, “In ruling on a motion to dismiss, the Court must determine ‘whether the plaintiff’s allegations are reasonably susceptible of a construction that would permit recovery.’” Judge Timothy Vaughn ruled in favor of the Association on all three counts before the court: (1) the Board’s action in 1891 was legitimate because it was ratified by both the Board and the Association; (2) the Association has established sufficient evidence “to proceed with a claim for an implied in fact contract”; (3) the Association has an established claim in promissory estoppel. Because it was a motion to dismiss before the judge, he gave the Association the benefit of the doubt on every assertion they made. In order for the Association to be successful at the next round they will have to prove at least one of the above three points without a favorable disposition from the judge.
The most intriguing aspect of this inchoate news is the timing. Wright announced his resignation on the morning of the 4th; this newspaper and other organizations (though not the College) announced the news about the court case that same afternoon; Wright and the Board knew about the court’s decision on February 1st. It seems as though the timing of his resignation announcement may have been influenced by the court decision. As of press time, these are the only known facts.
In lieu of speculation, this is an opportune time to look back at what has led to the current situation, the circumstances of which are more than twenty-five years in the making.
The College has a history of reacting petulantly to alumni dissatisfaction. In 1980 John Steel ’54 became the first trustee elected as a petition candidate in Dartmouth history. He won with 62% of the vote; yet when he arrived in Hanover after his election he was told that there had been an “irregularity, and they were holding up [his] seat.” Only after Steel hired a lawyer was he awarded his seat on the Board.
In the aftermath of that election the College set about changing the election rules to make it more difficult for petition candidates to gain a seat on the Board. The current system of approval voting dates from this time, as does the Alumni Council’s nominating three candidates. Both changes were thought to discourage future petition candidates from running, and, in the event that there was a petition candidate, make it more difficult for future petition candidates to win.
In 2004 Silicon Valley CEO T.J. Rodgers ‘70 became the second successful petition candidate in Dartmouth history. Rodgers ran a campaign principally concerned with the College’s limitations on free speech. Before his election Dartmouth had a ‘red light’ from FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), a nationwide watchdog group that focuses on free speech on campuses. The red rating was in response to letters from President Wright and Dean Larimore—both attempted to justify the administration’s decision to de-recognize the Zeta Psi fraternity.
In the most damning section of his letter, President Wright wrote that:
[I]t is hard to understand why some want still to insist that their ‘right’ to do what they want trumps the rights, feelings, and considerations of others. We need to recognize that speech has consequences for which we must account.
Following on Rodger’s heels, Peter Robinson ’79 and Todd Zywicki ’88 ran as petition candidates in 2005. When both again made free speech a central concern of their campaigns, Wright’s statement mysteriously disappeared from the College’s website. College attorney Robert Donin explained to FIRE that both Wright’s and Larimore’s letters were personal statements and had no effect on the College’s actual policy. This explanation coupled with the removal of their letters from the website satisfied FIRE to the point that they gave Dartmouth a green light on free speech.
Nonetheless, both Robinson and Zywicki were able to ride alumni discontent to victories in the 2005 election. The College’s response to this influx of petition trustees was an attempt to change the rules. In short, this is the leitmotif of all the interactions between the College and its body of alumni: the alumni are tolerated so long as they don’t presume to put a likeminded alumnus on the Board; in which case, the administration, along with its organs such as the Alumni Council or (until recently) the Association of Alumni, will do its damndest to make sure there isn’t a repeat performance.
In this case, the College’s answer was to draft up a new constitution for alumni. The constitution would have changed many things for the worse, but the unmistakable agenda behind it was the attempt to hinder the ability of petition candidates to be elected. The newly proposed constitution, itself, was hardly new. Alumni had voted down a similar constitution in 2003. That vote had been much less contentious then the 2006 vote would prove to be.
At the time of the first proposed constitution, all constitutional amendments (including, it seems, completely new constitutions) had to be approved by more than seventy-five percent of the alumni. In the wake of it failing to get the supermajority required, the Association of Alumni lowered the threshold required for passage to a two-thirds supermajority. This new act was dubious for several reasons, not least of which the only alumni allowed to vote on Association proposals at this time had to be physically present. Before all-media voting was instituted this was a great boon to the College because most alumni in the Upper Valley environs were employed by Dartmouth.
Between the proposed constitutions of 2003 and 2006 came the elections that seated Rodgers, Robinson, and Zywicki on the Board of Trustees. Two things happened: the College realized it was of the utmost importance to get the new constitution passed in order to stem the arrival of more petition candidates on the Board, and alumni looked upon the new constitution as a power grab by the administration, realizing that a vote for the new constitution would, in effect, be a vote to silence themselves.
The Alumni Governance Task Force (AGTF) had been the entity, invested by the Alumni Council, in charge of drafting the 2006 proposed constitution. The AGTF presented the ‘penultimate’ (yet, strangely, the first public) draft in April of 2006, at an event in Boston made available by webcast. The purpose of the event was purportedly to give alumni a chance to address a panel of AGTF members with questions or concerns about the proposed constitution. In theory, the AGTF would take into account the critiques of the alumni and modify the proposed constitution before presenting a final draft. The alumni in attendance were openly critical of the constitution as they addressed the AGTF panel. Of all the comments, only one was not hostile to the proposed constitution; yet when the AGTF presented the final draft of the proposed constitution there were no substantive changes from the penultimate draft. The AGTF plainly ignored all suggestions from alumni, regardless of content or merit. In response to this showing of blatant disregard for alumni opinion by the AGTF, the Alumni Council had only one logical avenue down which to drive: they voted unanimously in favor of the proposed constitution.
Things got ugly over the summer as both those in favor and those against the new constitution aggressively campaigned for their respective side. One month after the initial vote, the Alumni Council voted again and one councilor changed his vote. In a letter, he noted that the proposed constitution put too much power in the hands of the Nominating Committee.
The pro-constitution faction formed into the Dartmouth Alumni for Common Sense (DACS). A former chair of the Board of Trustees, Susan Dentzer ‘77, headed the group along with Dick Page ’54. In letters to select alumni, DACS urged them to vote yes on the proposed constitution. The only reason they gave was, “It’s just common sense.” In addition, DACS advocated against voting in favor of any future petition candidates—no matter who they were.
The anti-constitution faction included diverse groups. Daniel Linsalata ’07, editor of this paper at the time, and the editor of the campus’ far left publication co-wrote an editorial for the Daily Dartmouth against the constitution; the presidents of the College Republicans and Young Democrats also came together to co-author an editorial opposing the proposed constitution that was printed in the Manchester Union Leader.
In the weeks leading up to the end of voting, pro-constitution groups hired call-centers to blanket Dartmouth Alumni with calls in favor of the constitution. The results were announced on November 2, 2006. Thirty-eight percent of alumni had participated, and forty-nine percent had voted in favor of the new constitution, falling far short of the two-thirds needed. The DACS’ and affiliated groups’ aggressive tactics had apparently backfired.
In the wake of the constitution’s defeat, Stephen Smith ’88 became the fourth consecutive petition candidate to be elected in the spring of 2007. During Smith’s campaign the ‘neutral’ College set up the “Ask Dartmouth” website. A site nominally set up to the answer the questions of alumni, it dispatched riposte upon riposte concerning the claims of Smith.
By the summer of 2007 the College had a significant losing streak on its hands: two proposed alumni constitutions had been voted down, and four consecutive petition candidates had been elected to the Board of Trustees. The Board and President Wright decided to take things into their own hands. A five person committee on governance, which had no petition trustees on it, recommended that the size of the Board increase from eighteen to twenty-six (including the two ex officio members: the President of the College, and the Governor of New Hampshire). Increasing the size of the Board of Trustees is not all that unusual, but, in the past, each time it was done the proportion between elected trustees and appointed trustees remained the same: fifty percent to each lot. This time, it was recommended that the proportion change to two-thirds appointed trustees and one-third alumni trustees.
Since the Board’s announcement there has been a general outcry by alumni against this apparently shameless power-grab. The Association of Alumni (now in favor of fair elections for petition candidates) sued the Board, asking the court to place an injunction on seating any new appointed trustees. The New Hampshire Legislature has also taken an interest. Rep. Maureen Mooney has proposed legislation that would require any change in the Board’s composition to be accepted by the New Hampshire government. The news that the court has denied the College’s motion for dismissal signals that this will likely be a protracted courtroom battle that will likely out-distance Wright’s tenure. n