On Elections and Their Consequences

If you opened this article looking for commentary on the 2020 election, I’m sorry to disappoint. Contrary to popular theory, The Review generally forgoes national news in favor of Dartmouth-focus content. Thus, I would like to address a Dartmouth election—the 2020-2021 Student Assembly election specifically. If you just rolled your eyes—excellent! You are my target audience, and I kindly ask that you keep reading.

From 5 p.m. next Monday the 11^th until 5 p.m. next Tuesday the 12^th, Student Assembly will hold elections for positions ranging from class and house representatives to Student Assembly (SA) President and Vice President. Campaigns for these positions, particularly for President and Vice President, are being conducted virtually on class Facebook pages, Greek house Groupmes, and the ever-churning Dartmouth listserv. Even a cursory glance at any of these platforms reveals that this election is embroiled in controversy—erasing any doubt that Dartmouth students have too much free time while “learning” online.

If you’ve made it through the onslaught of fiery emails and Facebook posts you might find yourself left with the same burning question plaguing many of your politically engaged peers—who is actually running? It’s an excellent question. Unfortunately, I am somewhat confused on that point myself so I can offer little guidance. It was never my intention to endorse a candidate in this editorial, as I felt it unfair to doom their chances by tying them to The Review. However, now I couldn’t endorse them even if I wanted to—frankly I can barely keep their names straight. Invariably every time I commit to fully learning and accessing the field of candidates, someone will drop out, only to have another clinically-ambitious Government major crop up in their place. Perhaps it is not so unlike the 2020 election after all…

This is account is only slightly embellished. I do know who is running (as least as of five minutes ago) but it required putting a call into the current SA President, the illustrious Luke Cuomo ‘20 himself, to finally get a straight answer. I won’t share my information—it will no doubt change before I finish typing this, so I see little point. However, my conversation with Dartmouth’s preferred Cuomo was illuminating in more ways than one, so please allow me to share my more important conclusion. 

For my first two years at Dartmouth, Student Assembly seemed like a farce. Only about half of the representatives appeared to actually run for their positions. These were usually wide-eyed freshmen looking to bolster their First-Year Fellow’s application. The other half were elected by write-in votes (maybe a grand total of seven of them) submitted in jest by their drunken fraternity brothers. This motley crew would then hammer-out the most important decisions of the academic year—What color would we make the Green Key t-shirts? Who would referee the intramural volleyball playoffs?

This characterization is no doubt too harsh as I’m not even sure if either of those decisions are made by the Student Assembly. However, for my first two years at Dartmouth, I wasn’t sure what the Student Assembly did at all. The seemed to do a whole lot of nothing—or  maybe they did something, but certainly nothing I or any of my friend’s considered noteworthy.

That changed this fall. SA President, the aforementioned Luke Cuomo, and his Vice-President, Ariela Kovary, tackled what was then a massive issue on campus—a new, highly restrictive dorm access policy. The policy, a truly tone-deaf response to several instances of racially-based harassment last spring, was ultimately designed by the Administration to prop up the floundering house system at the expense of student freedom. Maneuvering the levers of power shrewdly, Cuomo and Kovary were able to get the policy 80% repealed by the end of the fall term. This was an enormous triumph not just for the students, but for the perception of the Student Assembly more broadly. The restrictive dorm policy had united all Dartmouth students in opposition to the Administration and Cuomo and Kovary a channeled that indignation pointedly, forcing the College to walk back this massive administrative over-step. With the Administration putting a gag order on the UGAs and with The Dartmouth carrying water for Res Life as dutifully as ever, Student Assembly was the only organization capable of affecting any real change. 

This brings us to the fall of 2020. If we go back at all, the College’s infringement on students’ autonomy will no doubt be Orwellian, likely making their policies this past fall look positively libertarian by comparison. The Administration has already shown that they are more than willing to use horrific instances of racial bias to justify their own agenda, leaving little doubt that they will do the same with regards to COVID-related policies. This means that regardless of the state of the fall,  be that fully online, fully in residence, or a “hybrid” model, the competent Student Assembly leaders are going to be critical. I, along with all Review writers, am very willing to point out when the SA has been a comical puppet government in the past.  However, as this year’s SA President and Vice President have shown, shrewd leadership can still be effective even if the Student Assembly is ultimately a cat with no claws. 

In light of SA’s recent success, allow me to plea a case on their behalf: if you think that this Student Assembly election doesn’t matter, you are being as flip with your rights as I am in my discourse around Student Assembly. My pension for irreverence aside, we all have a responsibility next week. We should vote. We should vote in a serious and considered manner. If we don’t, and we end up with a clown representing us to a draconian Administration in the fall, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. 

As a final note, before you go to vote, please make very sure your candidate is still running. Personally, I will be double-checking no more than five minutes before—Dartmouth politics really is such a capricious business.