The president of the College's gay students organization complained Friday that a member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps wrote a Student Assembly report urging the Board of Trustees to keep ROTC.
Trevor Burgess '94, president of the Dartmouth Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Organization, sent an electronic message to Assembly President Nicole Artzer '94 Friday afternoon informing her that he saw Brandon Del Pozo '96 working on the report with Bill Hall '96, an Assembly member, Thursday night in the Collis Center.
An Assembly sub-committee, called the Administrative Affairs Committee, chose Hall, Scott Rowekamp '97 and Bill Kartalopoulos '97 to draft the report after the Assembly voted 22 to 3 to support ROTC at Dartmouth on February 1st.
Artzer and Assembly Vice President Steve Costalas '94 did not object to Del Pozo's involvement in the drafting process because the Assembly's Executive Committee will finalize the wording of the report.
Hall presented a draft of the report for discussion last night before the Assembly's Executive Committee.
The degree of Del Pozo's involvement did not affect the executive committee's objectivity in reviewing the report Sunday night, Artzer said.
Hall said Del Pozo was asked to help correct factual discrepancies in the report's rough draft, but Del Pozo will not receive any credit.
Burgess said he believes Del Pozo's involvement in the report may lead to a misrepresentation of students' opinions.
"To me Mr. Del Pozo's unbalanced involvement in the writing of the report removes any and all credibility the report may have had," Burgess said in his message to Artzer.
"If you were going to have an ROTC expert why was I not asked to be a gay expert?" Burgess asked in his message to Artzer.
Hall defended Del Pozo's assistance.
"This document is a persuasive document written to the Trustees to try to convince them of our opinion," Hall said.
Del Pozo, who has written pro-ROTC columns in The Dartmouth, said in a prepared statement yesterday that he read the entire report, corrected some factual errors and helped in the editing.
"I did add a sentence or two, but it was with the agreement of the SA members saying it was their opinion," he said. "I still don't agree with everything in the report."
Steve Costalas '94, a member of the Assembly's executive committee, said after reading the original draft of the report he suggested Hall contact a ROTC member.
"We felt that Brandon was an appropriate person to talk to," Costalas said. "All he was doing was giving information on what was actually happening."
Burgess said Del Pozo's involvement in the report showed the Assembly's lack of objectivity regarding the debate over ROTC's status on campus.
"It's hard to distinguish now: is this the ROTC issuing a report or is this the SA issuing a report?" Burgess said. "This episode I think clearly points out that they don't mean to be objective."
Rowekamp, who is in charge of the section of the report on student opinion, said he did not contact any members of the gay and lesbian organization because he felt their position would be evident.
"The purpose of this report is to back up our support," Rowekamp said. "I didn't see the purpose of including DaGlo in my section."
But Artzer said she sent a BlitzMail message to Dartmouth Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Organization for help on the ROTC report but received no response.
