Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg addressed the Student Assembly last night and fielded members' questions about the potential effects a Supreme Court ruling banning the use of race as a factor in admissions might have on Dartmouth's admissions process.
Student Body President Janos Marton '04 also asked members of the Assembly to consider a possible future statement to be passed in support of the administration's brief.
"This is a really big deal," Furstenberg said of the pending Supreme Court decision, "the way we do things at Dartmouth could be very different."
After Furstenberg's speech, several Assembly members questioned him on a number of issues including recent controversies over legacy status in admission, as well as the exact changes Dartmouth would undergo in the event of the Supreme Court reversing a 1978 case (UC Regents vs. Bakke) that allowed an applicant's race to be considered in admissions.
Furstenberg said that he felt that comparing the preferential admissions for legacies with that for minorities was not "particularly healthy" because "neither legacies or athletes are a group protected under the constitution," and also that the benefits derived from legacy status in the admissions process is not dramatic.
"The rationale for legacies has more to do with history and tradition, the sense of family and connection to the past. Also, of course, there is the financial dimension," Furstenberg said.
Furstenberg stressed that Dartmouth was as subject to a potential ruling as any public university under both the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act, and that an overruling of the 1978 Bakke decision would substantially change the application for admission to Dartmouth. He added that he felt a complete overturning of Bakke was unlikely.
Among several other small funding proposals for upcoming events, the Assembly passed a statement supporting the International Student Association's attempts to use a satellite dish to watch the Cricket World Cup.
The ISA has requested and been denied by the Office of Residential Life the use of a satellite dish personally owned by one of the residents of Brewster International House between three and five a.m. for the five week period of the World Cup.
Marton also said that there was potential for a future Assembly statement opposing military action in Iraq similar to the one recently passed by Cornell University's Student Assembly. He invited others to introduce the bill and said he himself would introduce it, but only if yesterday's survey by The Dartmouth revealed over 60 percent of the student body to be opposed to military action in Iraq.
