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The Dartmouth
July 8, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Think Before You Sign

Dartmouth's BlitzMail provides an outlet for students to spread their beliefs to the rest of campus with the simple click of a button. I, along with the numerous other members of any "recipient list suppressed," have received pleas from Dartmouth peers to take sides on various causes regarding Tibet, Darfur, Burma and most recently, the Association of Alumni executive committee election. While an increase in student concern is always encouraged, there lies a danger in using this method to acquire such support: The issue at hand becomes attached to the sender's name and our decisions become affected by factors other than our own thought processes.

When we attach issues to figures on campus, we run the risk of blindly supporting the petitioner without necessarily considering the question at play. Rather than relying on our own thought in making decisions, we turn to our personal allegiances. For example: "[Sender of petition A] is so much nicer than [sender of petition B]" or "[sender of petition C] is a much better friend of mine." These petitions become empty and futile and cannot accurately portray the views of the Dartmouth community.

Signing your name merely because a peer asks you to, and supporting something you have not really looked into, seems pretty childish. I can recall numerous instances in which this occurred during my high school years. Students would circulate petitions around school that promised some sort of change and getting signatures from peers required almost no explanation of what issue the petition supported. I would have signed anything -- it really did not matter. If you were my friend, I'd mindlessly join the cause: Give me candy and I'll gladly sign your piece of paper.

While we may think our maturity has grown beyond such adolescent peer influence, I have encountered students here who have taken stances on issues they knew very little about merely because a familiar name was connected to the cause. One of my peers even admitted she'd sign her name if her crush were in charge of circulating the petition. This lack of knowledge among signers was certainly present during the AoA executive committee election debacle: There are signers who do not know what Dartmouth Undying is and signers who do not know why the alumni decided to sue to begin with. Yet, out of their personal feelings, a sense of loyalty to the senders and other superficial notions, these ill-informed students still choose to add their names to the petitions.

By ignoring the process in which signatures are obtained, we forget how worthless petitions can be. Take, for example, the process through which students become members of the Green Key Society. Hopeful members must first gather 50 signatures before their names can be added to the ballot. What do these signatures represent? Are we electing more 'qualified' Green Key Society members by making them gather 50 names? We have this notion that petitions make strong statements about what our community demands, when the truth is that hardly anyone cares enough to refuse to sign. And again, the result is a meaningless list of names.

Although our petitions may go beyond better lunch menus, they still exhibit the same emptiness as the petitions in high school. To increase the legitimacy of petitions, students must detach their peers' names from the issues and evaluate the situations for themselves. Only then can these signatures speak for the community.

I urge students to become active in these issues, and I respect those who take the time to try and muster student support. But at the same time, students should be careful to thoroughly review situations before committing to one side. In attaching your names to a petition, you should be supporting the issue, not the sender. By doing this we can create petitions that are genuine, valid and not merely a list of the petitioner's friends.