A group of Dartmouth students, faculty and staff recently joined together to form the People's Coalition, an independent organization that seeks to unite progressive groups on campus, history professor Russell Rickford said in an interview with The Dartmouth. The group is the product of an awakening activist spirit among college students energized by the current political climate, according to Rickford, the group's faculty organizer.
"We're in a profoundly dangerous moment politically," he said. "I see the country in a sort of pre-fascist state, and in terms of radical alternatives to these two corporate-oriented parties that control formal politics, there's a lack."
The Coalition will be a democratic forum for campus progressives in which every participant will have an equal voice, according to Eli Lichtenstein '13, who founded the Coalition along with Russell Primeau '13 and Rickford. The group will not replace any current student activist institutions, according to Lichtenstein, who is a member of Students Stand with Staff and serves as the managing editor of the Dartmouth Free Press.
"We're primarily interested in bridging the boundaries between these groups on campus," he said. "Because these groups share many of the same goals, by bringing them together in a forum we could strengthen everyone."
The first Coalition meeting, held Feb. 26 in Cutter-Shabazz Hall, drew representatives from the Dartmouth Ecovores, Students Stand with Staff, the Dartmouth Coalition for Global Health and other social justice organizations, Lichtenstein said. The discussion centered on the format of future group meetings, which will include presentations by members on issues they find important, followed by open discussion, he said.
The Coalition's paradigm of dialogue and democratic participation is modeled on the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committees of the 1960s civil rights movement, Rickford said. College students must recognize that they are in a position to serve as highly effective activists, according to Rickford.
"College students are the most vulnerable to conservative ideas, but they also have the most potential for challenging the moral bankruptcy of a narrow individualism and amoral careerism," Rickford said.
The Coalition will work to establish a stronger progressive community at the College, Lichtenstein said.
"It came out of what we perceive as the dearth of progressivism on campus," he said. "There are enormous challenges hurtling towards our world and our country, and as students we're in a unique position to address them."
The Coalition will benefit social justice organizations by facilitating student activism and helping students fully appreciate the way in which "all systems of oppression" are interwoven, Students Stand with Staff co-founder and Coalition member Phoebe Gardener '11 said.
"It's a group where we can think through our ideas, get feedback and get people to come support us and come out to our events," she said. "It's also a great way for students who are focusing on two separate issues to draw a connection between the two issues and see that you can't fight for justice in one area without fighting for it everywhere."
The Coalition will not seek sponsorship from the Council on Student Organizations, Lichtenstein said.
"We thought COSO recognition would be unnecessary," he said. "We don't feel the need to make this specifically a Dartmouth organization, but rather a coalition of people that will include Hanover residents, students and staff."
Although solidarity and the exchange of ideas are the main purposes of the group, Lichtenstein said the Coalition will also engage in direct activism.
"There will be an activist element," he said. "It's not necessarily an activist group, but out of the discussion will arise opportunities for activism."
Although the group has not yet set a specific agenda, the Coalition hopes to address the issues of workers' mistreatment, minority disaffection and gender inequality, according to Lichtenstein.
"In some sense there's a crisis moment on campus," he said. "There's a lot of anger and confusion with the resignation of three deans."
Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students Colleen Larimore '85 announced this month that she will resign from the College on March 4, The Dartmouth previously reported. Acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears announced in early January that she would not apply for the permanent dean of the College position while Samantha Ivery, assistant dean of student life, advisor to black students and acting director of the Center for Women and Gender, announced her resignation on Jan. 31.
Students are becoming increasingly attuned to the issue of social justice, Rickford said.
"I think part of the reason why the initial gathering was so relatively well-attended is that there are constituencies on campus that really do feel marginalized, and feel a deep dissatisfaction with life on campus and with politics in our society more broadly, and have started to make connections between the two, and understand power relations on campus in terms of larger social inequities," he said.
Students are eager to provide constructive solutions to the problems they witness, Lichtenstein said.
"There was a lot of energy," he said. "This meeting demonstrated how excited people are to be in this kind of context where they have an outlet."
