Correction appended
Next Tuesday, April 5, Student Assembly will hold an unprecedented vote. The legislation in question would amend the Assembly constitution, allowing formerly suspended students to run for student body president and student body vice president. This vote is important for both the policy adjustment it proposes and the message it sends to campus about how we should treat formerly Parkhursted students.
We are unwilling to endorse the amendment because it is incomplete in its current form. Assembly elections are legitimized through the independence of the Election Planning and Advisory Committee the student board that establishes election rules and regulations and runs elections and this amendment severely threatens that independence. Further, it is crucial that if a formerly Parkhursted student is permitted to run, election rules dictate that the candidate disclose information regarding his or her suspension to the student body.
Current EPAC election regulations prohibit students with any former or current suspension on their record from running for student body president or vice president. The majority of Dartmouth's peer institutions including Harvard, Princeton and Yale have no eligibility requirements beyond being a registered student.
Elections should allow voters to express their true preferences for a candidate. By barring formerly Parkhursted students from running for president, EPAC is restricting the candidate pool, thereby restricting voter choice. This regulation is an impediment to fair elections that allow the voter not the subcommittee in charge of organizing the election to pick the best candidate.
Additionally, election rules cannot be written by those with a direct stake in the election outcomes. It is critical for the legitimacy of Assembly elections that EPAC remains an independent, autonomous committee fully in charge of election rules and regulations. The proposed amendment casts a shadow over this independence as members of the Assembly seek to directly overturn a recent EPAC decision. We therefore suggest that members vote on a recommendation to EPAC to rethink its policy, rather than overrule the committee through organizational workarounds.
This recommendation should also include the condition that candidates running for student body president or vice president must disclose if they previously have been suspended at the outset of the campaign. Potential representatives of the student body need to be willing to have open and honest dialogue with students, and voters are entitled to information about the candidates that could affect their voting decisions. If information about a candidate's disciplinary record were to emerge after he or she had been elected, the result could be embarrassing and unsettling for the entire Dartmouth community.
If the Assembly passes the proposed amendment, the once-independent EPAC could find its sovereignty severely curbed. However, students deserve the right to decide for themselves whether they will take a candidate's record of suspension into consideration, and would-be candidates who have been suspended deserve the chance to pursue an Assembly leadership position. While the Assembly must honor the independence of EPAC, we urge EPAC to reconsider its decision.