A petition calling for the resignation of Student Assembly president-elect Frank Cunningham ’16 following what it called “uncouth, unjustified” behavior at a student protest Saturday afternoon has garnered 359 signatures as of press time. Cunningham sent an email to campus Wednesday morning, in which he apologized and wrote that he “had no business approaching a female member of our community in that way” and acknowledged that his actions appeared “threatening.”
Both Cunningham and the female student declined to comment.
Jordan Terry ’15, one of the early drafters of the petition, said that he and several other concerned students began the petition on Change.org in response to what he called Cunningham’s “bullying and taunting” of a female protestor shown in footage taken during Saturday’s protest.
A group of around 20 students protested outside of Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority during its annual Derby event. It was the second of two protests that took place last weekend in solidarity with protestors in Baltimore to “fight police brutality and complicity/complacency at Dartmouth,” according to the official title of the May 1 march, which drew over 150 participants.
The video depicts Cunningham inches from the face of one of the demonstrators yelling “I can’t breathe” in sync with the rest of the demonstrators. While their chants are directed at students attending Derby, he is directly facing the student. A shortened, two-minute video has over 2,600 views on YouTube as of press time, while a seven-minute video of the incident has over 1,600. Both videos were posted under the Big Green Microaggressions account.
Terry said that, in particular, Cunningham’s “reappropriation of Eric Garner’s last words” shocked the drafters of the petition.
“He is essentially using those words to taunt a young black female activist,” Terry said.
Terry noted that this “disrespectful behavior” was unbecoming of a Student Assembly president. Garner died last July after a police officer held him in a chokehold in New York City.
In the email, Cunningham wrote that in no way was his behavior excusable, but that he responded to the protestors due to high emotions after being called a “derogatory name.”
The Dartmouth could not independently confirm that a protestor called Cunningham a derogatory name, and it is not apparent in the video.
Justin Maffet ’16, who can be seen in the video ushering Cunningham away from the female student immediately following the incident, said he is a friend of Cunningham’s and had advised him at the time against placing himself at the scene.
“The optics of the situation were pretty poor, and there was such a contrast between KDE’s event of Derby and the actual protest in terms of the racial composition, and also the message that was being presented, so I was worried that with him being [Student Assembly] president-[elect] that this would not be the message that he was trying to project,” Maffet said.
All things considered, however, Maffet said he believes Cunningham’s presence was valid.
“One of the points that I’ve tried to make is that his intent was to protect the rights of the students in terms of protesting, and it doesn’t necessarily come across in the video all that was going into that thought process,” he said.
Terry said that the petition was created as a platform for concerned students to be active.
“We don’t believe this is a representation that Dartmouth students would want,” Terry said. “This kind of disrespectful behavior really does counter the ideals of mutual respect and vigorous debate that our very mission statement proclaims.”
The signatories of the petition come from an array of backgrounds, Terry said. He added that the petition itself is just one response to the incident.
Over the course of the week, Terry said he hopes the petition gathers more support, but that it is also up to those involved in Student Assembly, including Cunningham himself, to determine what will happen next.
Student Assembly’s constitution gives the General Assembly the power to impeach the president, vice president, committee chairs and officers for “embezzlement, gross ethical misjudgement, gross failure to faithfully represent the Assembly and gross violations of the constitution,” as well as other offenses. A concurrence of two-thirds of membership is required to remove the person.
John Damianos ’16, who signed the petition, said that the incident was the latest in a string of three events that made him skeptical of Cunningham’s ability to run Student Assembly.
Damianos worked with Cunningham for eight months as part of the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” presidential steering committee and said that Cunningham’s framing of himself as the “champion of the Greek system” during his campaign showed little regard to those who were unaffiliated or did not follow the “traditional Dartmouth trajectory.”
He also pointed to the sanctioning of Student Assembly by the Undergraduate Finance Committee in the fall, while Cunningham was vice president, after it spent $1,876 of student funds on customized apparel. The UFC deemed this to be in violation of the spirit of the student activity fee—an $83-per-student termly tuition charge that the UFC distributes to student groups.
The funds have since been repaid.
Damianos said that Cunningham “represents the status quo” rather than someone who can think in an innovative manner to improve Dartmouth. He noted that the petition, even if it does not ultimately result in Cunningham’s resignation, will hopefully lead to more discussion and awareness of issues affecting students that cannot be ignored.
Briana Franklin ’17 said she signed the petition because after seeing “visual confirmation” of the incident, she felt it would be “unacceptable and actually deplorable, as a black woman, if I was to allow that behavior to be exhibited by our student body leader.”
She said that she was somewhat surprised by how quickly signatures amassed due to Cunningham’s large support base when he ran for Student Assembly president last month.
Cunningham was elected president on April 20 with 966 votes, or 59 percent of voters. His running mate, vice president-elect Julia Dressel ’17, received 1,149 votes, representing 70 percent of voters. The pair ran on a campaign of improving inclusivity on campus, as well as plans for a student bill of rights, diversity dialogues, mental health programming and student representation on the Board of Trustees.
Dressel declined to comment at this time.
In light of the recent increased conversation at the College, particularly among black and minority students, Franklin said the petition would bring “more eyes on men of color to protect fellow women of color and to not repeat [Cunningham’s] actions,” which she said diminished the efforts of the protestors.
In addition, the petition would hopefully lead to more transparency in the election process and more thorough vetting of Student Assembly candidates, she said.
“We’re seeing a trend here, and as far as who we chose to lead us, this will hopefully help us to make more informed decisions,” Franklin said.
She noted that the incident was an eye-opener for many to recognize the “multi-faceted” nature of the issues at hand.
The demonstrations on campus are in solidarity with protests in Baltimore over the several weeks following the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African-American man who died after injuries sustained while in police custody. On Saturday, the group of about 20 students protested outside of Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity’s annual Pigstick party before the demonstration at the Derby event at which the footage of Cunningham was captured.
