News
The president of the College's gay students organization complained Friday that a member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps wrote a Student Assembly report urging the Board of Trustees to keep ROTC.
Trevor Burgess '94, president of the Dartmouth Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Organization, sent an electronic message to Assembly President Nicole Artzer '94 Friday afternoon informing her that he saw Brandon Del Pozo '96 working on the report with Bill Hall '96, an Assembly member, Thursday night in the Collis Center.
An Assembly sub-committee, called the Administrative Affairs Committee, chose Hall, Scott Rowekamp '97 and Bill Kartalopoulos '97 to draft the report after the Assembly voted 22 to 3 to support ROTC at Dartmouth on February 1st.
Artzer and Assembly Vice President Steve Costalas '94 did not object to Del Pozo's involvement in the drafting process because the Assembly's Executive Committee will finalize the wording of the report.
Hall presented a draft of the report for discussion last night before the Assembly's Executive Committee.
The degree of Del Pozo's involvement did not affect the executive committee's objectivity in reviewing the report Sunday night, Artzer said.
Hall said Del Pozo was asked to help correct factual discrepancies in the report's rough draft, but Del Pozo will not receive any credit.
Burgess said he believes Del Pozo's involvement in the report may lead to a misrepresentation of students' opinions.
"To me Mr. Del Pozo's unbalanced involvement in the writing of the report removes any and all credibility the report may have had," Burgess said in his message to Artzer.
"If you were going to have an ROTC expert why was I not asked to be a gay expert?" Burgess asked in his message to Artzer.
Hall defended Del Pozo's assistance.
"This document is a persuasive document written to the Trustees to try to convince them of our opinion," Hall said.
Del Pozo, who has written pro-ROTC columns in The Dartmouth, said in a prepared statement yesterday that he read the entire report, corrected some factual errors and helped in the editing.
"I did add a sentence or two, but it was with the agreement of the SA members saying it was their opinion," he said.