The addition of five new members to the College's Board of Trustees three weeks ago has prompted little public backlash from alumni who oppose the Board's expansion, but a recent communication acquired by The Dartmouth indicates some alumni are once again considering legal action in an attempt to reverse the Board's decision.
In an e-mail sent to supporters of the non-profit Hanover Institute on Sept. 15, the Institute's founder, John MacGovern '80, said Dartmouth alumni could no longer depend on the College's Association of Alumni to "protect the alumni's interests" in working to maintain parity between the number of alumni-elected and Board-selected trustees. The parity ended with the Sept. 5 addition of the five trustees, who were all selected by the Board.
The Association brought suit against the College in October 2007, arguing that Dartmouth was legally required to maintain parity due to an 1891 Board resolution. The suit was withdrawn after alumni opposed to the suit won election to all 11 of the Association's executive committee seats this spring.
"If we care enough about this issue, litigation in [sic] our own behalf is apparently the only avenue left to us to vindicate the alumni's rights," MacGovern said in the e-mail, which was provided to The Dartmouth by Alumni Council President J.B. Daukas '84. "We have obtained a number of legal opinions from some of this nation's most reputable lawyers that good ground exists for causes of action that the alumni of Dartmouth, as individuals, might bring to enforce or otherwise vindicate the 1891 agreement between the College and its Association."
MacGovern did not return requests for comment.
The Institute, which is often critical of College policies, solicited donations from alumni to support the Association's previous legal action. MacGovern has said that some of the roughly $200,000 the Institute collected remains available to support other legal efforts.
"That door certainly is not shut," MacGovern said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth.
In a March 2007 inquiry, The Dartmouth found that The Center for Excellence in Higher Education, a conservative Indiana-based think tank, collected contributions from Dartmouth alumni, which were given to The Hanover Institute. The Institute then funded the Association's legal team in Washington, D.C. Another organization with conservative ties, DonorsTrust in Washington, D.C., was also involved.
The Institute, according to its 2007 income tax return, had $344,867 in direct public support last year, which includes contributions from individuals or foundations, and $493,250 in indirect public support, which includes contributions from fundraising campaigns and affiliated organizations. MacGovern received a salary of $63,500, the return said.
"It's not as though everybody has rolled over and played dead," Frank Gado '58, a former member of the Association executive committee who supported the suit, said. "It is not as though everybody has turned away."
Gado added that he is not involved in any efforts to pursue further legal actions.
"Right now my mood is one of total disgust with a campaign that was fraught with lies from beginning to end," he said.
Daukas said it was "frustrating" to hear that legal action was being discussed again.
"We've been this way before and the election we had this past spring really was a referendum on the lawsuit and 60 percent of the alumni who voted rejected it," he said.
Representatives from the Association and the Alumni Council continue to work to reform the trustee-election process, according to officials involved. A reform working group has begun to meet and the reform effort could be completed by the end of the year, the officials said.
"In general, we were discussing election reform so that we could meet the requirements that the Board has articulated in its governance report for conducting trustee elections," Association President John Mathias '69 said, referring to a September 2007 report by the Board's governance committee that recommended an increase in membership and changes to the election process.
Mathias said there has also been discussion of adding more alumni-elected trustees to return to parity on the Board.
Gado, however, criticized the Association for what he perceived is a lack of focus on the parity issue. Mathias and other members of the current Association executive committee had said they would make it a priority during their election campaigns last spring.
"There was a lot of bad-faith advertising during this past campaign when they claimed there were people on the ticket who supported parity," Gado said.
Election reform has to occur, Mathias countered, before any negotiations regarding the addition of alumni-elected trustees.
"They are misinformed -- they have their own political notion of the way to get things done," Mathias said, referring to alumni who want parity addressed immediately. "We are discussing the prospect of getting more alumni-elected trustees, but we need to do things in sequence."
Changes to the election process will likely include a move away from approval voting, which allows alumni to vote for as many candidates as they like, to a "one person, one vote" system, Mathias said.
Little is known about where the new trustees stand on these issues, or any of the larger questions currently facing the College.
The College's Office of Public Affairs was unable to coordinate interviews with any of the five trustees.
