The debate over the governance of Dartmouth is out of the boardroom and now in the hands of lawyers and pundits on both sides of the issue.
Just over one week ago, the College’s Board of Trustees announced reforms that have ended the century-old practice by which half of the Board was elected by alumni. It did so by increasing the size of the Board to 26, adding eight trustees that will be selected by the Board itself. It also moved to change the way alumni are nominated to the Board and called for further efforts to reduce the alleged “politicization” of the process.
In the aftermath of the announcement, members of the executive committee of Dartmouth’s Association of Alumni, which includes approximately 60,000 alumni of the College, are now considering suing the College. Alumni are threatening to withhold donations and some former students are charging the reforms demonstrate that Board membership is for sale. And the fallout from this nationally publicized controversy has only just begun.
The heart of this conflict lies in the history of recent trustee elec