Shanty Sentences Slammed

Twelve Dartmouth College students appealed their suspensions for participating in a sledgehammer attack on anti-apartheid shanties built on the campus Green.

On Wednesday, the lawyer for the students, 10 of whom are members of the conservative periodical The Dartmouth Review, filed an appeal on the grounds that there were a series of procedural errors, lack of evidence, and little explanation for the suspensions, said Scott Rafshoon, the executive editor of The Daily Dartmouth.

In a separate development, the university decided to drop charges against 18 anti-apartheid activists who had tried to prevent the university's removal of the shanties two weeks ago.

In a letter to Dartmouth's president David T. McLaughlin, the lawyer for the 12 students asked him to step aside as the chief appeals officer in the case. The students believe that he has already judged their actions as racist in origin, but McLaughlin has not disqualified himself, Rafshoon said.

"We are just waiting for the ruling on [the appeal] which will probably come on Monday," Rafshoon said.

The students, all members of the Dartmouth Committee to Beautify the Green, a name which refers to their goal of destroying the shanties erected by divestment activists at the school, received suspensions ranging from one-term to an indefinite period of time.

The 12 said they sought to remove the shanties because they were occupying space needed for the winter carnival's traditional ice sculpture.

In the proceedings of Dartmouth's student-faculty Committee on Standards, one faculty member called the students "evil" and a student expressed the desire to kick them out of school, a suspended student recently told The Crimson.

Most of the information released originates from the students who were directly involved in the destructive incident.

In the separate development, Dartmouth on Tuesday dropped charges of criminal tresspassing against seventeen other students who had protested the removal of the shanties. The activists had entered and surrounded the shanties when college officals attempted to relocate the structures with bulldozers.

Although the students no longer face a day in court, the school may still take disciplinary action.

Charges against another student for assaulting a police officer are still pending, said Rafshoon.

"People are getting ready to enter into exams and things are getting a little more calm around here. We're just waiting on the president," Rafshoon said.