Dartmouth Panel Upholds Anti-Shanty Suspensions

A Dartmouth College panel today upheld the suspensions of 10 students involved in a sledgehammer raid on shanties set up as part of an anti-apartheid protest on the Ivy League school’s green.

The 10, most of them staff members of the conservative off-campus newspaper the Dartmouth Review, were convicted by the disciplinary board of maliciously damaging property and disorderly conduct but were acquitted of using or threatening to use violence in the Jan. 21 incident. All were suspended for one to three terms.

The panel informed them of the decision at 1:30 a.m., after two days of open hearings and about 12 hours of deliberations.

The students have 48 hours to appeal the decision or leave the campus.

‘A Number of Options’

“There are a number of options open to us,” said Werner Meyer, 19, a sophomore from Phoenix and Review contributing editor. “For me, accepting this verdict is just not one of them. I will do all that I can to avoid having a suspension on my record.”

The 10 were among a dozen students who participated in the pre-dawn raid on shanties built on the campus green in November by students protesting Dartmouth’s investments in companies doing business in racially segregated South Africa.

The two students who escaped suspension had disassociated themselves from the Review.

The students said they planned the raid after concluding that campus and alumni sentiment had turned against the shacks and out of frustration that the college and town had not removed them.