Hampshire College Referendum Condemns the War in Afghanistan By DANA MULHAUSER
Hampshire College became the first college to formally condemn the war in Afghanistan when its students, faculty members, and staff members voted, 693 to 121, this week for a resolution urging the resumption of humanitarian aid and a halt to "the U.S. military action that prevents it." The fairness and accuracy of the voting process, however, is being questioned by some students and administrators -- including the college's president.
The referendum demands that the U.S. government replace war with diplomatic efforts to bring the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks to trial. It calls the war "symptomatic of the racism of American society, in its disregard for the lives of people of color overseas, encouragement of racial, ethnic, and religious scapegoating and violence, and practice of law enforcement 'profiling.'"
Students who wrote the resolution say their aim is to inspire grassroots opposition to the war. "We're trying to begin to build a world in which that kind of suffering does not happen," said N. Kai Newkirk, a junior.
But the vote itself is sparking dissent on the Hampshire campus. Some students and administrators said that the balloting process did not allow for sufficient discussion of the resolution. Gregory S. Prince Jr., Hampshire's president, said he was disappointed that the organizers did not "encourage debate and make space for that debate."
When organizers finally held a college-wide debate, after voting had been completed, it turned into a shouting match over the validity of the vote. "The process is so corrupt that it severely compromised the results," said Devan M. Goldstein, a senior.
Mr. Goldstein and others complained that the student group that proposed the resolution, Students for a Peaceful Response, also handed out ballots and counted the votes. "There's a reason that, in other elections, politicians are not allowed within 100 yards of the ballot box," Mr. Goldstein said. Some students also say that they were watched while voting.
Organizers defend the process, saying that they used secret ballots and did not pressure anyone to vote. "We got votes from more than half of Hampshire's 1,550 students, faculty, and staff members, which is more than the last student-government election did," said Michael H. Sherrard, a freshman.
The student governments of other colleges, including the University of California at Berkeley, have condemned the U.S. government's recent restrictions on civil liberties, but none have formally criticized the war itself.