11/2/07 — Less than a month before the 2004 presidential election, Vice President Dick Cheney made a campaign visit to Meadville for a communitywide rally on the Allegheny College campus. To the dismay of many observers, it was not a pretty scene.

The Oct. 13, 2004, event fueled high political unrest, and the college’s upper Highland Avenue area became a scene of hundreds of suddenly rowdy protesters. Extra police were positioned, amid fears of potential violence among the crowds, who were shouting and holding signs and banners.

The scenes outside may have been threatening to some individuals, however, across the street, comfortably inside Allegheny’s David V. Wise Fitness and Sports Center, Cheney was delivering an invitation-only, town-hall-style meeting to an audience of 600 supporters.

That was the rub. Particularly for supporters of the John Kerry-John Edwards presidential ticket, the problem was not that a high-ranking political rival was across the street; it was that they were locked out, not welcome to hear what he had to say.

Allegheny professor Daniel Shea, nationally respected scholar and founder of Allegheny’s Center for Political Participation, said that “allowing the vice president to use our facilities (for that style of event) was a mistake.” However, Shea added that closed campaigns have occurred with candidates in both Republican and Democratic parties.

And now, three years later, the private, liberal arts college of approximately 2,000 undergraduate students has established a new political participation policy. And, beyond that, the college is encouraging others to join its initiative. The effort has led to the creation of a “Soapbox Alliance,” a coalition of institutions that either have an open campaign-event policy or have pledged to work toward the goal of establishing an open-event policy by Sept. 1, 2008.

Monday at 10 a.m., an Allegheny-based news conference will push forward the alliance’s goals.

“After the (Cheney) event was over, I began to think that it’s not something that should happen,” Shea said. “We should invite, encourage and allow the candidates to control a good portion of the tickets, but not all tickets. We want to encourage genuine debate on campus.”

At the time, Allegheny’s practice had been to welcome private groups to use its facilities with or without charge, depending on availability and circumstance. As a result, despite the college community’s distaste for the idea of a closed “town meeting,” it found itself without a sound basis to deny the request.

Therefore, the college decided it was necessary to adopt a policy. Led by Shea, and in collaboration with his faculty colleagues and the administration, the college adopted a policy Nov. 21, 2006, that allows campaign organizations to reward supporters with tickets to an event, but requires that at least half of the available seats be made available to the general college community and public through a non-biased distribution. The policy was discussed among Allegheny’s Executive Committee, comprised of key college personnel, and then presented at a meeting of the faculty council and entire faculty staff, according to Shea.

“We encourage candidates and campaigns from all political parties to visit college and university campuses to engage students and the public in authentic discussion of the issues,” said Allegheny College President Richard Cook. “But we reject the notion of ‘town meetings’ being limited to hand-picked supporters. Campuses should not be used as convenient backdrops for staged events designed to represent something they are not.”

Monday’s news conference at the college’s Campus Center lobby is geared to encourage other institutions of higher education nationwide to join in a national democracy-strengthening initiative — with the goal of ending the practice by political candidates of holding closed meetings on college campuses.

“In the end, it boils down to this: Closed, ticketed events are inconsistent with the mission of higher education and with the spirit of democracy,” Shea said.

Formal invitations to join the Soapbox Alliance will be mailed Monday to college and university presidents across the country. In addition, information about the alliance will be sent to others in the higher education community, such as provosts, deans and editors of student newspapers.

A Web site will be launched, www.soapboxalliance.org, to provide information about the alliance — its history, purpose and progress — and a vehicle for public discussion of the role of open political debate in America.





All events featuring or actively including candidates for elected political office will adhere to Allegheny College’s normal event registration and general event guidelines.

Other than small organizational meetings or class sessions, all events held on the Allegheny College campus that are attended by candidates for public office or are part of the candidate’s general effort to build support for candidacy shall be open to the general college community (and the public).

An open event is defined as one for which no fewer than one-half the available seats or spaces are available to the general college community based on a non-biased distribution of tickets on a first-come, first-served basis.

Candidates are required to contact the college with sufficient time prior to an event for appropriate planning and announcements.



Jamie Musick can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at jmusick@meadvilletribune.com.