The rally, called the Solidarity Against Hatred Rally, was held in response to a series of events at the college since the beginning of the school year that have been viewed as racist and have targeted the American Indian community.,”

Members of the Dartmouth College community gathered on campus in a rally to show their support for the school's American Indian community Wednesday. The rally was in reaction to the cover of a Nov. 28 student-run newspaper, which featured an illustration of an American Indian waving a scalp.

The rally, called the Solidarity Against Hatred Rally, was held in response to a series of events at the college since the beginning of the school year that have been viewed as racist targeting the American Indian community.

The most recent of the events involved the controversial illustration running on the front cover of The Dartmouth Review, a student-run newspaper not affiliated with the college.

The headline with the illustration read "The Natives are Getting Restless!"

Other racially-charged events this semester included The Dartmouth Review selling T-shirts with an Indian symbol to freshmen during orientation, fraternity pledges running through a drum circle sponsored by the Native American Program and a dance held by the crew teams with the unofficial theme of "Cowboys, Indians and Barnyard Animals." Some dance attendees wore Indian costumes, according to an open letter dated Nov. 20 by the college's Native American Council printed in The Dartmouth (the school's official student newspaper).

"As Native people, the right to decide what offends us belongs to us and us alone," the Council wrote in the letter. "It is arrogant for non-Native people to presume that they somehow have this right."

The Dartmouth Review's Nov. 28 cover and editorial content became the final straw for students, said Elizabeth Sherman, a junior at Dartmouth and student organizer of the rally.

"We expect these kinds of things from The Review for shock value. They just went too far this time," Sherman said.

The paper ran an editorial on Nov. 28 that criticized the way Dartmouth's American Indian community had reacted to the incidents.

Daniel Linsalata, editor in chief of The Dartmouth Review, posted an explanation for the newspaper's approach on the paper's Web site Saturday.

"The cover was intended to be a hyperbolic, tongue-in-cheek commentary upon the reactions to the events this term by the self-styled leadership of Dartmouth's Native American community. I regret that the cover may have precipitated further feelings of offense within Dartmouth and overshadowed the more thoughtful discussions of these matters presented in the articles within the issue itself," Linsalata said in his response.

Linsalata went on to say he was fully behind the overall content of the issue.

"The Dartmouth Review is an independent paper," said Genevieve Haas, a public affairs officer for the college. "The college respects their right to free speech, but we expect tolerance of all people."

Sherman said organization for the rally started almost immediately after The Dartmouth Review's release and was fully put together in less than 12 hours. It featured a series of speakers that ranged from administrators to faculty to students.

"The rally doesn't take the place of any administrative or institutional action that needs to happen, but it was a moral statement and was really empowering," Sherman said.

Haas said that the rally was very positive and constructive.

"The rally was held as a way for the Native American community to show solidarity and unity," Haas said.

Dartmouth College was founded in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock with the intention of educating the area's native population. The school's charter states that it is a college "for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land . and also of English Youth and any others." However, the college only graduated 19 American Indian students in its first 200 years of existence.

"Dartmouth didn't exist in the way it was originally intended for very long, but rededicated itself to that in the 1970s," Haas said.

Dartmouth currently has one of the largest numbers of American Indian students in the country with 157.

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