Decision pending for student protesters arrested in October

On July 2, Lebanon County District Court held a hearing for Roan Wade '25 and Kevin Engel '27, two student protesters. stopped Wade and Engel filed a motion to have the college drop their charges on May 10, according to Engel.

At the hearing, the state filed a brief to make its case. The judge did not issue a ruling and said deliberations would begin in 10 days. According to Kira Kelley, Wade and Engel's attorney, the defense will use those 10 days to respond to the state's brief.

The two students were arrested on October 27 while calling Dartmouth strip They demanded that the authorities provide them with information on organisations “complicit in apartheid and its apparatuses”. They both pleaded not guilty to the charge of trespassing when they were indicted on 18 December.

During the trial, Grafton County Assistant District Attorney Mariana Pastore responded to a question from Judge Michael Mace about whether the college “prefers its students to have a criminal record rather than a suspension.” In her response, Pastore stressed the importance of “taking students' criminal records into consideration.”[ing] a no.”

“I tell my 13-year-old daughter all the time, ‘You have to accept no,’” she said. “‘You have to accept no. Every once in a while in life, you have to accept no.’”

Wade called this argument “infantilizing.”

“It's very humiliating, given that we came [to Dartmouth] “If we couldn't get an education and use that education to voice our concerns, we would be infantilized in that way,” they said.

Despite Wade's frustrations with some elements of the hearing, Engel said he and Wade hope to “ensure the rights of future students” by going through the hearing process.

“What happened to me and Roan shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “What happened on May 1 shouldn’t have happened… [The College has] “They have to meet certain standards and protect the safety of students, but they're just not meeting those standards.”

On May 1, 89 people were stopped at a pro-Palestinian protest on Green. Pastore eventually refused to file a complaint According to previous reports from Dartmouth, at least 28 of those arrested have been charged. Thirty-five other charges have been reduced from misdemeanors to felonies.

Wade said they and Engel stood “in full solidarity” with the other students who were arrested.

“The experience of being arrested is very isolating,” Wade said. “The way it plays out can also be very isolating and that feeling of … insecurity and not really knowing how things are going to play out is something that we’re not alone in feeling.”

The College declined to comment on the hearing.