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Right on, dental students!
Opinion of Other Journals
Right on, dental students! ■■■It is only the short-memoried who will have forgotten the violent surges of student activism of a few years ago and the changes in our national and academic life which they compelled. It is a safe bet, therefore, that more than one third of the members of the 1973 ADA House of Delegates have short memories, for they voted for the sec ond consecutive year to withhold a vote in the House from one lonely representative of the American Student Dental Association (ASDA). In a flashing burst of liberalism in 1972, the House voted to give a student member of ASDA the privilege of the floor in the House but for some barely discernible reasons withheld the right to vote. The ASDA, protesting properly through chan nels instead of picketing, submitted a resolution to the 1973 House requesting that the student representative be given the right to vote. The res olution was supported by, among others, the ADA Board of Trustees and representatives of the American Association of Dental Schools and the ADA Council on Dental Education. It is, perhaps, a sign of the times that these rec ommendations for approval were not persuasive. The ADA House failed to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to amend the bylaws to give the students a vote. The 15,976 student members of the ADA, representing approximately 13.5% of the total ADA membership, while given minimal visibility in 1972 were not given the majestic re sponsibility of one vote on the “ supreme authori tative body” of the ADA in 1973. Much of the debate on the issue was dismaying for its stark illogicality. Some shining specimens of the arguments put forward were: A dental stu dent is not a dentist and, therefore, should have no vote in an organization of dentists; the student would not be mature enough to vote on critical is sues, although he is old enough to fight wars, vote in civil elections at all levels, and even buy beer in a tavern. It was also argued that the student would have only one vote and this could not pos sibly influence any issue in a House of 418 mem bers and, therefore, the student should have no vote at all; the student could not represent effec 450 ■ EDITORIALS / JADA, Vol. 88, March 1974
tively the opinions of 16,000 students so the dem ocratic thing to do would be not to give him a vote. And so it went—dismally but successfully. Q.E.D. With this heady success of depriving the stu dents of a single vote, the 1973 House also made efforts to restrict the voting rights of the dental auxiliaries on the newly established Commission on Accreditation of Dental and Dental Auxiliary Educational Programs except when an issue was directly within their purview. This democratic action was compounded by an effort to withhold voting rights from the two consumer representa tives who have places on the Commission under the mandate of federal law. The proponents of these two efforts apparently overlooked the op portunity of trying to remove the right to vote from the student member on the Commission and thus eliminate the grave dangers of a student vote as had been done in the House. Happily, these attempts to limit the voting rights of the dental auxiliaries and to deprive five members of the Commission of their full voting rights failed. This will probably quell in part the cynical laughter which will inevitably arise from those who have been treated to the full course of rhetoric on the need for unity, the essentiality of improved communications, the recognition of all members of the dental health team, and the clos ing of ranks against those forces which would jeopardize the profession’s ability to serve the public. In a day when the health professions are under attack from many quarters for allegedly serving their own guild interests rather than those of the public, these sorry antics should not be allowed to stain the record of the dental profession. Right on, dental students, in 1974! Harold Hillenbrand
Reprinted with permission from J Dent Educ 37:5 Dec 1973, copyrighted by the American Association of Dental Schools.
Right on, dental students! ■■■It is only the short-memoried who will have forgotten the violent surges of student activism of a few years ago and the changes in our national and academic life which they compelled. It is a safe bet, therefore, that more than one third of the members of the 1973 ADA House of Delegates have short memories, for they voted for the sec ond consecutive year to withhold a vote in the House from one lonely representative of the American Student Dental Association (ASDA). In a flashing burst of liberalism in 1972, the House voted to give a student member of ASDA the privilege of the floor in the House but for some barely discernible reasons withheld the right to vote. The ASDA, protesting properly through chan nels instead of picketing, submitted a resolution to the 1973 House requesting that the student representative be given the right to vote. The res olution was supported by, among others, the ADA Board of Trustees and representatives of the American Association of Dental Schools and the ADA Council on Dental Education. It is, perhaps, a sign of the times that these rec ommendations for approval were not persuasive. The ADA House failed to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to amend the bylaws to give the students a vote. The 15,976 student members of the ADA, representing approximately 13.5% of the total ADA membership, while given minimal visibility in 1972 were not given the majestic re sponsibility of one vote on the “ supreme authori tative body” of the ADA in 1973. Much of the debate on the issue was dismaying for its stark illogicality. Some shining specimens of the arguments put forward were: A dental stu dent is not a dentist and, therefore, should have no vote in an organization of dentists; the student would not be mature enough to vote on critical is sues, although he is old enough to fight wars, vote in civil elections at all levels, and even buy beer in a tavern. It was also argued that the student would have only one vote and this could not pos sibly influence any issue in a House of 418 mem bers and, therefore, the student should have no vote at all; the student could not represent effec 450 ■ EDITORIALS / JADA, Vol. 88, March 1974
tively the opinions of 16,000 students so the dem ocratic thing to do would be not to give him a vote. And so it went—dismally but successfully. Q.E.D. With this heady success of depriving the stu dents of a single vote, the 1973 House also made efforts to restrict the voting rights of the dental auxiliaries on the newly established Commission on Accreditation of Dental and Dental Auxiliary Educational Programs except when an issue was directly within their purview. This democratic action was compounded by an effort to withhold voting rights from the two consumer representa tives who have places on the Commission under the mandate of federal law. The proponents of these two efforts apparently overlooked the op portunity of trying to remove the right to vote from the student member on the Commission and thus eliminate the grave dangers of a student vote as had been done in the House. Happily, these attempts to limit the voting rights of the dental auxiliaries and to deprive five members of the Commission of their full voting rights failed. This will probably quell in part the cynical laughter which will inevitably arise from those who have been treated to the full course of rhetoric on the need for unity, the essentiality of improved communications, the recognition of all members of the dental health team, and the clos ing of ranks against those forces which would jeopardize the profession’s ability to serve the public. In a day when the health professions are under attack from many quarters for allegedly serving their own guild interests rather than those of the public, these sorry antics should not be allowed to stain the record of the dental profession. Right on, dental students, in 1974! Harold Hillenbrand
Reprinted with permission from J Dent Educ 37:5 Dec 1973, copyrighted by the American Association of Dental Schools.