After several days of nonviolent pro-Palestinian protests last October, a tent erected on the lawn outside Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock’s office was the “red line” that led to the arrests of two students, Beilock testified in Lebanon District Court on Monday.
After hearing more than five hours of testimony and lawyers’ closing arguments, Judge Michael C. Mace didn’t immediately issue a verdict on the trespassing charge in the joint trial of Dartmouth students Kevin Engel and Roan Wade.
Mace told both sides and courtroom spectators that he was taking the case under advisement. He did not offer a timetable for when he’d announce a decision.
Engel and Wade were arrested by Hanover police, who had been summoned by the college’s administration, last Oct. 28 — exactly a year before their trial concluded on Monday.
Engel and Wade pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass. If found guilty, they will have a criminal record and face a potential fine but not jail time.
Last October, as part of pro-Palestinian protests on campus, Engel and Wade sat inside a camping tent, refusing to leave for roughly six hours before they were arrested in the middle of the night.
Their trial began Feb. 26, but the Lebanon court’s lack of a full-time judge and numerous motions filed by both sides and Beilock’s private attorneys contributed to an eight-month delay in the trial’s completion.
On Monday, five people, including Beilock and Engel, took to the stand. Much of the testimony focused on roughly 1,000 pages of documents — mostly text messages and emails — that Mace, in an order issued last Friday, instructed Dartmouth to share with the defense. Attorney Kira Kelley, who is representing the students pro bono, said she received the documents on Saturday — two days after a hearing was held to determine which documents, if any, that the college must turn over.
During her nearly two hours of questioning Beilock, who has served as Dartmouth’s president for 15 months, Kelley relied heavily on the documents.
Often in her testimony, Beilock said she couldn’t recall specific conversations and meetings from last October that were referenced in documents that Kelley showed her. Beilock testified, however, that she was in a “constant state of conversation” with her administrative team on the night of her arrests.
On Monday, Beilock was accompanied by her legal team. The college’s interim general counsel and two attorneys from McLane Middleton, a Manchester firm brought in by the college, attended the proceedings and met behind closed doors with Beilock before she took the stand.
Shortly before the trial began in February, Kelley subpoenaed Beilock to testify. But Beilock, through one of her attorneys, tried to have it quashed, claiming she had “no relevant testimony” to give. Mace denied the motion, which resulted in her testifying on Monday.
On Oct. 20, 2023, a group of students began protesting on the lawn outside Parkhurst Hall, the college’s main administrative building. Starting on Oct. 20, multiple tents were pitched on the lawn, but on the night of the arrests only one was set up and occupied.
“We had always been clear the tents were a red line and a security risk,” Beilock testified.
Dartmouth administrators considered Engel and Wade in violation of college policy for occupying a tent that they hadn’t pre-approved. Dartmouth’s security chief, Keiselim Montas, who also testified, and Hanover police warned the students they could be arrested for criminal trespass, if they didn’t leave the tent.
In addition to Engel and Wade violating a school rule outlined in the college’s student handbook, “I also had in my possession a document that threatened physical action and escalation,” Beilock testified.
Beilock referred to the “Dartmouth New Deal,” a student-generated document presented by protesters that outlined a wide range of demands for the college related to social justice.
“We are taking action now, but we will escalate. You have until the first day of the winter term to publicly address our demands and outline a plan to meet them. If you fail to do so, we will escalate and take further action,” the document stated.
Engel testified that the phrase “physical action” in the Dartmouth New Deal only referred to nonviolent protests.
On March 1, four days after the trial’s initial session, then-Dean of the College Scott Brown issued a campus-wide email that said “after discussions with (Engel and Wade) we now understand that they are consistently nonviolent activists.”
Also in her testimony, Beilock said she hadn’t spoken with Hanover police before the arrests. In his testimony, Montas said he was the only Dartmouth official who attended a meeting at the Hanover police station a few hours before the students were handcuffed and taken into custody.
In countering a claim made by Kelley, Hanover police prosecutor Mariana Pastore argued there was “no collusion” between the college and the town’s police department.
By complying with the college’s requests throughout the week to remove tents, student-activists avoided disciplinary hearings that could have led to their possible suspension or expulsion from the Ivy League school, Beilock said.
When Kelley asked why college administrators hadn’t followed the disciplinary process outlined in the student handbook, Beilock said: “We were giving them the widest possible latitude, and when we had asked them to take tents down previously they had.”
“Our hope was to have conversations with them and figure out what they were protesting and what they wanted and how to consider that.”
Beilock testified that she had “offered” to speak with the students on Oct. 27 — before they were arrested.
During his testimony, Engel said Beilock’s offer to talk that night was not communicated. It wasn’t until three to four weeks after their arrests that he and Wade learned about the president’s offer, he said.
Previously, the students were told that if they exited the tent they could meet with Beilock, but “it was specified that it would not be that date, but would be at a future date. We were not even aware that the president was at (her) office that night,” Engel said.
Police body camera footage that Pastore presented on Monday showed Engel and Wade complied peacefully officers during their arrests.
In her concluding statements, Kelley argued that Dartmouth administrators allowed the protest to go on for a week and only called in police when alumni donors and members of the Board of Trustees began to mount pressure.
“The tents were a pretext,” Kelley said.
Multiple witnesses testified that the tent didn’t present any safety threats, Kelley said. Her clients were prepared to face a college disciplinary hearing for their actions, but didn’t think the college would call for their arrests, she added.
In her closing statements, Pastore argued the students should have understood the consequences of their actions and did not request a disciplinary hearing. She also added that Dartmouth acted within the law and the student handbook didn’t protect from being arrested.
“The notion that the handbook in some way allows students to do whatever they want with no repercussions whatsoever provided they are not violent is ludicrous,” Pastore said.
After the trial ended Monday afternoon, about 20 Dartmouth community members gathered for a rally outside the courthouse in support of Engel and Wade. The two students discussed the day’s events and joined the group in a series of pro-Palestine chants. Kelley watched nearby.
“We couldn’t have done this without you guys and we’re forever grateful in solidarity,” Wade said to the group.
Clare Shanahan can be reached at cshanahan@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
