Student Backlash Halts Winter Carnival Theme Change to ‘Snow Justice, Snow Peace’

For over 100 years, Winter Carnival has been a pleasant day for Dartmouth students to get out and enjoy the blistering winter cold.

During the dreaded term, students spending most of their time in the library, cooped up in rooms, waiting in anticipation for months to enjoy the polar bear plunge (jumping into the icy cold Occom Pond), the dog-sled race and other fun Winter Carnival activities.

This year is shaping up a bit differently…

Dartmouth students playing pond hockey on Occom Pond

Several days after the Winter Carnival Committee introduced their proposed theme “The Cat in the Hat Comes to Winter Carnival,” Lambda Upsilon Lambda, Dartmouth CoFIRED and Mosaic sent out campus-wide blitzes urging the committee to change the stated theme to “Snow Justice, Snow Peace,” in order to focus the weekend around conversations of racial justice.

I am proud to be a self-proclaimed activist and social justice warrior. That being said, I couldn’t stop laughing after these different campus groups proposed to change the Winter Carnival name to “Snow Justice Snow Peace”

Ice cold beer, a Winter Carnival staple

Many students didn’t see the comedy in the proposed theme change. Centering a major Dartmouth tradition like Winter Carnival around racial justice provoked outrage from the general campus body.

What did campus groups specifically hope to accomplish by changing the name of the theme? If they wanted Winter Carnival to center around racial justice why didn’t they just join and take over the Winter Carnival Committee?

What would the Winter Carnival sculptures look like with “Snow Justice Snow Peace” as the theme? Would this theme change Winter Carnival traditions permanently moving forward?

Watch this video of the first Winter Carnival meeting here:

Last year’s Winter Carnival statue

The Winter Carnival Committee Responded to the criticisms of its theme in a fairly hilarious email reading:

Recently, some members of our community requested that we reconsider our announced 2016 Winter Carnival theme, “The Cat in the Hat Comes to Winter Carnival: Seuss on the Loose.”

We appreciate the time students took to come to our meeting last Monday to discuss the theme and have spent the last few days discussing this issue. After much deliberation, we decided to update the theme to “Seuss on the Loose.”

We hope that organizations across campus will use this as an opportunity to develop creative, relevant, and inclusive events for Winter Carnival and we will reach out to organizations to discuss these opportunities. Please let us know if you would like your event to be considered for the Winter Carnival calendar.

We also encourage students to become part of our planning process and attend our Winter Carnival Council meetings during winter term. We look forward to planning Winter Carnival 2016.

Rauner Library during winter

I would like to applaud the efforts of MOSAIC, Dartmouth CoFIRED and Lambda Upsilon Lambda in attempting to generate dialogue towards important issues on our campus.

However, considering Winter Carnival has traditionally been a weekend centered around drinking and enjoying activities in the freezing temperatures, I am going to have to cast my vote in favor of a Dr Seuss themed Winter Carnival. I believe we can continue to participate in constructive open dialogue on injustices at Dartmouth and around the nation without changing the theme of one of Dartmouth’s biggest traditions.

The Winter Carnival Committees follow up email essentially recognizes and shuts down students demands to change the winter carnival name to ‘Snow Justice Snow Peace.’

It seems the chairs agree with the rest of general campus body and myself on this matter:

We need Dr. Seuss to come to winter carnival this year.

What theme would you pick?