In Dec. 1996, former ANC Commissioners Patricia Scolaro, Beverly Jost and Westy Byrd filed suit against the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, claiming its refusal to investigate students’ residential status violated residents’ civil rights by registering students to vote. Rebecca Sinterbrand (SFS ‘99), who narrowly defeated Scolaro to win her ANC seat in 1996, and Matt Payne (CAS ‘01), a commissioner elected in 1998, joined the lawsuit as interested parties.
Last month, six years of litigation came to an end when Scolaro, Jost and West agreed to pay $6,000 each to cover the students’ legal fees. But an article printed on the front page of The Georgetown Current demonstrates that some community residents remain as obstinate as ever. Not only are they upset about the fees, but according to the residents’ lawyer, Don Crockett, despite of six years of repeated legal defeat, “We were right then, and we’re still right.”
According to Daniel Bromberg, who represented Sinterbrand and Payne during the litigation, the courts rejected the residents’ arguments at virtually every step of the legal battle. Though the substantial legal issues were resolved by 1998, Scolaro, Jost and Byrd dragged out the battle for four more years.
In civil rights cases, plaintiffs are allowed to recover attorneys’ fees to protect those who cannot afford counsel, but defendants are allowed to recover fees when the suit threatens their own civil rights. Crockett said that the students’ civil rights were not an issue, and fees should not have been awarded.
Bromberg vehemently disagrees. “It’s exactly the type of suit the laws were designed to deal with,” he said. Bromberg emphasized that the $18,000 settlement represents only a “tiny fraction” of the actual cost of the six years of litigation, which he took on pro bono.
It is unfortunate that the anti-student activists still feel it is necessary to gripe about an issue that is decisively closed. It is just as unfortunate that the Current decided to make those gripes front-page news. But the sour grapes aired last week in the Current will stand as the dying gasps of an ignominious era of anti-student sentiment.
Byrd in particular has been notoriously opposed to University and student issues. During the 1996 elections, Byrd distributed flyers warning Georgetown students that those registering to vote in D.C. would be required to pay D.C. income tax, obtain a D.C driver’s license, give up their parking stickers and forfeit state educational grants. She was subsequently investigated for voter intimidation.
While many residents remain adamantly opposed to student rights and University expansion, Byrd’s moment has thankfully passsed. A Georgetown student has served on the ANC every year since 1996, most recently Mike Glick (CAS ‘05). New ANC 2E Chairman Tom Birch indicated that he looks forward to a constructive, not adversarial relationship with the University and its students. While many issues remain contentious, particularly discriminatory conditions attached to the University’s 10-year plan, we are optimistic the new generation of community leaders will create compromise instead of the controversy and rancor Scolaro, Jost and Byrd leave behind. In the future, that will be the real story.
