By tightly controlling access to campaign events, modern political strategists are subverting the American tradition of the town hall meeting and undermining the foundation of our democracy.

Staged dialogue is no substitute for genuine debate, but on all too many college campuses, communities settle for the replacement.

Allegheny College faced this issue in 2004 but was inadequately prepared for the dilemma. A national campaign organization asked to rent a facility on Allegheny's campus for a "town meeting." It was to be a ticketed event, with the campaign organization determining how the tickets would be distributed.

The College's practice had been to welcome private groups to use its facilities with or without charge, depending on availability and circumstances. Without a relevant policy in place, it had no sound basis to deny this request despite its strong distaste for the idea of a closed "town meeting" and frustration with the increasingly prevalent practice by both major national political parties of selecting receptive audiences to enhance the likelihood of generating upbeat media coverage.

The experience spurred into action Allegheny's faculty and administration, who were determined to find ways to encourage candidates to come to campus while embracing the ideals of authentic political engagement and debate—foundations of a healthy democracy. After a considerable amount of real, collaborative discussion on campus, they shaped a new policy that allows campaign organizations to reward supporters with tickets to an event but requires that at least half of the available seats must be made available to the general college community through a non-biased distribution.

And while adopting an effective policy is an important step for any college campus, if similar steps are taken on campuses across America then the simple soapbox–an open-air platform for public political speech–may once again become a strong symbol of our country's democratic ideals. Please join us.