Since its origins in 1909 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has always fought social injustice. When average citizens feel they have been unfairly wronged by laws or rules, the NAACP has usually stepped forward to take up their cause. In fact, the nation's premier civil rights organization is often the last, best hope for little guys who challenge the legal system.

How ironic, then, that the state chapter of the NAACP would be ganging up with the Pasquotank branch of the organization to ask the federal government to bring the full force of its scrutiny down on one little guy whose only crime was to challenge the rules.

The Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, was in Elizabeth City the week before last, and during his visit he lashed out at several voter residency complaints filed by 4th Ward voter Richard Gilbert. Barber didn't call Gilbert by name, but said his challenge of 18 African-American college students' votes in last fall's city elections "intimidated and harassed" the students and may have been a violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Barber and Pasquotank NAACP President Keith Rivers have asked the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department, which takes NAACP complaints very seriously, to investigate.

It apparently doesn't matter to Barber and Rivers that Gilbert lost his challenge. At a preliminary hearing, the Pasquotank Board of Elections correctly dismissed his complaint, telling Gilbert he had failed to show probable cause why any of the 18 students he had challenged were ineligible to vote.

But the way the Barber and Rivers see it, the elections board never should have considered Gilbert's complaint in the first place. By not immediately dismissing the challenge, the board allowed college students who did nothing wrong, to be harassed and intimidated, Barber said. "When you do it to our children going to school, trying to the right thing — when you challenge the student, you challenge the very heart of our community," he said.

It's entirely appropriate for Barber to be upset by Gilbert's challenge. It's also understandable for him to be upset that the 18 students' first taste of the democratic process may have been soured by an election complaint.

What's not appropriate is to deny Gilbert the chance to file an elections challenge or have a fair hearing on his complaint.

Gilbert believes that because dorm residency is inherently temporary it shouldn't be used for voting purposes in local elections.

We happen to disagree. We think state election law clearly allows college students to register and vote in elections by claiming their dorms as their official residence.

But that's a disagreement. It's not a subject for a federal investigation. So it's extremely disappointing that the NAACP, a civil rights organization that normally defends a citizen's right to challenge his government, would be calling for an investigation that's essentially designed to chill dissent.

Of course there may be other motives at work here. Rivers and Barber also want the Justice Department to look at another Gilbert complaint, one that successfully challenged the voter residency of Rivers' brother, Kirk, and that may end up dislodging him from his seat on Elizabeth City's city council.

Barber said the NAACP just wants to ensure city council doesn't lose the racial balance it's had since a new ward voting system more favorable to minority candidates was imposed in the 1980s. But we do have to wonder, given the Rivers brothers' involvement, if the NAACP's moral authority isn't being misused here to settle a personal score. It seems the only "intimidation" at work is of Gilbert and the local elections board that had the good sense to agree with him in the Rivers matter.