Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/1996/10/23/identity_crisis.php
Wednesday, October 23, 1996
Eleazar Wheelock was a Christian missionary. Dartmouth's first students were local Indians. For better or worse, that's the history. Time and attitudes change. We change. But isn't it better to accept your own past, evaluate it for what it was, and come to grips with it, rather than hide it away?
Ever since the 1974 vote to banish the Indian symbol from campus, Dartmouth has been hiding from itself. Rather than confronting the past, looking at it through strong and sober eyes, the College cowered away. Native American activism became more vocal in the early 1970's than ever before, and more than it ever would again. And the College was swept up in it.
Dartmouth has always maintained a great fear that it might fall behind the times, and the College often has often made rash decisions in response. Gerry, The Choates, the River Dorms, the Hopkins Center —?these all seemed like 'hip' architectural ideas to someone at the time. It has been the same way with political ideas. Anyone outside Dartmouth knows political correctness went out of vogue almost five years ago, but the Dartmouth Administration is recognized by many to be the most P.C. of any Ivy League school these days.
So the temptation to modernize struck the College in 1974 at the height of Native American activism. Since then Native American activism has toned down. Over twenty years later, I look back and ask: what did we lose?
We lost Dartmouth's identity. The Indian symbol was our spiritual connection to the past. It was our strength, it was our history — it was Dartmouth. The two-feathered iconography of the symbol was faithful to headdresses of the local Mohegan tribe. The Indian symbol was serious, like an Indian-head nickel. The symbol demonstrated Dartmouth's respect for its past.
The 1974 decision dishonored that past for political whim. The symbol was never 'racist' and everyone knows it. In 1984 The Dartmouth Review interviewed 200 Indian chiefs across the nation about the symbol. An overwhelming 125 of those who responded felt the symbol was anything but racist. Many thought it was in fact a proud symbol.
The administration therefore has led a campaign of deception over the past 20 years — very unenlightened for a place of higher education. They try to play down the Indian symbol's influence at Dartmouth and claim the symbol was made up by sportswriters in the 1940's. A blatant lie. There is evidence in Dartmouth's very own library archives that the Indian symbol dates back at least 100 years. They also continue to say the symbol is racist when they know that's not true. The Indian symbol is no Aunt Jemima. It was not the stereotype of a savage as they claim, but rather a simple, somber face in profile. In truth, the College powers prefer to forget the Dartmouth's past — and that's why the Indian was dropped from campus. All Dartmouth tradition means nothing to them. Most administrators did not even attend Dartmouth, so how could they understand?
They see the College as a present entity. They are the people in charge, so they can do anything they want. A complex history only confuses things, so who needs it?
But is that right? Aren't we part of an academic legacy that began with a few Indians in 1763? To serious people, history has significance. Let us never forget the traditions. May the Indian never die.