A Decade of Response: Voces Clamanti on President FreedmanEditor's Note: The following quotes are a compilation of highlights from columns, letters, and interviews concerning Dartmouth President James O. Freedman, which have been published in The Dartmouth Review over the past ten years. They are grouped according to subject matter.
'Freedman called a campus-wide rally to denounce the staff of the Dartmouth Review as racist and bigoted. His action, calling for hysterical community response to the equivalent of one swastik a graffiti in a student newspaper, was as inspiring to civil liberties as a lynch party in the South.' In Search of Anti-Semitism 'There is nothing President Freedman is better at doing than calling the attention of the whole world to the putative delinquincies of his own College.' Column in the Dartmouth Review
'What he [Freedman] did, I think, in the poorest political sense, was to abuse the emotions of the depressed economy in Iowa to promote an idea that had absolutely no credibility.' Jack Hatch 'Laser liar.' Richard Varn 'You might say he [Freedman] pushed the $25 million facility through the state legislature just in time to get it on his resume and get the hell out of here.' Joe Levy
'I think President Freedman used it [the Hitler quote incident] in an oppurtunistic fashion, as an occasion to attack The Dartmouth Review in a gratuitous manner. He used it, it seems to me, in order to build up support among the other constituencies. It was quite obviously a raid against The Dartmouth Review. I was not at all surprised, but nonetheless disappointed.' Herb London 'Dartmouth officials have to date shown no interest in uncovering what happened, and indeed convened a lynch mob to make scapegoats out of innocent students... [this is turning out to be] Dartmouth's Tawana Brawley case; [President Freedman is] the Al Sharpton of academia.' Dinesh D'Souza 'In this case, too, Mr. Freedman, a former law professor, refused to discuss the issue with the accused students. He publicly declared them guilty before their disciplinary hearing of 'acts of disrespect, insensitivity, and personal attacks' and 'rascism, sexism, and other forms of ignorance.'' L. Gordon Crovitz 'I thought President Freedman's response [discussing free speech on the college campus] revealed a rather shallow understanding of the nature of the problem, particularly for a man who claimed — at least initially (before his installation as President)— to be impressed by Bloom's book The Closing of the American Mind...[I]t seems a terrible shame that President Freedman squandered an oppurtunity to ameliorate the tensions on campus and reach out to the thousands of disaffected alumni.' Laurence H. Silberman 'Sadly, Mr. Freedman has already done irreperable damage, and it is doubtful that he retains sufficient credibility to set things straight..I'm very sad about all this. I'm sure its even more sad for you because you love Dartmouth College, and the institution has suffered immeasurable damage because of the reckless actions taken in the last three weeks by President Freedman.' William Simon
'I think the alumni body at the beginning wasn't quite sure that Jim Freedman was 'one of us.' As I travel around the country, and I travel for Dartmouth as much as anybody, what I sense is a realization that he may not be the kind of President who walks across the campus in a lumberjack shirt with a Labrador Retriever at his side and may not be in the locker room for every practice after every game.' John Rosenwald '52 'Then we switched to President Freedman who was obviously an academic and who was given the mandate by the Board of Trustees of being a national spokesman for liberal arts education. I think it was time to adress the needs of the faculty, the needs of curriculum review, the image of Dartmouth as a place of intellectuals where we concentrate on education. I think there was a perception in many circles that Dartmouth was more of a party school. I think that President Freedman has worked hard to improve the image that its good to be smart, that Dartmouth has fantastic resources, and we seek excellant minds to come in and Nancy Jeton '76 'I would say President Freedman is a very successful administrator. He seems to know how to get along with the faculty especially... [although interaction with students] is probably a weak part of his administration. On the other hand, a person cannot be everything. Freedman did not have the Dartmouth experience. But I'm more impressed about what Freedman does than what he says. He said things when he first came to Dartmouth that I think students did not appreciate — namely his statement about the 'creative loner.' Dartmouth students generally have been sociable people. There's a difference between Dartmouth and Harvard in this respect.' Colin Campbell
'My question is, why would Dartmouth want to do this [expand the College's graduate program according to President Freedman's proposals]? I mean, there are enough great graduate institutions out there. I don't think this country needs another one. The health of the culture depends on really dedicated and passionate undergraduate teaching. Sure, Dartmouth can make this transition, but it would no longer be Dartmouth College. It will no longer be a place dedicated to the nurturing of students between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. It will be dedicated to the nurturing of professionals — many of whom will have dubious value for the culture, at best.' Frank Lentricchia 'I think the undergraduate has suffered as a result of Freedman's constant emphasis on research. Look around — there are more teaching assistants than professors in the classroom. That isn't a covenant with quality.' John Kottman 'I have procrastinated in hope that once Freedman was installed, things would begin to improve. Having completed the one-month vacation immediately following his inaugeration, having participated in the damaging interview in The Boston Globe, and having provided us with his ideas of Dartmouth's needs (more Rhodes scholars and female students), Freedman has already demonstrated that he is an intellectual sophist and even more out of touch with reality than his predecessor.' Michael D'Elia '59 |
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