Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/1997/05/28/president_james_o_freedman_a_decade_of_turbulent_deceit.php
Wednesday, May 28, 1997
During my first week at Dartmouth, the College President sponsored a reception for the freshman class at his on-campus residence. Drawn by the promises of free food and a chance to meet the most powerful executive of the College, I dutifully slapped on the required shirt and tie, and joined the hordes of somber men and women in procession down Webster Avenue.
It took me a good half an hour to fight my way through the bubbling throng of ambitiously sycophantic pre-government types. All just to get close to President James O. Freedman, a short man with glasses who sheepishly clung to his wife.
President Freedman was notable, oddly enough , only because he was so generic. He embodied all the stereotypes of a College President. Dressed in clothes that could only be described as forcibly casual, President Freedman had the most insincere of grins stretched across his face. He spun to and fro, at the command of his wife, to momentarily grasp the hand of each eager freshman, nod, unhearingly, at the nervous muttered stutters, and stumble to the next hesitating hand. He looked thoroughly uncomfortable; interacting with other people obviously did not suit him.
It came as no shock when I later learned that President Freedman is a Harvard man — a product not of the unfettered fellowship of the College but of the anti-social, self-centered scholarship of the research university.
Career
'[Freedman] has proved himself to be a marvelously able professor and administrator.'
—Judge Louis Pollack, Dean, University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1987
The career of President Freedman follows a fairly predictable path. Raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, a mere hour's drive from Dartmouth, Freedman graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1957, and went on to attend Yale Law School. Afterwards, he clerked for Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, and then joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania as an assistant professor of administrative law.
Freedman spent eighteen years at Penn Law, publishing extensively and teaching regularly, as he rose through the administrative ranks, finally ending his
career at Penn as the Dean of the Law School.
After Penn, Freedman moved on to become the President of Iowa, where he earned acclaim for expanding the University's graduate facilities. In 1987, he interviewed for the Presidency of Dartmouth, and was selected by the Board of Trustees to replace outgoing President David McLaughlin.
Despite his quarter century of subsequent experience at other universities, it is still clear that only one institution occupies a special place in Freedman's mind — Harvard. The policies that President Freedman has pursued in his decade at Dartmouth were clearly modeled after those of Harvard. Freedman's policies on affirmative action, tolerance of leftist politics, and intolerance of conservatism all reek of Cambridge liberalism. His continued attacks on Dartmouth's institutions and values belie his inability to understand the unique character of the institution. Even more disturbing are Freedman's attempts to expand the College's graduate departments and to undermine the notion of Dartmouth as a College whose primary focus is to educate undergraduates.
Iowa Laser Fiasco
'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.'
—Iowa State Rep. Jack Hatch (D)
Freedman arrived at Dartmouth with a legacy of corruption.
In October of 1987, just months before he departed for Dartmouth, Freedman convinced the Iowa state legislature to spend over $25 million to fully subsidize a center for laser and optical research at the University. The legislature accepted Freedman's proposal after his assurances that three of the world's most
prominent laser scientists had accepted offers to run the center, making it one of the world's premier sites for laser technology. In addition, Freedman promised that the new center would bring over 12,000 permanent jobs to Iowa, which was suffering an economic recession at the time. Throughout the process, Freedman refused to reveal the names of these exemplary scientists who would bring the center to world prominence.
When Freedman left the University of Iowa that spring, he left not only the center but the state in a proverbial lurch. The three scientists, whose identities Freedman had never revealed, backed out of the project after Freedman's departure, claiming they had never made more than an oral commitment to the project. The reputation and prestige of the facility had suddenly evaporated.
Although Freedman still refused to publicize the names of the three scientists, their identities soon surfaced — Ara Mooridian of MIT, William Phillips of the National Bureau of Standards, and Richard Van Duyne of Northwestern University. Each of the three categorically denied making any sort of commitment (oral or otherwise) to Freedman that they would run the center. As the project began to crumble, Freedman conveniently left Iowa, flying East to take over as President of Dartmouth. Reaction in Des Moines was understandably harsh.
'I said it then and I'll say it now,' said Iowa Representative Jack Hatch (D) at the time. 'I think President Freedman purposefully misled the legislature....[I]t was very fortunate for him that he left when he did.'
Representative Hatch continued, '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.'
Dartmouth and McLaughlin
'President McLaughlin was the victim of his own insipid leadership style.'
—The Dartmouth Review
Freedman's predecessor, David T. McLaughlin '54, was the first President of Dartmouth whose prior job experience came exclusively in the corporate world. The faculty distrusted him from the start because of his absence of academic credentials. By the end of his tenure, McLaughlin was nearly universally detested by the faculty because he refused to accommodate their demands.
McLaughlin's administration also lowered the academic standards of the College. Rigid standards for administrative and faculty applicants were swept away as McLaughlin increasingly turned to racial and ethnic hiring quotas.
McLaughlin also took significant steps to suppress free speech on the campus, censoring speakers and prohibiting students from voicing conservative political views.
President Freedman was seen as the solution to McLauglin's shortcomings — an intellectual who could restore some of the College's academic prestige while also preserving the freedom of the individual.
Freedman Cries Wolf
'It is clear that President Freedman is willing to discard the truth in order to avoid dealing squarely with the issues.'
—Garrett Blackman '75
President Freedman's first few months in office were so uneventful that the Review, in an article lauding the return to quiescent, academic calm that Freedman had brought to campus, called him 'Doctor Doolittle.' Not a single concrete policy had emerged from Freedman's first few terms as Dartmouth's President. He was waiting for a popular issue with which to begin his term at Dartmouth, and, in the Spring of 1988, he found it.
In its February 24 issue, The Dartmouth Review ran a cover story entitled 'Dartmouth's Dynamic Duo of Mediocrity,' which attacked the teaching incompetence of two Dartmouth professors, Richard Corum of the English Department and Music professor William Cole. The article on Professor Cole was essentially a transcript from one of his Music 2 classes, which dealt not at all with Music but quickly dissipated into a rambling, cursing, invective-filled soliloquy on poverty in Pittsburgh. The article also included a transcript of a follow-up interview with Cole conducted by Review Executive Editor John Sutter. During the course of the interview Cole repeatedly referred to Review staffers as 'racist dogs', 'g*ddamned, f*ck*ing, *ssh*le white boy racists', and later, he even threatened to 'blow them up.'
Four Review editors approached Cole after class the following Thursday and delivered a memorandum which invited him to respond to the article's accusation. Cole threw a temper tantrum, swearing and screaming incessantly. He grabbed the camera carried by Photography Editor John Quillhot and threw it to the floor, breaking its flash. He also stuck his finger in the pocket of Executive Editor John Sutter, and taunted him extensively. According to Review Editor-in-Chief Chris Baldwin, Melinda O'Neill, the Chair of the Music Department and a respected figure in Dartmouth's academic community, watched in disbelief.
Freedman had his issue.
Cole is black, and so Freedman spoke at a series of rallies denouncing the supposed racist character of the The Dartmouth Review, and, for the next few months, nearly all of his other his speeches focused on the issue.
The Committee on Standards held a hearing on Baldwin, Sutter, Quillhot, and Review freshman Sean Nolan, and all four students were disciplined. Baldwin and Sutter were suspended for six terms, Quillhot for two, and Nolan was placed on College probation for one year.
For his actions, the Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, deemed Freedman 'the Bull Connor of academia.'
His national prestige growing, Freedman decided to stick with what was working: denigrating The Dartmouth Review. In October of 1990, a disgruntled Review staff member snuck into Review offices and secretly inserted a quote from Hitler's Mein Kampf into the Review's masthead. After the editors of the Review discovered this treachery several days later, they acted immediately to remove what copies had already been distributed, and disavow the quote. They also called in the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith to help resolve who had inserted the quote in the masthead.
Unfortunately, President Freedman moved quickly, again plastering charges of racism, bigotry, and anti-Semitism across America's tabloid landscape. William F. Buckley concluded that Freedman had prejudged the situation, the New Hampshire Human Rights Commission found no evidence of categorical discrimination in the Review's pages, and, after over 400 hours of interviews and investigation, The Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Birth absolved The Dartmouth Review of all responsibility. Still, the damage had been done.
Freedman's censorship was, of course, politically selective. He allowed Angela Davis, an avowed Communist and notorious anti-Semite, to speak at Dartmouth in 1989. He even sponsored a $10,000 honararium, unprecedented for a speaker of Davis' prestige. Angela Davis was invited back to Dartmouth six years later to deliver another speech, for another generous honarium.
Freedman the Tee-Totaler
'I think that in ten years...the fraternities will be co-ed and so will the sororities at that point.'
—President James O. Freedman
From themoment he arrived, Freedman has overseen the campus crackdown on Dartmouth's traditional fraternity system. One of Freedman's first moves was to institute sophomore rush in 1989, an extremely unpopular move amongst alumni and students. Freedman also brought in M. Lee Pelton as the Dean of the College. Pelton has proven an intelligent, respectable and competent administrator and intellectual leader. However, he also gained a reputation as a 'frat-buster' on the Colgate University campus, and he was hired largely because of it.
The fraternity system has borne further blows from President Freedman. Kegs were banned at fraternity parties in the early nineties, and although that ban has since been overturned, it was quickly replaced by strict alcohol regulations. Fraternities have been put on probation with unprecedented frequency over the last few years. In a six-week period over the winter, no fewer than eight fraternities were placed on probation for alcohol violations and one, Beta Theta Pi, was derecognized by the College.
The alcohol crackdown has not been limited to the fraternity system. No less than six years ago, dorm parties replete with kegs of beer were commonplace. Now, they are unheard of and against college policy.
Although it is difficult to trace these policies directly to the impetus of President Freedman (they are generally the product of committees of the Dean of the College), it is plain that such influential policies were not made without the explicit consent of the College President.
Creative Loner
'[I]t is appropriate that we consider the importance of silence and of solitude in providing a respite from the chatter of the daily world, in nurturing the private self, and in creating a healthy and productive thoughtfulness.'
—James O. Freedman
The fraternity system is not the only part of traditional Dartmouth under vigorous assault. President Freedman's stated concept of the ideal Dartmouth student is completely opposite to College tradition.
In an essay written in the mid-nineteenth century outlining the difference between 'Harvard and the Dartmouth Man,' H.H. Horne, a Professor of English, outlined a series of arguments that have been used to define the College ever since.
'The average Dartmouth man knows more of his fellow than the average Harvard man. The advocates of the country as a site for an educational institution never failed to point out the close companionship it engenders. At Harvard there is almost the variety of segregated interests that an English University with its colleges show; it is...common that the Harvard man's interest in the whole is secondary to his interest in some part of the world. At Dartmouth 'the College' comes first, partial interests of whatever kind second.'
By way of poignant contrast with the words of Professor Horne, Freedman chose to conclude his inaugural address, in the summer of 1987, with these remarks:
'We must strengthen our attraction for those singular students whose greatest pleasures may come not from the camaraderie of classmates, but from the lonely acts of writing poetry or mastering the cello or solving mathematical riddles or translating Catallus. We must make Dartmouth a hospitable environment for students who march to a different drummer — for those creative loners and daring dreamers whose commitment to the intellectual and artistic life is so compelling that they appreciate, as Prospero reminded Shakespeare's audiences, that for certain persons a library is 'dukedom large enough.''
Campus Attendance
'He may not be the kind of President who walks across the campus in a lumbarjack shirt with a labrador retriever at his side and may not be in the locker room after every practice or every game.'
—John Rosenwald '52, Chairman, Board of Trustees
President McLaughlin was frequently criticized for being isolated from College life. Students hoped that the new, intellectual President would take a more extensive interest in the day to day existence of the campus.
Unfortunately, Freedman has likewise remained decidedly aloof. Rather than maintain an on-campus residence (as all other Dartmouth Presidents have), Freedman lives across the river in Norwich, Vermont, and rarely meets with students on campus.
Criticism of Freedman's unwillingness to interact with his campus is not limited to the student body. 'I would tax Freedman with not having understood the importance of engaging the faculty in the governance of the institution,' said Edward Bradley, a professor of Classics at the College for 33 years. 'While he enjoys to an unusual degree the confidence and respect of the faculty, he has evidently not been troubled by the pervasive apathy that at times borders on disaffection... the administration, beginning with the President, has the resources and the responsibility to take the initiative in attempting to re-educate the faculty to its own better interests which are also those of Dartmouth College when faculty and administration interact in creative and dynamic ways.'
Administration
'The Administration is not empowered to supplant their will by ignoring the intent and spirit of the original founder of Dartmouth College.'
—Anthony Gonzalez, Esq.
The Dartmouth administration has seen runaway growth under President Freedman's tenure. Administrators are currently paid more than one and a half times as much as the College's instructors, and consume 73% of the money students pay in tuition on an annual basis.
Although the administration certainly began its growth under previous Presidencies, it has reached alarming levels under Freedman's tenure. In 1985, before Freedman took over, there were just under 400 administrators. By 1995, after a decade of President Freedman, the administration had grown to include over 650 bureaucrats, while enrollment barely budged.
College Expansion
'My question is, why would Dartmouth want to expand? There are enough great graduate research universities out there. I don't think this country needs another one.'
—Professor Frank Lentricchia, Duke University
In the decade since that ominous introduction, President Freedman has taken significant steps towards making Dartmouth a large-scale, research university. The first stages of construction have already begun on Berry Library, the $50 million addition to Baker Library, and the Moore Building, a new psychology building North of the Green. The plan, according to reports made public last spring, is to demolish existing Gerry and Bradley Halls, which currently house the Math Department, and construct a second green North of Baker framed by Moore and Berry.
Since President Freedman's tenure began, Dartmouth has also added extensively to the physical campus. Burke Laboratory and Sudikoff Hall, two massive structures that house Physics and Computer Science labs, respectively, have been added recently. The College has also doubled its capacity to deliver steam across the campus — a change that paves the way for massive
development in the future.
Further, in the early '90's, a matrix was discoverred which showed prospective College enrollment and building capacity. The matrix showed three distinctive phases of student population: 5,500 students, 7,900 students, and 9,000 students. The matrix also showed increased building space for housing, academics, student life, and administration.
According to the matrix, when expansion is complete over 253,000 square feet of dormitory space will be added. Despite the existence of such a matrix, President Freedman and all other administrators continue to deny all plans of growth in the student population.
The substantial expansion of Dartmouth's physical plant characterized by the addition of the new Green, taken in combination with President Freedman's stated goal of expanding the College's graduate programs, has prompted speculation that Dartmouth will significantly expand its graduate programs. It seems inevitable: Dartmouth is becoming a research University.
Experts on university expansion agree. 'The general situation is clear,' said Frank Lentricchia of Duke University. 'Dartmouth intends to expand into a graduate institution of research.'
Freedman's tenure was perhaps best summarized by Judge Robert Bork. 'I knew Freedman when he was a student at Yale. I also knew him when he was at Iowa. I do not know what has happened.'