Tuesday, November 10, 1998

Free Speech and Colleges: An Interview with Paul McMasters

The Dartmouth Review: We've got a bit of a problem at Dartmouth at the moment. There was a ruckus raised after a fraternity threw a party with a 'ghetto' theme. There's been some consequent advocacy of limiting free speech, of punishing individual students for their involvement in sponsoring the party, and some talk of developing a speech code. How does this series of events fit with national trends?

Neo-McCarthyism in the Academy

Fifteen years ago, this newspaper for the first time employed the phrase "political correctness" to describe a then-emergent movement in the academy. The term had previously been used by Communist Party officials in the USSR to attack party rivals.

'I Don't Know What We're Protesting'

Thursday night, in a Dartmouth community forum entitled "What is 'Ghetto,'" English Professor William Cook chastised the "myth of political correctness," saying "Free speech is the last refuge of scoundrels."

Student Rights: Congress Weighs In

On October 7 of this year, President Clinton signed into law the Higher ducation Act of 1998, which contains a provision, initially authored by Louisiana Congressman Robert Livingston, that restores rights of free association and speech to all student groups on college campuses.

Restoring Monuments of American Will

It need not have turned out this way. In a dialectical sense the very survival of Grand Central is due to the 1963 destruction, across town, of McKim, Mead, and White's Pennsylvania Station. This act of economically driven barbarism gave energy to New York City's preservation movement, which now has real clout.

Halfway Heaven: A Personal Odyssey

On May 28, 1995 Sinedu Tadesse, an Ethiopian student at Harvard, murdered her roommate Trang Ho. Sinedu stabbed Trang forty-five times in the arms, neck and chest, and then proceeded to hang herself with a noose that she had prepared in advance. Trang was asleep in her bed, unable to defend herself.

Letters to the Editor

To the Editor: You might also mention that Freedman's prevarications serve to demonstrate his incompetence as a scholar and academician, further demonstrating his lack of fitness for the position of president at a most distinguished college.