Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2000/03/13/letters_to_the_editor.php

Letters to the Editor

Monday, March 13, 2000

Students Should Run Their Lives

To the Editor:

I am Editor-in-Chief of the Bowdoin Orient, the student newspaper of Bowdoin College. I am writing in response to your recent editorial ('Talk to My Lawyer,' TDR, 2/7/00) in which you mention the policies of Bowdoin towards Greek letter organizations.

Your piece correctly noted that the Bowdoin administration has stated that they believe the freedom of association amendment to the Higher Education Act 'is only an advisory opinion from Congress, and has no binding effect.' Sadly, they have good reason for this belief: the wording was specifically designed to remove any ability to enforce the provision, according to Mark Corallo, then-Representative Bob Livingston's press secretary, in an interview with me in November of 1998.

The editorial also noted that California has a law on the books that protects students' freedoms. Maine, where Bowdoin is located, offers no such assurances to students. An attempt by alumni and students from colleges and universities around the state last year to enact such legislation died in committee. We in the Pine Tree state are also at the disadvantage that in the 1980s one forbidden fraternity at Colby College sued and lost when their members faced disciplinary sanctions, so the legal precedent is already set here and will likely remain until some future legislation is passed.

As your piece noted, Livingston said on the floor that the amendment to the Higher Education Act was supposed to prevent private schools from banning Greek organizations 'even if it is off-campus and on their own time.' As I understand the law, it protected only the right for students to congregate in groups off-campus. At Dartmouth, none of the proposals I have read involve punishing students for joining Greek organizations. Instead, they seek to remove the residential component of such organizations, or in the worst case scenario eliminate any recognition of such groups by the Dartmouth administration.

In contrast, at Bowdoin, any student deemed guilty of belonging to an off-campus 'self-selecting, self-perpetuating social institution' (no matter what the gender makeup) is automatically expelled. This is a more stringent punishment than cheating, stealing or assault. Similarly, Middlebury and Colby threaten sanctions against anyone found to be a member of such an organization even if all meetings and other events took place off-campus.

In my opinion, a private college should not have to provide support or recognition to every organization that wants it simply because students are members. I even think a residential college can make its students live in College-owned housing, like Hamilton College has recently done. What I can't stomach is a school like Bowdoin wanting total control over every aspect of students' lives during their four years here. What I do off campus should be none of their business, and that is the right I wish Congress had actually protected.

Kim Schneider
Brunswick, Maine

Editor's Note: Students may not enroll at Dartmouth College if they belong to a fraternity or sorority not recognized by the College, even if it is off-campus. Denial of recognition, then, would result in the expulsion of any student who continues to participate in the non-recognized organization.

Assaults on Freedom

To the Editor:

While I am not a Dartmouth alumnus (UVM '66 and Phi Delt), my father, Walter, was a member of the great class of 1932 (Deke and Sphinx), so I have some of the 'granite of New Hampshire' in me. Your editorial on the attempted destruction of the fraternity system strikes a familiar note; UVM is doing (or has already done) the same thing and my daughter's alma mater, Franklin & Marshall, derecognized sororities and fraternities some years ago (although they still remain the focus of campus social activity much to the chagrin of the administration).

I have been arguing your point about freedom of association for years, but the courts always seem to find 'state action' and a reason to impose its will (e.g. Frank v. Princeton). The more recent case involving the 'takeover' of a private Connecticut country club by an appointed trustee due to alleged sex discrimination is another ludicrous example of interference with the rights of individuals in what we all thought were private entities beyond the reach of the courts for alleged violations of state or federal discrimination laws.

Keep up the good fight! Wah Hoo Wah!

Paul J. Modarelli
Leonia, New Jersey

The Indecent Dartmouth Review

To the Editor:

I have just received a copy of your 'Review' in the mail, apparently sent to all Dartmouth alumni. It is not welcome in my home. After scanning its vicious articles, I react as Boston attorney Joseph Welch did in confronting Senator Joseph McCarthy a long time ago: 'Have you no sense of decency, sir?'

Maybe you are too young to learn from the ugly career of the late Senator, but hear this voice of experience from an old man: Those who live by the sword die by the sword. Those who wallow in the mud of human greed and self-interest rarely are able to extricate themselves. Those who sell their principles usually wind up penniless.

Harold Putnam '37
Vero Beach, Florida

Thought Control at Dartmouth

To the Editor:

After receiving The Dartmouth Review of January 24, with quote from the Student Life Initiative Report on your headline, to wit, '...and must expect to see their freedoms restricted, for the good of the community as a whole,' I asked my wife, unknowing of the quote's origin, from whence its source. She replied obviously a Communist or Socialist, possibly Lenin, Stalin, or Hitler.

Thought control is alive and well at Dartmouth, miserabilia dictu.

Donald W. Smith, MD '51
Atherton, California

Obfuscation and a Dartmouth Education

To the Editor:

From the time when President Wright first spoke to the Dartmouth public in print, I have been amazed and, then and now, appalled at how much verbiage he can use to say little or to obfuscate. My gentlemen professors of English, McCallum and Allan MacDonald, undoubtedly would have returned Wright's freshman themes without a grade, begging him to make his point. I can almost see them swooning in desperation over his logorrhea which, indeed, is some sort of tribute to how little may be conveyed in the most words. Soon, he'll be inventing new prepositions as the Romance languages did to avoid case endings.

Henry James is not an easy read. I mentioned this to my doctoral advisor at the University of Illinois (Urbana); his response said it all: 'Like a spider, James strings a filament to some almost intangible point—and sometimes, it breaks!' Yes, Yes!

Since I'm an old guy and, while in Hanover, read College-wide comments from Ernest Martin Hopkins and John Sloan Dickey, I feel that President Wright abuses the linguistic privilege that he has to come into my house via any mailings. They didn't.

As you young folks helped rid Dartmouth of 'Drummer' Cole some years ago in a salubrious move, I still ask myself about the suitability of those whose 'academic' credentials lie in that gray world where no real professor would dare tread. I refer specifically to President Wright's gratuitous comment that he looked forward to adding to his inner advisory staff a man who was finishing his doctoral work in Education in California.

I know that some departments have no intellectual content; they beget each other. They use lingo and statistics as substitutes for pith. Go look for a D.Ed. in the Steele Chemistry Building of L.B. Richardson fame (class of '00 and historian of the College). They are hard-assed boys.

My son advised me last week that he and his wife want their three sons to go to Hanover. Of course, that regaled me. I am only looking down the line and want the right kind of people to guide this beloved ship.

Edmund J. Carney '46
Lock Haven, Pennsylvania

Time to Act

To the Editor:

I was both surprised and impressed with the January 24th issue of the Review, particularly with the letters and articles opposing the changes being advocated by the College administration. There can be little doubt that a majority of the alumni and undergraduates oppose these changes.

It is, however, high time for action to replace words! It is past the time that a responsible alumni organization, such as the Ernest Martin Hopkins Institute, or similar group, take the initiative in stopping a non-graduate president together with a small, carefully selected group of trustees, from changing Dartmouth into an institution with which very few of us care to be associated.

There would seem to be two approaches to accomplishing this essential goal, the first political, in which a poll is taken of all graduates and undergraduates to determine if they will oppose or support these changes, and if they would continue to support the College if they were made. The results should make very clear the unpopularity of this tiny group's proposals, as well as the potential absence of future financial support without which no college can survive.

The second approach would be legal. I would be surprised if a case could not be made that would prevent these changes. I cannot imagine that one small handful of disoriented individuals could successfully impose their will in this matter. The time is rapidly approaching when action must be taken if Dartmouth, as we know it, is to survive.

William Watson, Jr. '40
Norristown, Pennsylvania

Right Prescriptions

To the Editor:

As all physicians know, a patient's history is crucial to an accurate diagnosis. On an initial visit, it is difficult for doctors to determine if the patient is untruthful. In the article, 'Dick's House: Busted' (TDR, 1/27/00), there is no evidence that the care given to these actors was wrong. I think a better title for the article would be 'Dick's House: Framed.'

Scott Zashin, MD '80
Dallas, Texas

Editor's Reply:The central point of the article was that many students use the college infirmary as a supplier of drugs for recreational use. Regardless of the merit of particular prescriptions, this phenomenon is problematic, and it was appropriate for the Review to call attention to the issue.

Last month, a United Nations panel criticized the United States for overprescribing psychiatric drugs. The US, the panel reported, consumes 80 percent of the world's methylphenadrine (Ritalin). It may be that doctors are right to prescribe these drugs so often, but we think it appropriate to question the informality and frequency of the prescriptions, especially when they're abused so often.

—The Editors