Week in Review

Sunday, November 3, 2002

Pro-War Position Gets the Boot

Following a dynamic debate about the moral dimensions of war with Iraq, an overflowing audience composed of students and elderly Upper Valley residents voted overwhelming against invading the country. The American Idol-like conceit—that the audience would get to vote at the end—drove the vigorous discussion between Max Boot, an editor of the Wall Street Journal, and Richard Falk, a Princeton professor. Father J. Byron Hehir, the head of Catholic Charities USA and former dean of Harvard Divinity School, moderated the debate.

Mr. Hehir framed the debate in terms of the 'just war tradition,' a premise that allows for war in a moral universe. A just war safeguards human rights and occurs on a limited scale. He defined this principle as splitting the difference between pacifism, a philosophy that holds all lethal force immoral, and realism which he said acknowledges the world as it is, where 'the strong do as they will and the weak do as they must.' Mr. Hehir asserted that the definition of a just war had been tested in recent years by the new realities of the nuclear age, humanitarian intervention, and terrorism. These last three trends, he said, all converged in the debate over Iraq.

Mr. Boot presented a forceful case against Iraq and Saddam, hammering the 'brutal tyrant' for attempting to acquire nuclear weapons, hiding a vast chemical and biological arsenal, violating U.N. sanctions, invading his neighbors, subjugating his own people, and threatening the security of the free world. 'The evil is demonstrable, the threat clear,' he declared. He described an invasion of Iraq as a 'moment of hope, idealism, and opportunity... a tremendous moral undertaking worthy of the United States' and concluded that the end result would be the first democracy in the Arab world.

Mr. Falk strongly disagreed with Mr. Boot's arguments. 'Recourse to war is dangerous, unpredictable, and rarely produces net benefits,' he began, conceding Saddam's despotism, but emphasising that Iraq was the most deterred nation in the world and not an imminent threat to national security—that the just war tradition simply did not sanction a unilateral, preemptive strike. He claimed that a campaign of 'exaggeration and distortion' was pushing the country toward war. He further asserted that a war with Iraq was a diversion from issues of real urgency. 'Why are smart people doing a stupid thing? The short answer,' he opined, 'is oil. And oil is not a moral justification for war.' Claiming that a sense of hubris had overtaken our national leaders, Mr. Falk called on the citizenry to reassume responsibility for the direction the country is headed.

It was not difficult to guess which way the vote would turn. Mr. Falk's talk was punctuated by wild bursts of clapping, whooping, and emphatic head-nodding; in contrast Mr. Boot's close received only tepid applause and gales of laughter rippled through the audience when he emphasized at one point that the both the democratic process and national polling supported invasion. When the floor was opened for questions, the tone of the debate became more raucous and accusatory. One student clad in a beret alleged that what he called the moral failings of America—government treatment of slaves, Indians, invasions of Cuba, Mexico, blah blah blah—invalidated our moral authority. At another point, a sassy ethnic woman got into a verbal tussle with Mr. Boot over Ariel Sharon, which involved, on her part at least, a lot of finger snapping and head swiveling. His response received, not surprisingly, exasperated murmurs of dissent sweeping throughout an audience stacked against him. The final vote was 217-52 against invasion.

On the way out, the omnipresent group 'Why War? Think About It' waved banners and handed out bulletins for an upcoming 'peace rally, teach-in, and vigil.' This writer was proffered by a young woman with blue hair and a nose ring.

Busted

Hanover Area Police Report: October 1- October 23, 2002

On October 3, 2002, Troy Royster of Enfield, NH, a kickboxing instructor employed by the Dartmouth College Athletics Department, was arrested at Thompson Arena on counts of illegal possession of controlled or narcotic substances, as well as the unlawful possession of alcohol.

On October 5, 2002, Jeffrey Hotaling, '06, of Hinsdale ,IL was arrested in the Lyme Road area for the unlawful possession of alcohol.

On October 5, 2002, John H. Wilkens, '06, of Elmsdale, IL was arrested in the Lyme Road area for the unlawful possession of alcohol.

On October 5, 2002, Meredeth A. McGowan, '04, of Bedford, MA, was arrested at the Coldwell Banker/Redpath Associates building at 8 West Wheelock Street for the unlawful possession of alcohol.

On October 6, 2002, Joseph J. Boswell, '06, of San Aselmo, CA, was arrested at the tennis courts on East Wheelock Street for the unlawful possession of alcohol as well as resisting arrest.

On October 19, 2002, Aaron D. Brown, '05, of Dallas, TX, was arrested on Tuck Mall for the unlawful possession of alcohol.

On October 20, 2002, Hugh Jessiman, '06, of Darien, CT, was arrested on North Main Street for the unlawful possession of alcohol.

Stanford Scalps Harvard

Harvard dropped to second place in a national diversity survey prepared by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. The survey ranked top universities by their admissions yield rates for black students. Harvard, which had previously led the nation in black yield for the past two decades, slipped this year because five fewer blacks enrolled than last year. One hundred thirteen blacks enrolled at Harvard out of 184 offered admission in 2002, contrasted to a yield of 118 out of 185 in 2001. Stanford moved into the top spot.

The situation has caused controversy on campus, where many attributed the fall in the survey to the recent clash between President Lawrence H. Summers and Afro-American Studies Professor Cornell West. West was offended when Summers criticized his scholarship and said that his rap CD was 'an embarrassment to Harvard.' Harvard admissions officials attributed the shift to increased competition for minority students.

Black yield was only one part of the survey, where Harvard was ranked eighth overall. Duke was named the most diverse national university, while Dartmouth was rated eighteenth. Dartmouth was the lowest ranked Ivy League school.

The Review is no stranger to the JBHE. In the spring 1994 issue, the Journal published 'Scaring Black Students Away From Dartmouth,' where they wrote, 'A major reason why Dartmouth has difficulty in attracting black students is the negative public perception created by the renegade student-run and independently supported The Dartmouth Review—a right-wing and often irreverent publication that has taken what many believe to be offensive and racist positions on minority-related issues.'

Dorm Debacle at Vandy

On October 17 the Tennessee division of the United Daughters of Confederacy sued Vanderbilt University. The lawsuit stemmed from the university's recent decision to rename Confederate Memorial Hall dormitory, truncating the name to Memorial Hall.

Sixty-seven years ago the United Daughters of Confederacy donated $50,000 to the construction of the dormitory. In 1935 the total cost of construction was $150,000. The UDC feel 'removing the name would represent a breach of contract.' According to the UDC, the dormitory was originally built to be a memorial for Confederate soldiers.

The name of the dormitory has been an issue for years at Vanderbilt. Apparently some African American students would refuse to enter the building. The decision was made 'to create a more positive, inclusive environment.' Carolyn Kent, the former UDC of Tennessee President, said, 'In that mix there seems to be no room for anyone of Confederate descent.' All plans to alter the building have been halted.

Just Say No

Graduate students at Cornell University overwhelmingly voted against unionisation at an election held on October 24. The election, which was brought about by the Cornell Association of Student Employees / United Auto Workers (CASE/UAW), was part of a national campaign by the UAW to bring student unionisation to private universities.

According to the election results, voter turnout topped eighty-eight percent, with 2,043 out of 2,318 eligible voters casting ballots. Of these, nearly seventy percent sent a resounding message to the UAW by casting a 'no' vote on the unionisation measure. This defeat on the ballot is one of a number of recent setbacks to the UAW, as a number of private universities, including Brown and Columbia, are currently challenging the unionisation rights of students before the National Labor Relations Board.

War on Iraq

On Wednesday, October 30, Dean Lord of the Tucker Foundation moderated a discussion titled, 'War in Iraq: Political, Moral, and Spiritual Perspectives on the Iraqi Crisis.' The featured speaker was Yale University Chaplain Frederick Streets, while Kent Dahlberg of the Campus Crusade for Christ and government professor Daryl Press joined in with their perspectives.

Chaplain Streets unequivocally stated that the 'war with Iraq is not justified.' Citing the lack of U.N. approval, the likelihood of terrorist reprisal against the U.S. and Israel, and the attendant human costs, he declared a U.S. invasion of Iraq 'illegal, unwise, and immoral.'

Professor Press, who also opposed war, admitted that there are two good reasons for invasion—one, to free the Iraqi people of a murderous dictator, and two, to stop Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programme where he sees 'motive coming together with capability.' Press said that a third reason, however, that is often given by war proponents, that Saddam was allegedly involved in the September 11th attacks, is unfounded. After speaking with people in intelligence, he has concluded that 'there is not a shred of evidence' tying Saddam to 9/11. Of his reasons against war, Press feels that the military and political costs will be greater than most people think. Despite the enormous technological advantage of the U.S. military, he finds that the city has a leveling-the-playing-field effect on fighting. 'If we have to fight Saddam in Baghdad, a lot of Americans will die, and a lot of Iraqi civilians will die.' Last, Press felt that there is simply no need for war. Despite others' characterisations of Saddam as a lunatic capable of doing anything, he insists that 'we can live with him' as we have lived with murderous dictators like Stalin and Mao Zedong in the past. 'We like to call him a madman, but he's not a madman; he's a bad man.'

Mr. Dahlberg argued that the ethics of the situation favor war. Ever since Eve bit the apple, Dahlberg explained, evil has existed in the world, and war is sometimes necessary to eliminate it. Likening the situation to a surgeon having to cut a patient in order to operate, he added that, 'Often the peacemaker is the one willing to engage in war.'

Disarming Bellesiles

Michael Bellesiles, a controversial professor of history at Emory University in Atlanta announced in an October 25 statement that he was resigning from his post effective at the end of this year. Bellesiles, author of the Bancroft Prize-winning book Arming America, began fighting charges of academic dishonesty and research misconduct from other scholars almost as soon as his work was published. In Arming America, Bellesiles contended that gun ownership in colonial America was rare and that the Second Amendment was not intended to cover the possession of firearms by individuals.

Emory formed an independent committee in May to research the allegations made against Bellesiles, whose members consisted of professors Stanley Katz of Princeton, Hanna Gray of the University of Chicago, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich of Harvard. The committee found that Bellesiles was guilty of 'egregious misrepresentation' of relevant data, failed to identify sources for some of his assertions in a manner that bordered on the 'realm of falsification,' and engaged in 'superficial and thesis-driven research.'

Most of the improprieties Bellesiles perpetrated were related to his research of private wills that would indicate the ownership of guns by the deceased, the element of his research that the Washington Post had previously called his 'freshest and most interesting source.' While gun control advocates 'praised him for [debunking] the mythology presented by the gun lobby,' it now seems clear that that 'debunking' was itself based on mythology invented by Bellesiles in order to advance his ideas. Mr. Bellesiles remained adamant in the defense of his book, however, calling Emory's inquiry 'just plain unfair' and attributing his resignation to 'a hostile environment.'

The Other War

The College recently put three Greek houses on social probation for summer term social violations.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon has been put on probation indefinitely for serving alcohol to minors during both the summer term and freshman orientation. The punishment will remain in effect until the house has educated its current members and alumni about risk-management practices concerning alcohol. SAE must also demonstrate to Undergraduate Judicial Affairs and the Office of Residential Life that it has turned a new leaf. A recent check of the house by staff members found the basement vacant and locked down.

Theta Delta Chi will be on probation until November 12 for having an unregistered keg. The fraternity did, however, receive an exemption allowing them to hold their annual Pig Roast over Homecoming weekend.

Panarchy received its first probation violation since its formation because it did not register its 'Great Gatsby' party during the summer term. The Gatsby event, which Panarchy holds each term, is their only social event that is even marginally popular with students. The punishment is not expected to have a great effect on the campus social scene because Panarchy has already held the party this term and has ne!=ver really been that popular anyway.

Bones Gate remains on probation for having too many people in their house during a previous term.

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