It's Open Season on the Review!

By J. Lawrence Scholer | Sunday, June 8, 2003

The Nation thinks The Dartmouth Review is irrelevant, and it cites our 'reduced' impact on campus affairs and attitudes. And, hoping to see this prophecy realized more quickly, many Dartmouth students have jumped on the Nation's bandwagon, issuing their own predictions and pieties. So, have cracks begun to form in our foundation? Are many students and liberal journalists, after a few years of radio silence, once again praying for our fall?

The Review figured prominently in the Nation's February 17, 2003 issue and was the main subject of an article titled 'A Once-Bright Star Dims.' In the piece, Tim Waligore '01 and Emma Ruby-Sachs, a Wesleyan student, characterize the Review as still 'notorious' and as having 'reverted to old habits.' Laura Dellatorre '03, offering her support for these assertions, claims that the Review has 'personally [attacked] campus activists and [revealed] the name of a woman who had anonymously complained of harassment by fraternity brothers.' She also cites supposed 'racist comments,' made on a website, about the College's having paid black hairstylists to service black students, badly in need of a new style.

These incidents were provocative—maybe. Funny? Of course—if you're not a bleeding heart. But to say that things have reverted to the ways of old is more than a slight exaggeration. Shanties no longer rise on the Green only to be demolished by students; bitter former staffers no longer infiltrate our offices to insert Hitler quotes into our masthead; and the professor who spouted racist diatribes before his class—lately, he's lucky if he can find a paying gig for his obscure 'jazz' band.

The incident involving the young woman who cried harassment was one of the College's more heavily hyped issues in recent years. A bit of background is warranted. The woman in question, of course, is Darby Green '01. The event, which is understood only in hazy terms, transpired outside a fraternity late in the winter of 2001. A group of fraternity brothers, who shall remain nameless, had gathered outside their house, whose name escapes me. After consuming a few beers, the brothers assembled on their lawn. School spirit overwhelmed them, and they burst into an impromptu recitation of the old Dartmouth football chant: 'Wah-Hoo-Wah! Scalp 'em!' Green passed the house on foot while the brothers cheered.

At this point, the accounts diverge. Green claims that as she approached, a brother yelled, 'Wah-Hoo-Wah!Scalp them bitches!' Green felt slighted and threatened by this chant, though the cheerers were at a distance, so she retreated to her residence. The brothers claimed that this variation on their cheer was never uttered. Their only exchange with Green came when she yelled, 'Why is [aforementioned fraternity] so cool?' A brother retorted with a riddle of his own: 'Why are you so fat?' The administration did not have enough evidence to punish any student involved, but the fraternity was placed on social probation anyway.

It's difficult to see how coverage of this encounter has contributed to our supposedly waning influence and popularity. So why have many Dartmouth students followed the Nation's lead in condemning the Review? In many cases, the reasons seem to be strictly personal. A lot of students just don't like the folks who write for the Review.

John Stevenson recently posted a stinging riposte on DartObserver, a student website, stating that recent issues of the Review have come to resemble 'Happy Hour / Story Time with Larry.' He doesn't cite any specific articles; rather, he only seems to characterize his sense of the views of current Reviewers. He attributes to the Review, during its last term of publication, 'juvenile libertarianism in the field of public morality, reactionary rightist slander in matters concerning public activism and college spending, and conservatism in the field of monetary policy.' Funny, but the only one of these three that the Review dealt with was his second point. And the articles were not slanderous. Our coverage of the College budget crisis focused primarily on the cuts to the libraries, particularly Sanborn.

One question recurs frequently among various Review haters: why are so many conservative-minded pro-war pieces appearing in the Daily Dartmouth these days? Shouldn't those writers use the Review as their mouthpiece? On FreeDartmouth, a weblog managed by the Free Press (a 'progressive' student paper), Scott Anderson writes, 'Conservatives have no other outlet for their ideas since the Review has made itself so irrelevant in recent years.' Irrelevant? Wait and see. I was planning to dedicate my next issue entirely to pro-war columns by well-meaning but ill-informed students. Honestly.

But seriously. How many columns on national and international interests does a college newspaper need? If students want to get the conservative bent on Iraq, for instance, they can read what experts think in journals like the National Review or the Weekly Standard, to name only a couple. Sure, these magazines aren't delivered door-to-door to students like the Review is...oh, wait.

For those who haven't yet noticed, the Review is a student publication that gives top billing to Dartmouth-related issues; other matters in higher education come in second; a few reviews of books, movies, and music are thrown in for good measure. This is not a new policy, but one that the Review has adhered to, for the most part, since its inception. It was best articulatedby James Panero '98 in the June 12, 1996 issue: 'If I were to summarize the role of The Dartmouth Review, then, I guess I would say it is first and foremost a newspaper, and only second a conservative newspaper. I'm not very interested in satisfying readers who wholeheartedly agree with my editorial views. It's everyone in the middle, who are open to ideas but skeptical of false prophets, that can benefit most from this paper.'

Hence, readers who turn to these pages in search of justifications of war on Iraq, or for bitter rebukes of affirmative action, can turn to other sources. As editor, I have tried to present issues at Dartmouth as they are. For instance, the last four pages of this issue deal with sex-related issues, and three about events that the College sponsored. The events are presented in a lively fashion; as a newspaper, it is not our business when describing these events to foretell the decline of morality and higher education. Western Civilization has drowned in a sea of fornication and perversion...the Huns have arrived! May God have mercy on us all!' At any rate, a College-funded 'sex festival,' featuring a woman strutting about with a bowl of condoms, pretty much speaks for itself.

That the popular cry of 'Irrelevant!' comes hot on the heels of an identical proclamation by the Nation is no accident. Past attempts at demonizing the Review—rallies against 'hate' on the Green, petitions urging local merchants to stop advertising in the Review—have failed to kill the paper. Now, hoping to pound a nail or two into our imagined coffin, naysayers have resorted to a riskier strategy. They've placed all their bets on a self-appointed prophet, and now they're praying hard it pays off.

It's Open Season on the Review!

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