The Money Trap

By Kevin Hudak | Friday, January 23, 2004

Around the Review office, it's an old gripe: $140,000 of our parents' wealth will be doled out in the service of an education mostly managed by droning, uptight administrators and burned-out radical academics. We're paying their salaries, but where's that money going from there? After investigations into the campaign contributions of Dartmouth professors and bureaucrats, we found out where a lot of it's headed: straight into the clammy palms of liberal fundraisers.

According to an article in The Princeton Tory, campus campaign contributions lurch heavily to the left. Big surprise. But we were curious to see how Dartmouth's contributions stacked up, so we turned to the website www.OpenSecrets.org, an on-line database of campaign donations. OpenSecrets is sponsored by the Center for Responsive Politics and tracks money in government—specifically the names, occupations, and hometowns of political contributors who donate more than $250. All information is obtained legally.

Monetary contributions, most anyone would agree, demonstrate a greater level of political commitment than simply casting a ballot. Although the Review in no way frowns upon political donations, it is quite interesting to see where all that cash is headed. Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg, for instance, donated $1,500 to unelectable Democratic candidate Barney Brannen in 2000. And while many students might have been delighted to meet President and Mrs. Wright at the beginning of their freshman year, how many knew that she donated $1,900 to Emily's List, a lobbyist organization that supports female politicians pushing a pro-choice agenda? How many would care? Probably not many. But still.

According to OpenSecrets, the education industry (composed of mostly of professors and administrators) has been increasingly generous in recent years, compared to other industries like entertainment or pharmecueticals. In 1990, education was ranked forty-second. This year, it's number fifteen. And the donations are increasingly polarized. In 1990, the split was roughly 58 percent Democrat and 41 percent Republican. Today, it's 63 percent to 41 percent.

Dartmouth's numbers are a lot more lopsided. In December 2003, we crunched the numbers for the elections cycles in 2000 and 2002, using the employer keyword "Dartmouth College." The results were even more suprising than expected. In 2000, Dartmouth donated $26,300 and $22,400 of it went to democratic candidates or traditionally Democratic groups. ($1,250 went to independent groups, and $2,650 went to Republicans.) In 2002, Dartmouth donated $18,650 to liberal entities and not even a single cent to Republicans. A lot of it went to local candidates.

In this year's election cycle, those in the College's employ have already shelled out $28,800 to the Dems. Almost half of this money has gone to Howard Dean. Suprisingly, Dartmouth has also given $3,000 to Republicans this time around.

Professor David F. Roberts of the Dartmouth Medical School, came up many a time during the searches. For the three election cycles studied, he donated more than $24,000 to several different Democratic entities, including former Governor Jeanne Shaheen, the DNC Services Corps, and the National Committee for an Effective Congress.

Compared to other post-codes, 03755 is a gold-mine, and a liberal one at that. It funneled $193,920 into politics in 2002—the average zip-code in the United States contributes $30,819! The vast majority of Hanover donors gave money to Democratic candidates and organizations in a state characterized that year by Republican donations (60.6% of the 2001-2002 donations were Republican).

So, for all the griping about special interests in the White House, it seems many of Dartmouth's faculty have special interests of their own—substantial investments in left-leaning candidates and organizations.

The Money Trap

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