The Death of Speech

By Michael J. Ellis | Friday, April 22, 2005

The art of speech has always been a crucial aspect of Dartmouth College. In 1819, the College was in dire straits, with an uncertain future. William Plumer, the newly-elected governor of New Hampshire, attempted to replace the College's Federalist-sympathizing Trustees with his Jeffersonian political cronies. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, and a young Daniel Webster, class of 1801, argued on behalf of the College. Famously, he exhorted the Justices to preserve the College, maintaining that "it is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!"

Webster's peroration carried the day, and the College was preserved as a private institution, free from state control. But now, 186 years later, the College, which owes its very existence to rhetoric, is shamelessly abandoning its commitment to campus discourse through restrictions on free speech, the marginalization and neglect of the study of rhetoric, and bored of the great issues of our day.

Of course, President James Wright, skilled politician that he is, has always spoken of his commitment to free speech. In his Convocation address this past year, Wright declared that:
An academic community—indeed a free society—rests on the freedom to think and to speak out. The free expression of ideas is a bedrock principle, even though not all that is thought or said is equally valid or true.

A different pattern becomes clear, though, when Wright's actions, rather than his speeches, are analyzed. Wright makes these statements when Dartmouth continues to receive a "red light" rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), meaning that the administration "clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech;" Peter Robinson '79 and Todd Zywicki '88, petition candidates in the Trustee election, have been prevented from campaigning while shadowy groups of alumni and faculty advocate against them; and the College's only professor of speech and rhetoric, Jim Kuypers, has been neglected and marginalized to the point where he is resigning out of disgust. As Nathaniel Ward notes in his article on page seven, Wright's "defense" of campus dialogue is just the latest in a long series of stretched truths and outright hypocrisies.

Wright's most recent statement on free speech was in response neither to FIRE's censure of the administration for its extreme sanctions against the Zeta Psi fraternity [see page 14 and TDR 4/8/05], nor Robinson and Zywicki's criticisms of free speech restrictions. Rather, it came when commending a new Ford Foundation call for grant proposals "to address the potentially chilling effect of the 9/11 attacks, the Iraq war, and violence in the Middle East on academic dialogue." While the Ford Foundation generally keeps a low profile, it is among the top donors to leftist causes, especially the defense of racial preference programs. A pattern quickly becomes clear: Wright pays the necessary lip service to free speech, but when push comes to shove, he only supports it when it dovetails with the causes he favors. On too many issues, there remains a disturbing disconnect between his words and his actions.

The departure of Professor Jim Kuypers from the faculty only underscores the perilous state of discourse at the College. For many years, Kuypers has been the lone professor of Speech, starved by the administration of resources and attention as he taught the original liberal art: rhetoric. Kuypers was a perennial fixture on The Review's list of best professors, and while I never had the opportunity to take one of his classes, many students I know have. It wasn't just Review staffers who enjoyed his classes, either: liberal and conservative students alike spoke glowingly of his free-wheeling style and intellectually intense classes, where they were forced to revisit their assumptions and articulate their views, the very essence of what a liberal arts education should be.

It would not have taken much to save Dartmouth's Office of Speech. A blue-ribbon faculty report in 1999 concluded that just two additional full-time staff were needed to transform Speech into a full-fledged program of Rhetorical Studies with more course offerings, workshops to help faculty improve their presentation skills, and the opportunity for students to minor in the field. But rather than expend this small amount of funding in a time of largesse, the administration decided that Speech was unnecessary, that it was overly vocational, and that other classes encompass the necessary elements of speech.

How did they come to this decision? An ignorance of the liberal arts combined with a Buzzflood-esque compulsion to imitate Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. (After all, if they don't have Speech departments, why should Dartmouth? Perhaps James Wright should call women's mathematical ability into question so we can better emulate Harvard.) Associate Dean of the Faculty Lenore Grenoble says that the College is not sure how it will proceed with the Office of Speech. However, three months after he informed the administration of his departure, no search has begun for Kuypers's successor.

Perhaps what is most troubling, though, is the lack of genuine political debate on campus. As Scott Glabe shows in his retrospective on the take-over of Parkhurst Hall in 1969, and Professor Roger Masters laments in his letter to the Editor, Dartmouth used to pride itself on the active roles its faculty and students took in national debate. Gone are the days when national figures like Ernest Martin Hopkins and John Sloan Dickey, both presidential advisers, led the College. Seniors are no longer required to take "Great Issues" courses to educate them on national and international issues, and the student body has not been truly mobilized to make its views known since the Vietnam War. Today, real dialogue has been replaced by name-calling and mutual derision in a student body that cares more about frivolous Student Assembly elections than it does about the war in Iraq or our government's coming financial crises.

And without Jim Kuypers on the faculty to teach Dartmouth students how to express themselves and articulate their views on the important issues, speech will be increasingly imperiled at Dartmouth. If, years from now, the College requires an impassioned supporter to defend its rights and traditions, it will have no Daniel Websters to argue its case.

The Death of Speech

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