The Week in Review

Night Retaken

Last Friday, Dartmouth students reclaimed the night yet again in what is becoming an annual tradition. "Take Back the Night" is an event organized by the Center for Women and Gender to raise awareness about the problem of unreported rape. Though the parade frequently devolves into a feminist harangue, fraternity pledges have often made up most of the crowd, since CWG's leaders have convinced the fraternities that non-attendance is an endorsement of rape. Since pledge term has now moved to the fall, few fraternity members attended this year's event, significantly reducing turnout, and wasting a lovely opportunity to pick up womyn.

Speech at Stanford

The Stanford Review, a conservative student publication at Stanford University, has been barred from distributing copies of its newspaper to student dormitories.

Stanford's administration is being very explicit about its reasons for stifling student voices: it believes the publication is inappropriate. "There is certain sensitive content in publications that we don't think residents should have to deal with in their rooms," said a representative of Stanford's residential life bureaucracy.

Dartmouth, by contrast, has tried to prohibit door-to-door distribution of The Dartmouth Review because students and janitors might have to bend at the waist to pick up their copies of the paper.

New Hanover AA Chapter; Stinson's Unworried

Alcoholics Anonymous has finally come to Dartmouth, 103 years after its co-founder, Bob Smith 1902, graduated from the College. A group of recovering alumni alcoholics decided to bring a chapter to Hanover in order to aid current undergraduates "questioning the role of alcohol in their lives."

According to the Daily Dartmouth, "about 1 in 13 [Americans] are alcoholics or abuse alcohol." Presumably Dartmouth's ratio would be somewhat higher.

The group of alumni responsible for the AA meetings believes that students may be discouraged from attending because of their "level of motivation and success." The first meeting was held last Friday evening, giving attendees plenty of time to warm up for the frat-crawl.

Frat Food

"Party Packs," a new initiative sponsored by the Student Activities Office, are beginning to appear with increasing frequency around campus. Delivered by EBA's at midnight, they can contain up to 20 pizzas and 100 beverages.

The administration hopes the "Party Packs" will serve to combat "alcohol abuse" at fraternity parties. Theoretically, the drinks will serve as a viable alternative to beer, and the pizza will make heavy drinking safer. Paid for by Student Activities funds, the packs have been undeniably popular and have been used at a variety of different fraternities.

While Student Activities Commissar Linda Kennedy believes drinkers should have "something in your stomach," we at The Review point out that this only makes the boot harder to clean up.

The BLTs Don't Want Jobs

Announced with much pomp, the "Gay Lives, Straight Jobs" symposium held on Wednesday was an attempt to inform aspiring members of the homosexual community of the dangers and opportunities awaiting them in the workplace environment. Jointly facilitated by Career Services and a business group tied to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Alliance (BLT), the presentation sought to assuage fears, offer resources, and advise alternatives to the modern gay, lesbian, or other job-hunter. Unfortunately, none of these supposedly tantalizing offerings were deemed worthy enough to generate any interest in the topic. The multimedia event was postponed after several minutes due to a lack of attendance.

A representative of Career Services expressed surprise that a Dartmouth Review correspondent came to the event. "The Dartmouth Review? We thought you guys were finished!"

Saul Bellow: RIP

Saul Bellow, the Canadian-born author who helped found the neo-conservative movement avant la lettre, passed away at his home on April 5. Bellow's novels won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, and he won the National Book Award thrice. Regarded as one of America's greatest novelists, Bellow's best-known work are Herzog and Humboldt's Gift.

Greeks at Colgate

In an attack reminiscent of Dartmouth's own Student Life Initiative, Colgate University has begun to mobilize against its own Greek system. The administration is forcing all fraternities to sell their physical plants to the university, so houses will then fall under administrators' supervision. Should a fraternity refuse to sell, it will be banned from campus. Any students in association with the exiled fraternity will be subject to possible suspension or expulsion.

Meanwhile, Colgate has also outlawed the sending of "mass" e-mails with "too many" recipients. Even living off-campus with seven friends is now against the rules.

Tellingly, perhaps, the Dean of the College, Adam Weinberg, is on the board of the group Democracy Matters, a left-wing advocacy group.

Earth Week and SWAT

This year's Earth Week proved crazier than ever, as Dartmouth's environmental activists tried new tactics to push their radical agenda on others. This year, they decided to use what they called "Special Weapons And Tactics" to convince students to compost, recycle, and whatnot. We call it dressing like fairies and acting like imbeciles.

Their new weapons in the fight against lackluster environmental concern include crazy music, crazy clothes, and just general craziness. Tuesday featured a vegan barbeque with rather bland food that didn't bleed. Tours of an environmentally friendly room showed students how to turn spacious Gold Coast rooms into drying-rack storage areas.

The week will end tonight with a party, though this Earth Day celebration will feature reusable cups. Regardless, Sunday will assuredly find students as righteously apathetic as ever.

The Reform America Party Is Born

Luis-Alejandro Dinnella-Borrego '07, who in the winter attempted to train and lead a student army to fight Castro's regime, has decided to move on to something a bit less ambitious: starting a political party and planning a bid for the presidency. His tentative platform, both strongly pro-life and pro-gay, seems destined to appeal to—well, we can't think of anyone.

Affirmative Action: Fostering Mediocrity

In the latest issue of the Stanford Law Review, UCLA Law Professor Richard Sander published the results of his study on affirmative action in law schools nationwide. His research focused on only two racial groups, blacks and whites. Sander notes that black students admitted because of affirmative action policies have lower grades when compared to other students at their schools.

Based on data from first-year law students in 1991, the median black student received grades comparable to a white student performing at the 7th or 8th percentile. He concluded that this performance significantly affected these students' ability to complete law school and pass the bar examination. Only 45 percent of black students completed law school and passed the exam on their first attempt. Sander suggests that without affirmative action policies, this statistic might increase to 74 percent.

His findings support the "mismatch hypothesis," which asserts that students admitted under affirmative action policies enter into academic environments without all the necessary qualifications to compete in that particular environment and suffer as a result. Sander's research indicates that 86 percent of current black law students would have been admitted to law school under race-blind policies.

He claims that by placing many of these students in schools where they fit an admission office's racial preference, rather than where they are best able to compete, many do not graduate or have difficulty passing the bar. Sander suggests that because of this, affirmative action policies are likely producing fewer black lawyers than would result under race-blind admissions policies.

Bicycle Race

Webster Avenue will be closed all day Saturday for a bicycle race. Prospective members of the Class of 2009, on campus for the weekend, are expected to watch the race.

Whites: A Racial Minority?

A small crisis has erupted at the University of Mississippi over the publication of an advertisement in the campus newspaper.

The advertsement, from a group called "American Renaissance," claimed that "third-world immigration—both legal and illegal—is now running so high that whites are expected to be a minority race by mid-century." It goes on to claim that "for whites to 'celebrate diversity' is to celebrate their dwindling numbers and declining influence."