TDR 25: Revisiting Freedman

By Timothy Leung and Steven Menashi | Friday, March 3, 2006

James Freedman was hired as President of the College in 1987 in the hope he would rally together the administration, faculty, and students to craft a serious academic vision for the impending new decade. Freedman, however, came up short to his demands. Freedman’s inept abilities at campus politics led to the downfall of his administration. He never could stomach the College’s culture and traditions, and so became an academic grapnel, stubbornly fastening Dartmouth to his own prejudices.

Dartmouth, as our students past and present have known, prides itself on its commitment to undergraduate education, as well as a sort of well-roundedness to its students. Freedman attempted to vanquish our beloved notions of Dartmouth by committing to expanding the college’s graduate program, thus evincing his anti-College instincts. When Freedman decided to shake up the College, a number of his colleagues in academia spoke to the issue, including John Kottman of the University of Iowa:

I think the undergraduate has suffered as a result of Freedman’s constant emphasis on research. Look around — there are more teaching assistants than professors in the classroom. That isn’t a covenant with quality.

In addition to his treacherous efforts to destroy our undergraduate foundation, Freedman also had a long and dubious relationship with the student body and this publication in particular. “I now see that the Review is dangerously affecting — in fact, poisoning — the intellectual environment of our campus,” Freedman intoned in a 1988 address to the Dartmouth faculty. At that meeting, he called the newspaper’s staff “perversely provocative” and “irresponsible, mean-spirited, cruel, and ugly.”

An incident concerning the September 29, 1990 issue brought about his greatest confrontation with the paper. A former staffer of the Review played the role of saboteur by inserting a quotation from Hitler’s Mein Kampf to replace the usual Review credo by Teddy Roosevelt. Upon realizing the error and the danger of the situation, Review Editor Kevin Pritchett destroyed the papers that went to press and issued an immediate apology.

Freedman, before learning about any of the facts, reacted with histrionics and indignation. He took it as an opportunity to label the editors of the Review as racists, despite the fact that editor Kevin Pritchett was black and a considerable amount of staffers were Jewish.

Freedman seized the opportunity. “Appalling bigotry of this kind has no place at the College or in this country,” he proclaimed. Even before an investigation had been conducted, Freedman led a ‘Rally Against Hate’ on the green, using College money to help along his crusade against the Review . “For ten years The Dartmouth Review has consistently attacked blacks because they are black, women because they are women, homosexuals because they are homosexuals, and Jews because they are Jews,” he told the crowd.

The extent of his sheer stubbornness was demonstrated in an interview with the Wall Street Journal , in the aftermath of the rally, which attracted national media attention. The Journal asked Freedman about actions he would take if the fascistic quotation were indeed the work of a saboteur, Freedman had to say only, “I just haven’t thought about that.” Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith and the New Hampshire Human Rights Commission both found that the Review was not, and had never been, anti-Semitic.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal , L. Gordon Crovitz explained, “It may simply be that critics of the Review saw their chance and took it without worrying about the details, such as whether the Review might also be a victim. Asked before yesterday’s rally if his attitude would be any different if it turns out that the substitute credo was the work of some prankster or saboteur, Mr. Freedman said, ‘I just haven’t thought about that.’ He has not been in contact with Review staffers to hear their suspicions.” As Freedman kept up shrill denunciations of the Review throughout his presidency, major media outlets, even the liberal New York Times , began to speak out against his role in handling the campus incidents of anti-Semitism.

In the aftermath of Freedman’s rally, a Jewish Review member, Andrew Baer, a freshman who lost some thirty relatives in the Holocaust, had swastikas painted on his door. The incident so frightened his parents that they made him resign from the Review and considered withdrawing him from Dartmouth. Freedman never even commented on this incident.

Conveniently dismissing that the Review has been a long standing proponent of Israel, the man continued his moral tirade against this journal despite the investigation that absolved the Review of not only the September 29, 1990 incident but incidents of articles dating back to the early 80s. Because of this public fiasco, William F. Buckley, Jr.’s landmark book, In Search of Anti-Semitism (1992), included a section about Freedman’s utter and absolutely invalid accusations. The book highlighted many cases throughout history of charged anti-Semitism and described both valid and false accusations, Buckley decried Freedman’s accusations as groundless and perhaps the “most egregious of them all.” In his liberal delusions bordering on paranoia, Freedman came to believe anyone deviating from his ideal of liberalism was a Nazi sympathizer. A brilliant academic indeed, Mr. Freedman had ideals and beliefs only a Harvard education could influence.

In addition to the fiascos of the early 1990’s, Freedman oversaw several projects and campus expansions. A more discerning look into one of these projects reveals the hypocrisy of this man’s supposedly good nature towards the College. The Roth Center for Jewish Life, dedicated in 1997, undoubtedly is a hub for the Jewish community not only for Dartmouth but the Upper Valley as well. He took credit for this project, claiming that his ethnic ties spurred its construction and that he would frequent it. In fact, James Freedman returned to the beautiful building only once for a token appearance following its dedication. What strikes many to be the most disturbing was Freedman’s scheduling of the 1989 Freshman Family Weekend on the eve of Passover. It seemed a ‘regretful’ Freedman, who perpetually used his practice of Judaism to his own political advantage, failed to remember perhaps the most holy high holidays of the Jewish faith. These incidents hold particular interest as Freedman persistently referred to his Jewish ethnicity disparaging the Review .

In 1998, two incidents focused campus attention on the issue of anti-Semitism and revealed the dauntlessness of Freedman’s paranoia. On February 11th, President Freedman gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times discussing his speech on anti-Semitism at Dartmouth, delivered at the dedication of the Roth Center for Jewish Life. Six days later, the Dartmouth community experienced an act of anti-Semitic vandalism.

A female Jewish student returned to her room that night to find her door defaced with a Star of David and the words, “Death to you.” The student, who wished to remain anonymous, resided in the River apartments. In a statement issued on February 19, Dean of the College Lee Pelton wrote, “Dartmouth College deplores these acts of racism and hate. This behavior is contrary to the College’s educational values and its Principle of Community.”

President Freedman, however, called no ‘rally against hate’ to protest the incident. Yet, as soon as given the opportunity, Freedman began to preach from the bully pulpit once again to reiterate his unfounded accusations of the Review ’s anti-Semitic practices. “In my time at Dartmouth,” he said, “we’ve had enough evidences of anti-Semitism from the Review .” Like many who consider Freedman’s charges groundless, the victims of the crimes, the leaders of Dartmouth Hillel, and a Jewish support group all came forward and refuted Freedman’s comments, saying that this crime was an oddity and that Dartmouth has been supportive and welcoming for Jewish students.

The Freedman administration has no doubt met criticism from many, especially from these pages . A superficial reading of his presidency might credit him with completion of the Roth Center and the groundbreaking of Baker-Berry Library; however, Freedman’s true record paints a significantly darker picture. The man was and continues to be an illustration of how fanatics do not govern well.

TDR 25: Revisiting Freedman

Article Tools

Related Articles