April 27, 2005, 7:57 a.m.
Getting Hell from Hanover
Dartmouth alumni take on the American higher-ed establishment.

By Alston B. Ramsay

It’s only Spring yet, but Dartmouth is simmering. Controversies at elite schools are common enough, but this most recent one, over an election for two open seats on the board of trustees, is worth paying attention to — and not just if you’ve got a connection to Dartmouth.

This all started last spring during a bizarre election for a single seat on the board. As per an 1891 agreement, the Alumni Association, whose membership includes all living alumni, elects half the board — but the candidates are chosen by the Alumni Council, a separate organization largely handpicked by Dartmouth’s administration. But there is a backdoor to the process, and T. J. Rodgers ’70, a well-regarded Silicon Valley CEO, slipped in by gathering 500 signatures, thus earning a place on the ballot as a petition candidate.

He ran on a highly open and critical platform: Dartmouth’s students suffered from lapses in “thinking and reasoning” due to curricular failures; “diversity by mandate” should be dropped because it “demeans those it intends to help”; there ought to be sensible reforms to bring the college governance process out of the smoky backrooms and into the light of day. But above all, he wanted speech restrictions scrapped. His views apparently resonated with alumni; Rodgers clobbered the competition, garnering well over 50 percent of the vote — in a four-way race.

For free-speech advocates on and off campus, the Rodgers election was the first positive omen in some time, a sure sign that Dartmouth may have finally turned away from the rampant political correctness of the ’90s. But college president James Wright refused to attribute his election to widespread discontent. He chalked it up instead to alumni preference for a CEO-type over an academic-type.

Enter this year’s petition candidates, who no one will argue aren’t academic types: Peter Robinson ’79, former Reagan presidential speechwriter, T.V. moderator, and Hoover Institute fellow (and a frequent NRO contributor), and Todd Zywicki ’84, a tenured law professor at George Mason, 2001 winner of that school’s “Professor of the Year” award, and a senior research fellow at George Mason’s James Buchanan Center for Political Economy. Both set up websites (Robinson’s here and Zywicki’s here) questioning the Wright administration’s priorities on numerous issues, but free speech was front and center. Both expected some internecine squabbling, but neither was prepared for what was to come.

With their signatures certified, Robinson and Zywicki were shackled by election rules that prohibited campaigning by the candidates and their supporters — ironic, given the central premise of Robinson’s and Zywicki’s campaign. Candidates were limited to a few e-mails (Zywicki’s and Robinson’s), a brief online statement, a web video, and some online questions that bordered on ridiculous. Despite all this, Robinson and Zywicki dismantled their websites and agreed to play along. And that’s when the election went to the dogs.

The vitriol flew with astounding rapidity, and it came from all directions. An alumnus was bold enough to lay out specific criticisms in the daily paper of the same type Zywicki and Robinson had cited. He met with a swift reprisal from the powers that be: The dean of the faculty shot back, along with the chairman of the government department, a former trustee, and the college provost. They all painted rosy, sun-drenched portraits of the college’s policies — simply denying that extensively documented failures existed — and also of its relationship with alumni — even as alumni groundswell for Zywicki and Robinson rendered impotent such Pollyanna pronouncements.

Other professors and administrators took to the Internet with websites and e-mails, accusing the petition candidates of holding “destructive views of the College,” or calling them “right wing ideologues,” even though Robinson and Zywicki, both conservatives, avoided left-right issues. Former administrators under the mantle Alumni for a Strong Dartmouth (ASD) vowed to halt the petition juggernaut in its tracks — this accomplished through a website and e-mails chock-a-block with ad hominem attacks. (The group’s organizer, Geoff Berlin ’84, chastised Zywicki for taking two years off from teaching — it was actually only one — to work at the Federal Trade Commission. Somehow, petty slurs like this were supposed to undermine Zywicki’s and Robinson’s credibility.) Nevertheless, seven former trustees, a bevy of Alumni Council members, and even some folks on Dartmouth’s payroll joined the ASD pigpile.

President Wright got in on the action, too — he jetted around the country giving speeches that amounted to point-by-point refutations of Zywicki’s and Robinson’s criticisms. But he refused to debate them on the issues. In fact, he denied that there were issues. There aren’t restrictions on free speech, he proclaimed, and — voila! — a controversial letter he had written disappeared from the college’s website. It read, in part, that “it is hard to understand that why some want still to insist that their ‘right’ to do what they want trumps the rights, feelings, and considerations of others. We need to recognize that speech has consequences for which we must account.”

Robinson and Zywicki took the beating quietly, in accordance with the election’s rules. Their supporters, however, weren’t as deferential. One professor dismissed Dartmouth’s shameful campaign as nothing more than “dean speak,” while others called it “self congratulatory fluff” and “gauzy defensiveness.” And in a welcome moment of levity, a few alumni created a website colorfully titled “Alumni Asking WTF?” that slammed the anti-petition campaign for what it was: a concerted effort flouting ill-conceived campaign rules, and aimed at thwarting the democratic process.

All the armchair pundits seemed to miss the greatest irony of all: The petition candidates, whose platforms were based in large part on bringing free speech back to campus, were about the only ones who went along with the campaign’s silly restrictions.

Just why was there so much acrimony? Robinson and Zywicki followed the rules. They were straight-forward with their views, and civil with their detractors. Their only real sin seemed to be one of taste: Their opinions on free speech, accountability, athletics, and diversity didn’t square with the current administration’s (post)modern shibboleths. Polite bickering — not to mention some actual adult debate — would have been understandable, maybe even expected, but the shrill misprision implied a much deeper contempt.

What all the anti-petition commentary had in common was an underlying air of desperation, like a condemned man trying feverishly to exculpate himself as he’s led to the gallows. Here, then, was their true offence: Robinson and Zywicki had blasted Dartmouth’s — and, by extension, higher education’s — blind faith in its own twisted agenda. They demanded answers and explanations, not sticky bromides. They attacked the underlying rationale of the diversity university, and they did so publicly. Robinson and Zywicki wanted the governing apparatus to be open and accountable. And, of course, they wanted free speech for everyone.

Dartmouth’s administrators and faculty understand what’s at stake, and after missing the boat with Rodgers last year, they’ve mobilized accordingly. If Robinson and Zywicki can beat the smear campaign and emerge victorious, Dartmouth’s administrators will probably dismiss the election, once again, as nothing more than a fluke. But even if they do, everyone else will see what is as plain as day: The illiberal stranglehold on higher education may finally be loosening.

Dartmouth Grad?

Due to widespread election irregularities, the balloting period, which began in late March, has been extended until May 6. Dartmouth alumni can still vote online here, and alumni who have not received a ballot should contact the Alumni Relations office.

— Alston B. Ramsay (Dartmouth '04) is an associate editor of National Review.

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