At Dartmouth recently, an outbreak of contagious mental illness broke out as radical students and faculty occupied the administration building. According to the Wall Street Journal, the occupiers called for “more ‘womyn or people of color’ faculty; covering sex change operations on the college health plan (“we demand body and gender self-determination”); censoring the library catalog for offensive terms; and installing “gender-neutral bathrooms” in every campus facility, specifically including sports locker rooms.
College president Phil Hanlon agreed to talk if the demonstrators left the building, eliciting the a statement expressing fear of “further physical and emotional violence enacted against us by the racist, classist, sexist, heterosexist, transphobic, xenophobic, and ableist structures at Dartmouth.” They added: “Our bodies are already on the line, in danger, and under attack.”
Dartmouth has been in the forefront of both sides of the long-running confrontation between politically correct activists and conservative reaction. Dinesh D’Souza launched his journalistic career as a conservative criticizing the Ivy League College’s affirmative action policies as a writer for the Dartmouth Review, an independent student publication. Today, according to the Wall Street Journal article, “Some 37% of its freshman class comes from a background “of color,” and 10% are first-generation college student.” Attending Dartmouth now costs $65,133 per year.
In other words, Dartmouth’s acquiescence to politically correct extortion has engendered resentment by the constituency it sought to please, as demonstrated by the demands of the demented activists who stormed the dean’s office. Why then would parents pay the price of a top-line BMW annually (or the student borrow this amount) for four years to attend an academic insane asylum masquerading as a top-tier college?
Or, obversely, enroll where history professor Russell Rickford—the faculty ring leader of the student agitations—calls Dartmouth “White Supremacy U.” As the Wall Street Journal summarized the contretemps, “Hostile to free expression, open debate and due process, the politics of anger and resentment can’t be pacified. Reality is not an admissible defense.”