Equal Access and the "Alumni Argument"

WORD is probably out by now that the women on campus are "bitching and moaning" again, joined, I might add, by a large number of men. It's nothing dangerous! - A loud but democratic rally, at which one young man threatened to burn his sheepskin and a small group of fraternity brothers sang "Men of Dartmouth"; a march on Parkhurst, as orderly as a class trip; lots of letters and petitions; a day long teach-in, ending in a committee. After a few more days, everything should be back to abnormal.

The immediate cause of this activity is the recent Trustee decision on an admissions policy for the sexes. That decision provides for an increase of 25 women in the class of '81 and gives the director of admissions the option to add up to 15 women in succeeding years depending on the quality of the female applicant pool. Pointing out that the policy would make possible a 1:1 ratio in 15 years, administrators profess astonishment at the opposition. "What more could you possibly want?" they ask.

What the faculty and students want is what a substantial majority of each group has asked for: equal access. That phrase simply means a policy of admitting applicants on the basis of academic and personal qualifications, regardless of sex. It has never implied the arbitrary imposition of a 1:1 ratio or the elimination of special consideration for such groups as alumni children, athletes, or minorities. If equal access were implemented it would result in the gradual change many people want, but in a way consistent with the College's aim of obtaining the "best-qualified" students. To see the difference from the Trustee policy, one has only to ask what would happen if the "quality" of the female applicant pool in any given year should warrant the addition of more than 15 women, or if a sharp drop in the female applicant pool in '81 fails to justify an increase of 25 women. The point is simple: any predetermined numbers indicate the College's willingness to discriminate on the basis of sex - as if male and female students were as different as apples and oranges.

There are other disadvantages. Under the Trustee plan, the rate of growth of the female enrollment depends on the increase of the female applicant pool (size and quality being related), but Dartmouth's announcement of a sexist admissions policy, particularly when all the other coeducational Ivy League schools have affirmed equal access, is likely to depress that pool and to alienate in particular those women with the "leadership potential" considered so desirable by the Trustees. Why should a well-qualified woman elect to come to Dartmouth if she has to expend energy in battles long since won at comparable institutions? Perhaps the Trustees are counting on such an outcome. It is certainly suggested by their hope that the decrease in male enrollment can be "minimized."

The effect of the policy on campus life will probably be negative. Most students and faculty are uncomfortable with the 3:1 ratio and would like to see it narrow faster than is likely under the Trustee plan. Until it does narrow, the strong anti-female currents and the tensions they create will persist. My five years here have convinced me that the old Dartmouth and coeducation are essentially incompatible. The old Dartmouth is based on an ideal of masculinity and fraternity in which women have no more place than in a Howard Hawks movie or a prehistoric hunt, not even the women who know their place. It would make more sense to return to all-male status than to make women who have earned the right to be here feel like intruders or guests at a college mainly for men. Personally, I hope the old Dartmouth passes, even though it obviously provided a powerful and affecting experience for many graduates, because it now tends to produce spiritual dinosaurs, sadly ill-equipped to deal with contemporary social realities.

Which brings me to the role of the alumni in the making of the Trustee decision. There is widespread suspicion on campus that the Trustees rejected equal access because they were afraid to offend alumni in the year of a $150 million fund drive. I have heard this "alumni argument" repeatedly used to 'frighten proponents of change into submission, and I consider it specious, detrimental to the College, and insulting to individual alumni. It forces a wedge between constituencies, making many of us feel like the victims of somebody else's nostalgia. The future, it seems, belongs not to us, but to those whose hearts and minds are stuck in the past. Moreover, the argument assumes that alumni are univocal and vindictive, venting their discontent in denied dollars.

No doubt there exists a group of wealthy and influential alumni who approximate the Big Greener stereotype, but I suspect (and hope) they are a minority. The disagreement on the sex ratio issue between the Ad Hoc Committee on the Male-Female Ratio and the Alumni Council, which appointed it, attests to a diversity of perspective, as does the increase in alumni giving after coeducation. However, my limited experience on the alumni club circuit suggests to me that the more progressive alumni tend to be less active in College affairs, especially in such vital areas as recruiting and fund-raising, and therefore have less power in the organization than their more conservative counterparts. As Dartmouth produces alumni (and alumnae) with coeducational experience, the balance will probably shift, but in the meantime, as it seems that alumni opinion will continue to have a strong influence on College policy, perhaps only the involvement of alumni who, for whatever reason, have opted out, can defuse the "alumni argument" and put Dartmouth where Trustee Andres has said it belongs: "on the leading edge o'f constructive social change."

Carole Berger is an assistant professor of English at the College.