All in a Name
Dartmouth, which has long co-existed in varying degrees of harmony with The Dartmouth, has since June been living in discordant proximity to a new weekly tabloid which calls itself, over strenuous objection from the College, The Dartmouth Review. While "the oldest college newspaper in America" has been an occasional thorn in the Establishment's side, the new kid on the block has made a business of tailtwisting. With a student staff under the editorship of Gregory A. Fossedal '81, the Review has, since its first issue in June, become increasingly critical of the direction and leadership of the College.
The editorial stance of the Review has been generally contentious. In sharp personal attacks, it has accused senior College officers and prominent alumni of lying. Its tone has caused dissension even among its staff. One of the editors used the paper's own columns to take his colleagues to task for "having strayed so far from its original goals and perspectives and . . . steaming ahead with such impetuosity that I am compelled to issue a warning." The founding publisher has resigned.
Talk of legal action has been much in the air. The Review claims that "over the last four months, Dartmouth College officials have threatened fourteen times to bring suit against this publication" adding impudently, "We're still waiting."
The legal issue is over the right to the Dartmouth name. "It's a matter of tradename rights," according to Cary Clark '62, the College counsel. "The name is registered with both the federal government and the State of New Hampshire, and the College has exclusive rights to it in the publications area." The institution, Clark said, is not concerned about such commercial ventures as Dartmouth Opticians or the Dartmouth Cab Company. "We are not in those businesses, so there is no source of confusion. In any activity we are engaged in, such as publications, we have to protect our trademark." Clark cited as an example successful legal action taken four years ago against Dartmouth Time Sharing Services, Inc., because of potential confusion with the College-owned Dartmouth Time Sharing Systems. The administration insists that freedom of speech is not at issue and that the College has no interest in trying to prevent the Review from publishing. "If they do not use our name, it is none of our business what they say," President Kemeny said last month. "The more obnoxious the publication, the more, in an academic institution, we have to lean over backwards in matters of freedom of speech. It would be an intolerable position for the College even to discuss the purpose of any independent organization." The choice for the Review from the start, he explained, was to follow normal procedures to become a recognized student organization which would entitle it to use the Dartmouth name or to remain completely independent of the College and consequently drop the name. The Review claims it was denied recognition; College officials say it never made serious application.
The Review incorporated in September under the name "Hanover Review," after the College filed objection to the use of the word "Dartmouth" with the New Hampshire Secretary of State, but it has continued to publish under the banner TheDartmouth Review. Loath to take legal action against a group composed mainly of undergraduates, the administration entered into a series of extenuated, sometimes erratic negotiations with the Review. Early on the College accepted the concept of entering into a licensing agreement, whereby the newspaper would be authorized to use the name for a stipulated length of time, under stipulated conditions among them, that a majority of the board would always be students and that disclaimers of any affiliation with the College would be included in each issue. The College agreed to make available certain resources such as computer services, post-office boxes, and, if any could be found, office space all for appropriate fees.
By late October, a final point remained to be reconciled: the College's insistence that the Review agree to discontinue use of the name "Dartmouth" upon termination of the licensing agreement, either by expiration or because one or the other party failed to observe all the terms. When that condition met objection, the College made one final concession: that the Review might continue using the name following termination of the agreement until a court of law ruled on whether it had a First Amendment right to use it at will. The Review rejected that proposal, maintaining the position that it had that right, regardless.
Also in late October, a new issue arose. The Review announced that it was mailing the Halloween issue to more than 26,000 alumni of the classes of 1965 and earlier. Since the paper had been denied access to Dartmouth's mailing list reserved for official College mail the question was: By what means would the group obtain the addresses?
From the beginning, some big conservative guns have made their services available to the Review. The first issue included articles by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and William Buckley Jr., as well as Professor Jeffrey Hart '5l, the paper's local mentor. Its advisory board includes Senator Gordon Humphrey, former Senator Norris Cotton, former Governor Lane Dwinell, and Representative James Cleveland, all of New Hampshire; Congressman Jack Kemp of tax-bill fame; National Review publisher William Rusher; and Nixon speech-writer Patrick Buchanan.
Operating out of a residential condominium on West Wheelock, the Review is distributed free around Hanover, at an annual rate by mail. Aside from mail subscriptions, its financial support comes from advertisements and contributions. In a recent issue, the staff printed a list of supporters "who have made our paper possible," among them Dr. John Steel '54, alumni trustee nominated by ballot in the spring; Avery Raube '30, who managed his campaign; Jack Herpel '28, organizer of the FADDIS questionnaire about the Indian symbol; and a number of other critics of the Kemeny administration.
"WHEREAS 'horning' is a clumsy, ungentlemanly and unbecoming method of expressing grievance ... the student body will discountenance and deprecate such disturbances in the future and will take action toward the establishment of other methods of communicating and redressing grievances." Resolution against horn-blowing as a display of student disdain, 1896
