Thorny Presence
During the past two years, various segments of the Dartmouth community have expressed dismay and frustration over the contents of the student-run newspaper known as the Dartmouth Review. The College's black community and its women in particular have repeatedly objected to Review articles and photographs as at least tasteless and at worst racist, sexist, and inflammatory. Over the past winter, however, the Review seemed to be running out of steam, and many people on campus began to feel it could be safely ignored.
But in March, the Review set tempers flaring again by publishing an article lampooning Dartmouth's black students. Keeney Jones's "Dis Sho' Ain't No jive, Bro'," written in a parody of black English and suggesting that the College's black students were academically unqualified sparked a series of events that punctuated May like a line of falling dominoes.
On May 11, Congressman Jack Kemp of the Review's advisory board resigned from the board, citing the "Jive" article as a tasteless, racially stereotyped, and offensive antic that he did not endorse. On May 17, the Dartmouth Undergraduate Council passed a four-point resolution urging the College to take the Review in hand. The resolution called for prevention of door-to-door distribution of the free publication in College dormitories, for another push to prevent the Review from using the name "Dartmouth" in its title, for a press release scotching the idea of any official connection between the College and the Review, and for a boycott of Hanover merchants advertising in or supporting the paper. Two days later, The Dartmouth ran an editorial also condemning the Review as offensive but suggesting that libel suits in court were a better way "to regulate the press" than were the Undergraduate Council proposals.
On May 21, Benjamin J. Hart '81, a white student on the staff of the Review. was accosted by a black administrator, Samuel W. Smith '49, associate director of the Alumni Fund, when Hart was delivering copies of the Review to Blunt Alumni Center. A fracas ensued, and when it was all over, the student pressed charges of simple assault, the administrator pleaded no contest, and the Hanover judiciary handed down a $250 fine ($150 suspended) and three months of unsupervised probation. (The College's own personnel investigation of the incident was concluded a few days later and resulted in further penalties for Smith, who was suspended without pay for a week, instructed to seek counseling assistance, and put on College probation for three months.)
On May 24, in a regular meeting of the faculty, a resolution deploring the Review's "vilification of individuals," its "abuses of responsible journalism," and its contributions to "an undesirable atmosphere of distrust and divisiveness" was proposed and debated at length. It passed by a vote of 1 13' to 5, with 9 abstentions. Dean of the Faculty Hans Penner explained the group s unusual action as a manifestation of itpersonal concern for the feelings of us members. "These are our colleagues," hi said, "and those of us who have not personally been tarred and feathered by the Re-view have a great deal of empathy for those who have. We decided we had had enough. The resolution points out that there is, certainly, a right to freedom of expression. But we as an intellectual community cannot abide behavior and writing that intimidates, harasses, and abuses our colleagues. Debate and free expression have to be placed in a context where they do not intimidate, harass, or abuse. Thats the tender balance."
The following day, the Dartmourh Women's Caucus wrote to President McLaughlin applauding the faculty resolution and speaking directly to the issue of the Smith-Hart incident. "As you are well
aware," the caucus wrote, "women, along with minorities and gays, have been one or the Review's primaing targets, and we have experienced an increasing sense of frustration and anger at both the persistent level of verbal abuse directed against individuals and groups and the psychological ana emotional pain that this has caused, we feel very strongly, therefore, that the incident between Samuel Smith and Benjamin Hart last weekend should be seen and understood in the context of the continual abuse of women, minorities, and gays the past two years and of-the physical and psychological violence that these groups have experienced as a result.
president McLaughlin's response was an letter concurring with the sentiments faculty resolution and at the same reiterating the administration's interrion to protect the right of free expres-Free expression," wrote McLaughlin. is not a privilege but a fundamental right. While we deeply deplore the irresponsible right. use of that freedom, we are committed to defending it. When freedom of expression is used relentlessly to attack the integrity of individuals or segments of the community, it tests to the utmost our commitment to this right. Thus, ourconemnation of the abuse of this right by the Raieu is entirely compatible with our defense of the right of free expression. "The president's letter went on to note the Colt's continued concern over the Review's unauthorized use of the Dartmouth name and to emphasize that the Revieu is "totally private" and without official connection with Dartmouth College.
For its part, the Review downplayed Congressman Kemp's defection as election-year expediency and described the faculty resolution as a condonement of administrative violence toward students. The paper threatened once again to haul the College into court for harassment.
Dartmouth's dilemma is what to do i ut this thorn in the institutional side. It could ignore the Review, but perhaps the events of this spring have proved that strategy unworkable. Until now, College officials have been reluctant to engage in protracted "freedom-of-speech" court battles to which almost any action theatens to lead against either the paper or its individual students, .who more than once have been characterized as irresponsible members of the community. Twenty years and more ago, a dean might have decided the issue, but dean's justice was discarded with the bathwater in the liberal sixties of which the staff members of "the conservative Review seem to be today's beneficiaries.
No United Way here: The Review plies itstrade in a second-floor office on Main Street.
"We don't want to hide anything. We want to get it all out, because unless people know what's going on, they can't protect themselves." Robert McEwen College Proctor
