The Dartmouth Review - Stances and Controversies

Stances and Controversies

The Dartmouth Review has consistently favored a stronger voice on the part of alumni who share its worldview in college governance and alumni issues, particularly elections to Dartmouth's Board of Trustees. In 1980, the paper reported on the election of John Steel, who later became an anti-seal activist in California, to the board after a contentious petition campaign. (Eight members of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees are known as Alumni Trustees because they are nominated by alumni.) More recently, the paper was a driving force behind what it called the "Lone Pine Revolution," in which the alumni independently nominated and then saw elected four trustees critical of the college's stances on "free speech," athletics, "alumni rights," and the college/university dynamic. Several of these trustees said their campaigns were aided by the newspaper's favorable coverage of them.

In addition, the Dartmouth Review has been a conservative voice on campus issues. The paper has consistently supported a college curriculum based on the Western Canon, criticized Dartmouth College's alcohol policies as too strict, and resisted "political correctness" on campus. In 2002, Dartmouth's liberal newspaper, the Dartmouth Free Press, documented other issues on which the Dartmouth Review had taken a stand, most of them campus-oriented. The paper has often maintained a flippant yet humorous tone. For example, former editor Bill Grace described one of the college's departments as a "Whitman's Sampler" of professors in one issue.

In defending and promoting Dartmouth traditions and conservative positions, the Dartmouth Review has often provoked controversy. The Dartmouth Review gained national attention and notoriety early on for positions on social issues regarded as politically incorrect. Examples from the newspaper's history:

• The Dartmouth Review continues to refer to Dartmouth's sports teams as the "Indians" after the traditional school mascot which was officially discarded in the early 1970s. To promote the Indian mascot as well as the Indian symbol, the newspaper sold Dartmouth t-shirts emblazoned with the symbol. (To poke fun at these shirts, members of the Native American Society printed "Dartmouth Whites" shirts featuring the Monopoly Uncle Money Bags character in place of the Indian symbol.)
• When the Alma Mater, originally called "Men of Dartmouth," was changed to be gender-neutral, the paper printed and distributed copies of the original lyrics. These lyrics are reprinted each year for incoming freshmen.
• In 1984, the Dartmouth Review sent a reporter to a public meeting of the Dartmouth Gay Students Association. The Dartmouth Review got The Dartmouth Gay Students Association's message out to campus by publishing excerpts from the meeting with the names of the group's leaders.
• In 1986, students affiliated with The Dartmouth Review formed the Committee to Beautify the Green and dismantled, with sledgehammers and early in the morning, the shanties that had been erected on the campus quad as part of an ultimately successful campaign to cause Dartmouth to divest itself of South African investments during apartheid. No one was under attack. The shanties were said to be blocking the College's annual Winter Carnival and were considered by many to be eyesores; the town of Hanover had ordered the illegally-constructed structures torn down. When the College had moved to remove them, 150 students blocked the workers. Ten Dartmouth Review staffers who dismantled the shanties were disciplined by the College, even though there was no physical or verbal form of "attack," and the shanties were illegal to begin with.
• In 1988, the Dartmouth Review published an article criticizing a black professor by judging one of his courses "one of Dartmouth's most academically deficient." After hearing a profanity-laden phone call from the professor after publishing the story, staffers sought a comment, the professor yelled at them and attacked a student. The school accused the students of harassment.
• In the fall of 1990, the Dartmouth Review (whose staff was at the time one-quarter Jewish) was accused of anti-Semitism for its publication of a quote from Mein Kampf in its masthead in place of its usual quote from Teddy Roosevelt. The quote was discovered by Dartmouth Review staffers three days after the paper was distributed. The Dartmouth Review recalled the issue and then editor-in-chief, Kevin Pritchett issued a campus-wide apology. According to Review backer William F. Buckley, Jr.'s book In Search of Anti-Semitism, this incident was the work of a disgruntled former staff member.
• In response to the Hitler quotation in particular and the Review's stance in general, almost two thousand people assembled on the Green for a "Rally Against Hate". Both the rally and President Freedman were later criticized by some among Dartmouth alumni and by the national media. The "Hitler Quote incident," as it came to be known, came on the heels of several smaller incidents allegedly suggesting anti-Semitism on the part of the Review. The incident led to a satiric response by the Harvard Lampoon, who in April 1992 replaced the usual Dartmouth Review newspapers with their own "All Hitler Fashion Preview," including a quote page with exclusive (and fake) Hitler quotes. During the same period, College President Freedman, who was Jewish, was caricatured as Adolf Hitler on their front page with the caption "Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Freedman."
• The November 28, 2006, issue of the Dartmouth Review featured a cover image of an Indian brandishing a scalp, with the headline: "The Natives are Getting Restless!" The illustration is widely used by national anti-Indian coalitions; the paper itself included multiple pieces criticizing both Native American students' complaints about a string of incidents perceived as racist, as well as the College's apologies for them. On November 29, 2006, more than 500 students, staff, faculty members and administrators responded to the issue by gathering for a "Solidarity Against Hatred Rally" in front of Dartmouth Hall. In an interview with the Associated Press, the Dartmouth Review editor-in-chief said the paper was in response to "the overdramatic reaction to events this term." Editors subsequently issued statements expressing "regret" and called the cover, but not the issue's content, a "mistake".