To the Editor:

Change the dining facilities? Fine. Add culturally diverse programs? Sure. Embrace full social freedom? Not a chance! Thus spake CSLI!

Beneath the veil, this proposal is a blow against freedom: more of the same “we know better than you do how you should live” elitism that plagues American society, best demonstrated at American educational institutions. Dartmouth “community” is the whole of the campus population, not just those who agree with this hour’s politically-correct touchy-feely idea of interaction.

I was not a member of any socially separated group—like a fraternity—while at Dartmouth, unless you consider the denizens of the Kiewit basement to be such a group. I stayed in a fraternity overnight once on a visit during an off-campus term; it was noisy, and I would not have liked to live there. I visited Sigma Nu Delta on hell night once, with transfer student Val Armento and the Boston correspondent for Time magazine: she was giving a campus tour to him, and I tagged along.

Getting there on hell night was an accident of timing, and in spite of the use of frozen hot dogs, vacuum cleaners, nauseating punch, and a three-story staircase, no ambulance had to be summoned. Strangely, all the new members were there by choice. The Time correspondent said he was going to ask his editor to allow him to do a human interest story on Sigma Nu, because he “didn’t know such things happened in 20th century America."

But you know what? Those people I knew that were part of fraternity life were also part of the fabric of my life, and part of the cultural diversity of Dartmouth. They had freedom, even though it was sometimes abused (is it not sometimes abused everywhere?). That is a good thing.

It is not a good thing, however, to encourage the idea that society can be molded into some kind of ideal by enforcing a certain philosophy in law. Such impressionable minds, like mine at age 18, should be taught respect for freedom of association and freedom of thought, not how to command conformity of life that cannot and should not operate anywhere else in society.

The college seeks to make outlaws of those who choose not to agree with its “politically-correct” philosophies on lifestyle. That’s just a bit fascist, don’t you think? Leave freedom of association alone. Let community be defined by all those who are in it, not by any governing body or action that would force conformity by minority—or even majority—opinion.

Specifically, leave the fraternities alone. Be bold, even daring: let freedom have its way, and let students choose as they wish. Place your ideas on student life in the free marketplace of ideas, along with the alternatives you do not respect, and let the student choose. If your ideas are compelling, will you not win in a free market? And if they do not win, do you not still have freedom, yourself, not to participate in fraternity life? That is, after all, what each student will be doing the rest of their lives: making free choices, each of which has consequences, both good and bad.

Sincerely,
Tom Harrison, ’74
Oregon City, Oregon

To the Editor:

I never thought I would see the day that spot-checks by the police and social engineering by housing allocation were the norm at an institution of higher learning. But then again that’s what Castro did in 1960, didn't he?

Sincerely,
F.R. Mann ’74
President, Dartmouth Club of Central Florida

To the Editor:

I never truly believed in my heart, until today, that the administrators and Trustees of Dartmouth College would dictate to the students how they will behave and think (not even should, mind you—the gall!). They’re thought police! They’re social goon squads!

Aren’t the students legal adults? Don't the administrators and Trustees actually work for the students? They do pay a large portion of their salaries.

Please, God, grant us a massive layoff! Am I even allowed to vote? Or was this never my college to begin with?

Sincerely,
Michael Zigmont ’96
New York, NY