Obfuscation and Liberal Education

by Steven Menashi

The presentation of the Trustees' initiative has been marked by double talk and obfuscation. On February 9, Wright and the Trustees affirmed that it meant the end of Dartmouth's fraternity and sorority system. “We're going to become a coeducational system,” he said. “The Trustees are challenging us to find ways to have a social system here that's not built on single-sex houses.”

“It's not in the best interest of the students or the institution to allow a situation to exist in which there are social organizations of exclusion,” said Stephen Bosworth, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Nevertheless, in his February 15 televised address to the Dartmouth campus, Wright insisted, “I don't think there's anything in the Trustees' statement that says there won't be single-sex organizations.”

“College President James Wright has unequivocally stated that single-sex Greek organizations are doomed,” wrote the Valley News in its February 18 editorial. “Unfortunately, he has affirmed with equal vehemence that they could very well survive.” They quote Wright: “`I don't want to suggest that somehow the door is open for existing organizations to continue,' Wright said last week. `There could well be single-sex organizations (in the future). They would not be fraternities as you know them today.'”

Unsurprisingly, many students are unclear as to the administration's intentions.

Bosworth claimed on February 10 that next fall's rush process will be altered. “It will become clear to everyone that the system is changing and that what you call `traditional rush' is no longer relevant,” Bosworth told The Dartmouth. “I think [students] should realize that now.” However, Wright announced five days later that he expects fall rush to “go on as planned.”

The only College spokesmen not overtaken by double talk are in the alumni office. Christopher Boffoli, Assistant Director of the Alumni Fund, has been informing alumni that “The accounts you may have read in the media have been distorted and misrepresented. President Wright and the Trustees have no plans to eliminate the Greek system.”

“This is only a beginning and NOT a done deal,” Associate Director of the Alumni Fund Cornelia Purcell told one alumnus.

Their comments stand in marked contrast to Wright's assertion that “this is not a referendum on those things. We are committed to doing this.”

“We're not interested in a referendum on these principles,” parroted Trustee Kate Stith-Cabranes, having read the same talking points. “Referendums on the status quo,” she added, “is not responsive to what we've asked for.” Wright reiterated to faculty that “The Board is committed to its principles” on February 18.

It is curious that the administration would be so committed to principles so vague that they may or may not entail the abolition of the Greek system. The commitment is not surprising, however, when one considers the historical context. In 1987, then-Professor James Wright chaired the ad hoc Committee on Residential Life; the committee report recommended the gradual elimination of fraternities.

The faculty's 1980 report of the ad hoc Committee on Fraternities also recommended ending the Greek system. Similar recommendations were made by the 1989 Committee on Diversity and the 1997 Task Force on Social Life. The 1994 Committee on Diversity and Community charged the Greek system with promoting “anti-intellectualism, sexism, racism, and homophobia.”

“The decision that was made by the Trustees last week was two decades in the making,” Wright told the faculty. “When the Trustees chose me as president, they had these issues in mind.”

“These are issues that have been on our plate for a long time,” explained Trustee William King. Indeed they have been — “since I became a Trustee ten years ago,” according to Stith-Cabranes. “Last year, we had an opportunity to choose a new president who we knew would address these issues.”

Behind all the contradictory double talk from the administration there lies the same goal that Wright, the Trustees, and the faculty have always shared: the elimination of the Greek system.

That the College would lie to alumni about its intentions makes the process particularly insidious. That they would lie to students makes it more so: according to Stan Colla, Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations, only between eight and ten alumni contributions have been rescinded since the Trustees' announcement. That number is clearly false; nine contributions were immediately rescinded by alumni of one Greek house alone.

It seems, however, that the College still has a vast reserve of support in the Dartmouth faculty. On February 18, a special meeting of the faculty was convened in Alumni Hall to discuss the Trustees' initiative. Though there was no substantive discussion about the principles, the faculty agreed on two salient points. First, that the Trustees' five principles were so vague that it was unclear what they meant. Second, that the faculty overwhelmingly supported the principles.

The faculty's endorsement of admittedly unintelligible principles was utter silliness, and a few professors made that observation. The most striking feature of the faculty meeting, especially for a liberal arts institution, was the extent to which it was marked by intellectual conformity on the part of the faculty.

To start, some conservative professors were conspicuously not informed of the meeting. Among the present faculty, strict conformity of thought was imposed by the majority. The discussion began with an assumption that the faculty supported the Trustees' principles. When one faculty member asked, “Can we have a discussion on the principles themselves?” many responded “no.”

In fact, there was no debate on the five principles. Just one faculty member spoke against the Trustees' initiative — and he was actually hissed at by a few of his colleagues.

All dissent from an unqualified support of the Trustees' principles was suppressed by the majority. Some professors complained that the faculty was neither consulted no informed of the Trustees' decision before it was released publicly. Those professors were rebuked by most others.

Government Professor Anne Sa'adah insisted that the faculty “shouldn't express regret at the way the decision was made” because that would weaken their expression of support for the president and Trustees. Many stressed the need for an unconditional, unanimous endorsement of the Trustees. And they got it. The faculty voted 82-0 in support of the initiative; there were six abstentions.

For a liberal educational institution, there was surprisingly little independent thought at the faculty meeting. All the debate that occurred focused on the wording of the faculty's endorsement on the Trustees. Without any substantive discussion of their position, the faculty marched in lockstep support of the Trustees.

“We know what should be done, we know why it should be done,” remarked History Professor Pamela Crossley. And, apparently, they all did.

“The Greek system is not in keeping with the educational mission of this College and needs to be altered or even abolished,” said French Professor Marianne Hirsch. “I feel very much hampered by the social system at the College.”

What Hirsch is hampered in, of course, is her aim to mold the character of her students. Indeed, many faculty repeated the comment that professors must actively shape their students' values. But this attitude fails to respect students as individuals, or as adults, or as anyone with rights they are bound to respect.

They believe they can — and must — suspend student rights in order to transform the campus and culture according to their own ideological agenda and moral vision.

The 1980 report of the faculty committee on fraternities urges the creation of “a system more in keeping with the needs of the College and the society of which the College is a part.” Yet, the faculty consistently defines social “needs” as that which furthers their own moral agenda. It should go without saying that such moral chauvinism is detrimental to the liberal educational enterprise.

“If men living in democratic countries had no right and no inclination to associate for political purposes,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, “their independence would be in great jeopardy.” As an intermediary institution, Dartmouth's Greek system secures the independence of the student body.

Despite the College's best efforts to control campus life, Dartmouth's Greek associations have given rise to a campus and community life that can truly be said to be student-run. Dartmouth students, acting together, embark on grand social events, community service projects, and educational programs that no student acting alone could possibly organize or affect.

A free society relies on the capacity of individuals to join in associations to affect social change. You might believe in workers' rights, for example, but until you are allowed to join in association with others (that is, in labor unions), your individual aspirations will never be realized. The principle of free association thus furthers the aims of liberal education, because it allows freedom of conscience to be translated onto a social scale.

The faculty and administration oppose the Greek system because that institution secures freedom of conscience for Dartmouth students. The Greek associations make the student body incredibly resistant to the imposition of an ideological program. The fraternity and sorority system is, in this way, wholly consonant with the values of a free society and of liberal education — and wholly opposed to the designs of a paternalist faculty.