Vox Clamantis: The Conservative Campaign
By David Shipler, Former Trustee
Published on Friday, May 9, 2008
To the Editor:
The election in the Association of Alumni, which began this week, is critical to impeding the radical right's long-term campaign to control Dartmouth. The new "unity" slate led by John Mathias '69 would end a lawsuit against the College. That suit seeks "parity" in trustee selection to allow inroads by a highly politicized and pervasively ideological brand of conservatism. Don't be fooled into thinking that this is about Dartmouth alone. Higher education remains one of the last institutions beyond conservative domination, and Dartmouth is merely a convenient target in a larger strategy.
Otherwise, why would people who claim to love the College invite the courts and the legislature to interfere in running it? Why would conservative champions of "judicial restraint" apply the principle only when it gives the result that they like? What is it that the conservatives want to conserve? Not the exceptional diversity and global engagement of 21st-century Dartmouth, apparently, but some throwback, frozen in amber, that could never maintain its excellence in modern times.