I met Stephen Smith '88 when I got here to the University of Virginia Law School, though I had heard about him before. Older friends had mentioned him as one of the law school's best professors, a man to take a class with if you could get a seat, which was no easy task for a teacher of his popularity. The more I've gotten to know Smith the more honored I've become that he's a graduate of Dartmouth and the more impressed I am that he's running for the Board of Trustees.
The Dartmouth's editorial this past Friday attempts to "review the rhetoric" of Smith ("Reviewing the Rhetoric of a Potential Trustee," Jan. 19). The piece approves of one and attacks two of Smith's positions, then ends by decrying the politicization of the trustee election process.
With no eye for the irony of debating the merits of issues raised and then contending that we need an election where no such issues could have been raised, The Dartmouth presumably yearns for the days when the administration would pick a slate of uncontroversial candidates to run without speaking a word on the future of the college. The greatest irony, though, is one The D could not be expected to know without knowing Smith. That even if he could never open his mouth in this election to speak on one issue, Smith would still deserve to be the next trustee of the College by virtue of a life lived with impeccable character, deep humanity and good judgment.
It's not just his inspiring background that makes Smith worthy of support. He may have come from a hard background, a child of inner-city Washington, D.C., and son of a single mother on welfare, to graduate Dartmouth by age 20. He may have excelled in law school by performing in the top 10 percent of his class while winning faculty awards for assisting those around him. He may have achieved the highest feat a young legal scholar can, the Rhodes Scholarship of the legal world, a clerkship on the Supreme Court. He may now be a beloved professor at a top-10 law school. But many have impressive backgrounds, not least in a Dartmouth trustee race. What marks Smith most is the character formed by that background, expressed day in and day out in a life lived with decency.
Smith is a man of great humility and generosity. He's always willing to talk to students, speak at their events, offer his free time for their charity drives though his time is limited. He fathers a family of five and fills a pew at church with them every Sunday. He drives a beat-up sedan with a bumper sticker on the back that says, "Evil thrives when good people do nothing." He stands for what he believes in and he exercises wise judgment.
These are the qualities of character that a college trustee needs. More important than the issues of the moment, a trustee must be a person whose judgment is trusted over time with the future of a great institution. More valuable than being the titans of industry or million-dollar donors who populate the administration's slates, is to have someone fill that seat who was asked to do so by Dartmouth alumni in the hundreds, through their scribbled in petitions and 39-cent stamps.
Better than anyone else in the running, Stephen Smith will fulfill that trust and represent those hopes. We would be lucky to have him as our next trustee.
