The College on the Hill is an idyllic setting for an education and for the formation of life-long bonds of friendship, but I and many others were ready to move on when we graduated. The prospect of shedding a beer gut, resuming my function as a normal human being in society, and becoming a real, bonafide adult -- albeit in graduate school -- was deliciously appealing. Then six members of the Executive Committee of the Association of Alumni decided to sue the College.
When the news broke, I wanted to learn more, and stumbled upon the official blog of the association. It seemed like the perfect place. What could be better than engaging directly with the people who initiated the lawsuit? I came with an open mind, even if, at first glance, legal action seemed to me like a bad idea for Dartmouth. I expressed these views, and asked some questions. First, how could the Executive Committee, without first seeking the approval of the alumni, decide to sue the College in the name of the alumni? Second, where's the money coming from?
These seemed like reasonable inquiries to me. And I was soon to discover that the Executive Committee has an official strategy in place for responding to such questions: Go apeshit.
Frank Gado '58, a member of the Executive Committee and the association's legal liaison, through Tim Dreisbach '71, another member of the committee, ignored my points and mocked my misuse of the word "whom." John Bruce '69 claimed that I was too stupid to have either gone to Dartmouth or to have graduated. Mr. Dreisbach, with great impotence and dispassion, called for reasoned debate, all while tacitly encouraging Mr. Gado and Mr. Bruce. The discussion became a protracted duel of increasingly outrageous statements. I was accused of malevolence, willful ignorance, irrationality, stupidity and worse. Sitting in front of my laptop, I could only laugh as Mr. Gado, a retired Union professor with a Ph.D. from Duke and a distinguished academic career, engaged in a meaningless pissing contest with a 23-year-old man -- and my object soon became to draw out the utter irresponsibility of these men, which was easier than I could have ever anticipated.
But the blog's archives tell a much larger story.
I was not the first alum to stumble upon the blog; many others came before me. Mr. Gado refers to some of these Dartmouth alumni as bags of sleaze. They cannot possibly understand anything, he suggests -- or, worse, they are deliberately attempting to destroy him. With baffling histrionics, he frequently compares his struggle against the College and all who oppose him to the battle for Europe in World War II, disdainfully refusing anything resembling "surrender or appeasement." He has armed himself with bandoliers of enraged ramblings -- he will not lie down in order to "provide a soft road bed for their tanks." (Just picture President Wright's helmeted head poking out of the top of a Sherman-priceless.) No, Mr. Gado will not beg for "crumbs allowed to fall from the lords' table." He will not strew the roads with "rose petals before Hitler's armies." He is one of Churchill's generals.
The committee, he claims, "did not initiate this assault," and will try "very hard to avoid the collateral damage" -- thankfully so -- but we must steel ourselves, for the object of the College is to "crush ... any opposition." The College administration is "just like all dictatorships," and "does the will of a plutocracy." Evil-doers beware: Frank Gado's got you in his righteous sights.
Mr. Gado, as I mentioned above, is the association's legal liaison. He, Mr. Dreisbach and others engage in or encourage the disparagement of alumni who disagree with their positions, or who don't outright support them. They question our integrity, call us names and insult our intelligence; they view this "conflict" as a "battle" for some great idea -- but seem to be confused about what, exactly, that idea is, or why "war" is necessary. (Don't give me that vague "democracy" tripe.) Their rhetoric is divisive and bizarre, their behavior enigmatic and erratic. While a New Hampshire court will decide the fate of their lawsuit, I hope that the alumni of Dartmouth, at the next association elections, will end their tenure as our representatives.
This issue, for most students, is a tired one. Rightfully so -- it's unfortunate that students do not have a real voice in the matter; but, until they do, it's understandable if they focus more on their day-to-day lives. Alumni, however, should see the ugly, nasty face behind the movement to sue our College. Regardless of where you stand, let's make sure that people with such little respect for their alumni constituency are not elected again to tarnish Dartmouth and to disparage others in all of our names.
