Dartmouth’s relationship to protest and dissent stands at a crossroads under Sian Leah Beilock’s presidency.
In her Sept. 14 op-ed in The Atlantic, College President Sian Leah Beilock positions herself as a champion of academic freedom and a courageous leader resisting conformity. In reality, her response to demands for divestment from companies linked with Israel suggests that she prioritizes the status quo over academic freedom. As president of Barnard College, Beilock announced her refusal to consider the Student Government Association’s call for divestment from eight companies linked to Israel — before the SGA even proposed it to her. As College President, Beilock continues to align herself with the status quo by claiming in her May 2 email to the community that “Dartmouth’s endowment is not a political tool” and describing calls for divestment as a way to “take sides on such a contested issue” while she helps to quash collective, public opposition to Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Under Beilock’s presidency, police have suppressed campus dissent through force. Beilock has distorted the harm caused by her actions as an effort to preserve academic freedom, evading accountability in the process.
Time after time, students have expressed dissatisfaction with the College’s actions under Beilock’s administration. Even before police arrested 89 people — including students, faculty and community members — during a peaceful May 1 protest on the Green, campus had been deeply divided. A February 2024 poll by The Dartmouth found that 50% of respondents were “very dissatisfied” with Beilock’s efforts to promote free expression regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The poll followed the October 2023 arrests of two students who were also protesting in support of divestment from Israel’s attacks on Gaza before Beilock and other administrators “asked [the] Hanover Police Department for assistance.” A week after the arrests on May 1, more than 58% of active undergraduates participated in Dartmouth Student Government’s referendum, with nearly 52% of participants expressing “no confidence” in Beilock’s leadership. Five days later, a majority of Arts and Sciences faculty — 183 out of 346 — voted to censure Beilock for her actions on May 1. This data reflects frustration with the restrictive culture Beilock has cultivated by asking police to help disband a peaceful protest.
In her op-ed, Beilock wrote, “But when a group of students takes over a building or establishes an encampment on shared campus grounds and declares that this shared educational space belongs to only one ideological view, the power and potential of the university dies — just as it would if a president, administrators or faculty members imposed their personal politics as the position of the institution.” We find it disturbing that Beilock would characterize collective, non-violent protest as an attempt to censor the opinions of others.
Beilock claims to champion free inquiry and intellectual diversity, but her presidency betrays these values. Allowing riot police to suppress student protest is not a defense of free expression — it is an assault on it. Beilock’s assertion that ideological conformity stifles the true meaning of higher education misaligns with her attempts to repress voices critical of Dartmouth’s financial entanglements in the military-industrial complex and Israel’s ongoing genocidal acts. If Beilock is truly committed to fostering an environment in which different ideas flourish, how could she “make the decision to ask” the Hanover Police Department to help take down the encampment erected by student protesters who challenged the College’s war and occupation profiteering within hours of their initial gathering on the Green? It is important to note that when a group of students occupied the President’s Office for two days in 2014, the College President and the Dean of Students settled the matter with dialogue — despite the fact that the protesters were in violation of College policy. Beilock claims to value “intellectual inquiry and debate.” Why didn’t she attempt to do the same?
This growing unrest on campus reflects widespread international concern over the escalating violence in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice identified in January 2024 as carrying a “real and imminent” risk of genocide. The 1951 Genocide Convention defines genocide not just as mass killings but also as acts causing “serious mental or bodily harm,” “inflicting” life-threatening conditions or preventing births within a group with the intent to destroy that group. On Jan. 26, the ICJ issued provisional measures directing Israel to cease its violence, citing the bombings of schools, hospitals and homes and the blockades of international aid to Gaza as evidence of genocidal intent.
While Beilock may find it convenient to defend her actions using the values of a “liberal education,” the decisions she made on May 1 — and her subsequent failure to practice responsible leadership — are not just an academic issue. These presidential blunders are flashpoints in a broader ethical crisis that threatens to delegitimize international human rights law. Dartmouth has fixed-income securities in the Northrop Grumman Corporation, which was confirmed by three students in a meeting with Dartmouth’s Investment Office on Aug. 6. Despite the ICJ’s ruling, Dartmouth refuses to disclose its investments in the form of fixed income securities in companies like Northrop Grumman, whose weapons fuel the conflict, via digital documentation or photographs.
According to the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, “Subject to the intent of a donor expressed in a gift instrument, an institution, in managing and investing an institutional fund, shall consider the charitable purposes of the institution and the purposes of the institutional fund.” Dartmouth is required to consider its charitable purpose with regard to its investments. Moreover, every investment is a political choice. How can the College reconcile investing in companies that profit from war crimes with its stated mission of preparing students for “a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership” and “instill[ing within them] a sense of responsibility for each other and for the broader world?” Divestment here is not only ethical — it is the College’s duty, and it must act urgently.
Beilock’s claim that Dartmouth promotes free inquiry rings hollow when peaceful protests on the Green are met with riot police and faculty and students advocating for divestment face arrest. Dartmouth’s ties to the military-industrial complex and Beilock’s response to resistance send a chilling message: dissent in favor of human dignity is not welcome. In her op-ed, Beilock cited Asch’s conformity experiment, which demonstrated how easily groups of college students can doubt their own knowledge and go along with a wrong answer for fear of ridicule. Her mention of this data to support her argument is deeply hypocritical. The very lesson she draws from the study — that it only takes one dissenter to resist conformity — should be applied to her own leadership. Instead of leading with courage and conviction, Beilock has chosen to conform to the U.S. government’s ongoing support for Israel, silencing dissent rather than embracing it.
If Dartmouth is truly committed to its mission of justice and equality, it must divest from defense contractors that are arming Israel. Anything less is not only cowardice but also complicity in the oppression and destruction of the Palestinian people.
Yomalis Rosario ’15, Lyra A. McKee ’15 and Daniel Lin ’23 are members of Dartmouth Alumni for Palestine. Lin is currently an Edward Connery Lathem ’51 digital library fellow at the College. Guest columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
