Matthew Raymer ’03 was recently hired as the College’s next general counsel and senior vice president. He “will oversee the Office of Visa and Immigration Services and serve on College President Sian Leah Beilock’s leadership team,” as The Dartmouth reported earlier this month. Most significantly, Raymer is a Republican, and as anyone with a pair of eyes knows, to be a Republican staff member at Dartmouth College is to commit a grave sin.
The specifics of Raymer’s right-wingedness are significant. He is not the kind of Republican who says “I’m a conservative” but then traffics exclusively in MSNBC-speak. He genuinely believes in some Trumpist ideas. An op-ed from January 24 of this year in “The Federalist” makes the argument against birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. A short and polemical piece, he addresses what he conceives of as the legal precedent of the 14th amendment. It is the Democrats, he argues, that are attempting to rewrite the constitution, not the Republicans.
Good arguments can be made for both sides of the birthright citizenship question. It is open for political argumentation. Yet students, at least the students that care about anything at all, are said to be outraged. Why?
It is said that Dartmouth is prostrating itself before federal power at a time when Trump is making the most consequential and most evil decisions. As our country reels from a president who cracks down on free speech, immigration and international development, now, it is said, is not the time to appoint someone who may agree with Trump. This may well be so. But the protest over Raymer indicates problems at Dartmouth that may be solved by his appointment.
Raymer’s critics fall into two camps. The main group of Raymer critics mark his position on birthright citizenship as beyond the pale. They worry that his administrative role could risk the visas of students or their families. Or they worry, perhaps, that at a minimum he marks a signal that Dartmouth cares less about immigrants than it claims.
A second group, the cynics, have noticed that Trump has shown himself an enemy of higher education across our land. Having a Republican at Dartmouth can keep our vaunted institution safe by signaling that we are willing to compromise. While they may express strong dislike of Raymer, they recognize his appointment as a strategic choice to strengthen Dartmouth at a time of weakness. This very well might also be true.
What is ridiculous about both arguments, however, is their existence. The only thing newsworthy about this event is how un-newsworthy it is. The “news” of it is that one out of god-knows-how-many administrators at Dartmouth is now a Republican. That is the story. If anything, protesting Raymer proves his necessity. There is little about this specific Republican. Not that if this Republican is hired, Dartmouth will change for the worse. Only that a Republican was hired.
Sure, Republicans may be intolerant. Much of the anti-illegal immigration veers into outright racism. If we have learned anything from the change in the culture under Donald Trump, much racism that was taboo has become outright. This is deeply alarming to anyone with a heart. But to anyone with a brain, there is something intolerant about Matthew Raymer’s treatment. Better to hire him and see how his policies play out, than protest from the outset.
Instead, what if there was something called toleration? John Stuart Mill, the intellectual forefather of all those who are not fanatics ended his wonderful essay on Jeremy Bentham and Samuel Taylor Coleridge with a prayer:
Lord, enlighten thou our enemies’ should be the prayer of every true Reformer; sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers. We are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom; what fills us with apprehension is not their strength but their weakness.
The great disease of our intellectual clime is certainty. We know that birthright citizenship is good. We know that Donald Trump has never said anything correct. We know that DEI is an infallible institution. But do we really?
Our moment marks a regression from Mill’s. We think of our enemies not as those we get to encounter in order to correct our sins. Our enemies are those to destroy in intellectual battle.
Nobody has all the answers, obviously. Matthew Raymer seems like a smart guy — he got a great education at Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan. Protesting him does the College a disservice. It indicates only that Republicans need a better opposition than Dartmouth liberals.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
