Dartlog: 04/06/2003 - 04/13/2003

The Dartmouth Review

Friday, April 11, 2003

School Follies

A Democratic state legislator in Texas is looking to require that all students take a multicultural or gender studies course in order to graduate. This sort of thing is actually quite common, but since students tend to have a choice in how they will meet the requirement, it's usually not that bad. (Most non-Western history courses, for example, probably count.) The primary objection, of course, is making requirements out of faddish or particular concerns. Imagine, for instance, if Texas wished to require all students to take a course on American patriotism, or if Utah were to require students to take a course on Mormonism.

More outrageous, I think, is a case in a Colorado grade school. A 12-year-old there -- he's in the sixth grade -- was playing a ball game with his friends when he called one particular call "gay." The student was suspended, under an anti-bullying policy, of all things. The school district, predictably, is not saying a word on this, citing, predictably, the Buckley Amendment.

The school board has a vote on April 15 as to whether or not they should add a ban to language on sexual orientation to their anti-bullying policy. (But wait, doesn't that mean it's not in the policy already? So doesn't that mean that the student couldn't have... never mind.)

Perhaps they should read this first.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Emmett at 12:30 PM (0 comments)

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Quote of the Day

You may or may not believe all the statistics you see. You may or may not believe all the words written on the T-shirts. You may or may not believe testimonies from survivors. And it's true -- it's possible that some of what you hear or see this month might not be completely correct. But even so, the mission of this month will have been accomplished because it will have focused attention on a grave problem that transcends any college campus or social setting.

From "Sex, Lies and T-Shirts," an op-ed on Sex Abuse Awareness Month by Tanisha Keshava '05 in today's D. Paging Rigoberta Menchu...

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Emmett at 10:43 AM (0 comments)

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

Re: The Dartmouth Indian

Alex, the DartMoose is serving the Man.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Ryan at 1:19 PM (0 comments)

Victory for Due Process at Harvard

Yesterday, FIRE announced a great victory at Harvard. The disciplinary code was recently changed to require that proceedings in cases of student misconduct cannot begin unless there is some evidence that the charges can be corroborated beyond an accusation. This is, of course, a great victory for fundamental fairness, and is basically akin to instituting a "grand jury" system. Wendy Murphy, a Boston lawyer, filed a complaint with the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), alleging that, since more women file sexual harassment and assault claims than men, more claims coming from women will be thrown out. This, she claimed, was sex discrimination, a violation of Title IX. Fortunately, the OCR has dismissed the complaint, noting that the law �does not prohibit the use of due process.� I'll say.

Read all about it at the link above.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Emmett at 11:32 AM (0 comments)

The Dartmouth Indian
Is it possible that this debate has gotten even more absurd since I graduated?

"[Native American Studies Program Director] Hanitchak made the key distinction that while a mascot inherently reflects a power differential because the mascot 'serves' someone, the seal can indeed represent Dartmouth's origin as a school that would educate Native Americans," Student Life Chair Amit Anand '03 said.

I just want to know one thing: who exactly has the DartMoose been "serving" all these years. Cause dammit, that's just wrong.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alexander at 9:59 AM (0 comments)

Re: Dartmouth Women at War
Well, there you are then. Strikes me as all the more reason compiling a list of current Dartmouth alumni, of both genders, currently serving in the military is a good idea. It's important to remember the Dartmouth's war dead, but the ones who should be must in our thoughts are the men and women now in harm's way.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alexander at 9:34 AM (0 comments)

Re: Dartmouth Women at War

A friend and former army-type responds:

If you want to pass anything on to the Reviewers, tell them that coming from one who was in Military Intelligence, albeit a short time, that women in intell or jag positions or even in other MOS's are just as likely to be deployed during active combat on the front lines. Alex Wilson's statement "Women serving as military intelligence analysts or with the JAG Corps, for example, wouldn't ever be put in Iraq until it was at least theoretically no longer an active theater of operations" is false.

How do I know? Because I have several female friends in Iraq right now, counter intelligence people and interrogators, and I have another friend working in Afghanistan. At this point, more and more commanders are viewing women and men in intell positions as equally deployable and useful. One reason perhaps is that they have a tremendous shortage of interrogators & counter-intell. people in the field at present. They currently have just a few hundred at present to cover the entire globe but there is now an order for over 1,000 new intell people in the Interrogator MOS alone. Among the new trainees who actually graduate - nearly 50 % are women. Scary or not, they can't afford to be picky, they need "bodies" as the Army calls them, and women help fill that gap. Also, in many cases, the women outperform the men. In other branches, I can guarantee you that there are women pilots dropping bombs over Baghdad tonight.

And our source adds, "Joseph Scott '00 is a patriot missile officer and is currently helping to launch missiles from Qatar, though by this point in he may be in Iraq." Best wishes to him and his compatriots.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 12:01 AM (0 comments)

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

Re: Dartmouth Women at War
Granted. if nothing else, this war has made it quite clear that all soldiers in a combat zone, women and men alike, will probably end up under fire regardless of their technical designation as "support."

What I was meaning was how many are actually combat zone deployable in a meaningful sense. Women serving as military intelligence analysts or with the JAG Corps, for example, wouldn't ever be put in Iraq until it was at least theoretically no longer an active theater of operations. Or such is my understanding, and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

Thanks to Alston and Chris for the prompt responses.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alexander at 9:36 AM (0 comments)

Monday, April 07, 2003

Re: Dartmouth War Dead

Alex, according to the freshmen who wrote the article (and the poor one that typed in every name), the records for more recent wars and military action are shoddy at best. I'll check to see if there's a better explanation.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alston B. Ramsay at 11:49 PM (0 comments)

2-4-6-8

"2-4-6-8...stop the date rape" and "Hey hey, ho ho...sexual assault has got to go"

or something to that effect

Pots and pans banged

Sexual Assault Awareness march down frat row

Any more appropriate than having a protest against Affirmative Action outside of Cutter Shabazz?

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by alex at 10:07 PM (0 comments)

Trustees and Chi Gams
By the way, if the talent pool among male alums is so low that only my fellow Chi Gams are left, the College may be in even bigger trouble than I imagined.

Also, does anyone else find it odd that we can only get one candidate out of three who still lives in the United States? The number of statistical improbabilities in this election gets higher the longer I look.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alexander at 7:59 PM (0 comments)

Dartmouth Trustee Election
A long while back both Emmett and Chris asked whether anyone knew anything about the alumni trustee candidates. While obviously some people must, even if not any associated with DartLog, the basic answer is no. No one knows anything about them, and no one is supposed to. As some of the leaders of the Alumni Council and Association, which both have responsibilities relating to the election of Trustees, informed me at a forum in New York last week, the system is designed to leave us with very little knowledge of the candidates' views, in order to ensure that the election isn't "political."

So, whom should one vote for under the circumstances? No one. If you haven't already, simply don't. Voting in an election where we, as alumni, are given no knowledge about what the candidates think about the challenges facing Dartmouth, at a time when the Board is considering actions that may fundamentally reshape the College, simply encourages the belief that the current system should be maintained. The people who run the elections are primarily concerned with alumni participation; the fewer who participate, the more likely it is that we will be given a real choice in the future. So don't even bother. It will do far more harm than good.

That said, if you have to vote, I must recommend either of the two gentlemen, as both are alumni of my fraternity.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alexander at 7:55 PM (0 comments)

Women of Dartmouth?
I was gratified to see the middle verse, known as the war verse, of Men of Dartmouth included in the issue. It's a shame that this part of the song has been expunged from the College's practices altogether. For those who don't know, the war verse was traditionally added to the alma mater during time of war, to honor those Dartmouth men who had died in the service of their country, and who might be doing so at that moment on the front lines. When the decision was made to alter the song to include women, rather than adopting a new alma mater and keeping Men of Dartmouth as simply one more song in the College canon, the war verse was basically eliminated (look at the lyrics and you'll understand why).

On first reading the lyrics again I was going to emphasize this point. But it occurred to me that in the near future the verse could legitimately become obsolete, if Dartmouth women were killed in combat. So, another assignment for the Review staff if anyone wants it: how many female Dartmouth graduates serve in the military? How many are in specialties that would lead to forward deployment?

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alexander at 7:26 PM (0 comments)

The Michigan and National Reviews

Editors of the Michigan Review opine, or at least ramble, at National Review Online

Oh yeah...and they call themselves "nerds."

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by alex at 7:17 PM (0 comments)

Recent Dartmouth War Dead
That list raises an interesting question though: have any Dartmouth graduates been killed in action since the Vietnam War? My guess is not, given the limited number of U.S. casualties since then, and the even more limited number of Dartmouth grads who serve in the military. But really I have no idea. Does anyone else?

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alexander at 7:14 PM (0 comments)

The Issue
In all seriousness, my congratulations to the new editorial team for a very solid effort their first time out. The service rendered by Dartmouth men in the past was overdue for a tribute, especially since what the school seems to be offering most prominently now is the boilerplate college anti-war nonsense as every other liberal academic institution. And whoever thought to include a list of Dartmouth's war dead deserves enormous credit. This is exactly the time when we should be remembering them.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alexander at 7:06 PM (0 comments)

It's Been a While...
But the excellence of the new issue has shamed me into returning to at least occasional posting. Please excuse the initial profusion of posts while I do a bit of catch up.

Full post and comments below the fold.

Posted by Alexander at 6:58 PM (0 comments)