Beilock: College President Apologizes for Community Harm
Dear Dartmouth students:
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Dear Dartmouth students:
We, alumni of the College, were horrified to see our alma mater on the front page of the Washington Post today — not because of its careful teaching or tolerant educational environment, but because a 65-year-old professor was violently thrown to the ground by New Hampshire State Police. Her crime? Trying to protect peaceful student protesters from police officers in riot gear. In horror, we learned that — as they chanted, “There’s no riot here/Why are you in riot gear?” — students were arrested en masse with disproportionate force. In even greater horror, we learned that student journalists were arrested while covering the events.
Following the arrests of 90 people during protests on campus Wednesday night, College President Sian Leah Beilock sent an email to the Dartmouth community. In it, she wrote that “the Board has a clearly articulated process for considering [divestment], which was explained to student protesters.” However, a close examination reveals that this process, the criteria underlying divestment decision making and the committee overseeing it are far from clear or accountable. The goal of the “clearly articulated process” actually seems to be an attempt to mire divestment discussions in administrative lingo and to provide administrators with a talking point for their lack of action and accountability to the Dartmouth community. In order to make divestment possible, Dartmouth must change the criteria, governance and process by which it evaluates divestment proposals.
It should come as no surprise that many people reacted with horror to the stories of students who have been arrested, beaten and tear-gassed on university campuses around the country for protesting the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Indeed, the images of armed riot cops stationed on campuses around the country seem more reminiscent of scenes from war than of the modern university. State violence on college campuses is not without precedent. From the Tlatelolco killings of Mexican students calling for political change in 1968, to the slaughter of pro-democracy students in the Athens Polytechnic uprising of 1973, to the United States’ Kent State massacre of students protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia in 1970, we have seen that, when pushed, governments are unafraid to open fire on their own citizens.
The Dartmouth Climate Collaborative — announced on April 22 — signifies a major step forward in the College’s response to climate change. The College has committed to investing more than $500 million into reducing carbon emissions, while also kickstarting other projects to reduce emissions and raise awareness about climate change. This policy change exists because of the hard work of organizations like the Sustainability Office and because students have never stopped demanding more from Dartmouth. As such — while we should celebrate the achievements of this plan — we must continue to push for more. Although College President Sian Leah Beilock proclaims that “the time for bold action is now,” the truth is that Dartmouth’s climate response is not nearly bold enough, failing to prioritize climate and environmental justice.
I’d like to play a quick game. I’m going to give you four satirical headlines, and you tell me which ones were pulled from The Onion and which were generated by artificial intelligence.
Dartmouth recently made headlines as the first Ivy League institution to reintroduce the standardized testing requirement in the admissions process, after three years of test-optional admissions. The College initially introduced its test-optional policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many students were unable to take standardized tests as a result of quarantine policy. The controversial decision to reinstate the testing requirement stemmed from an internal study conducted by a quartet of Dartmouth economists — Professors Elizabeth Cascio, Bruce Sacerdote, Doug Staiger and Michael Tine. Their findings were published in a report addressed to College President Sian Leah Beilock and vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid Lee Coffin on Jan. 30, according to previous reporting by The Dartmouth.
“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe argued during the Virginia gubernatorial debate in October 2021. It was this line that likely cost McAuliffe the election. The Republican candidate Glen Youngkin seized on McAuliffe’s words, launching a series of attack ads aimed at mobilizing angry parents. Following the debate and subsequent ads, new polling showed Youngkin leading by 17 points among parents of K-12 children — a demographic that was crucial to his election win. The 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election provides evidence that parents feel strongly about the importance of their role in deciding how their children are educated.
In 1995, Dartmouth’s total tuition for one year including fees, food and housing was $23,615. Today it amounts to $84,270. While inflation and improvements to financial aid account for part of the tuition increase, the vast majority of tuition increases have gone towards increased operating costs. Proponents of the College’s current tuition scheme might argue that despite increasing costs, Dartmouth is more accessible than ever. Today’s financial aid packages no longer contain student loans, and Dartmouth’s financial aid website states that “families with total annual income below $65,000… have a zero parent contribution expectation.” Yet, Dartmouth remains inaccessible to many middle-class families.
Recently, a controversy arose on campus over the vandalism of a Winter Carnival ice sculpture that displayed the title “River2Sea” and portrayed the territory of both Israel and Palestine enveloped by a Palestinian flag. We can hold two truths at the same time: As a community, we should condemn this vandalism — destructive action undermines constructive discourse. We must also thoughtfully examine the problematic implications of the sculpture and its title.
You would be hard-pressed to find a single Dartmouth student incognizant of Feb. 10’s vandalism incident. Al-Nur’s “River2Sea” ice sculpture was destroyed and thereafter adorned with Israeli flags, a development universally condemned by the Muslim and Jewish communities on campus. There is no shred of doubt, neither among students nor faculty, that it is in our shared interest the responsible parties be held accountable. With that said, I draw dubious stares when I argue the College created, with woeful negligence, an atmosphere where such an incident was not only liable but bound to occur.
Any form of hate directed against students for their race, religion or nationality is unacceptable. Yet sadly, such hate was directed at Muslim and Palestinian students this Winter Carnival.
Dartmouth recently reinstated standardized testing as one of its admissions requirements. This is commendable: we must select the smartest minds. But we should not just raise our intellectual standards, we must raise our physical standards.
As a low-income, international student from Peru, I write to express my profound concern about the reinstatement of the SAT requirement in the admissions process for the Class of 2029 and beyond. As Dartmouth’s senior leadership is undoubtedly aware, the application process for international students differs significantly from that of American students, since the resources available to international students are both more limited and more exclusive. While some international students are fortunate enough to have the means for SAT fees and preparation, many do not have these privileges. This is especially burdensome for low-income, international students who seek to apply to prestigious institutions such as Dartmouth.
A coalition of Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latiné, first-generation, international, individuals with disabilities and working-class organizations and students on this campus express our dissatisfaction towards the recent repeal of Dartmouth’s test-optional policy and the reinstatement of required standardized testing.
As members of Access Dartmouth, a student group dedicated to student accessibility, we are writing to oppose President Sian Leah Beilock’s decision to reinstate the standardized testing requirement for undergraduate admissions. This decision will harm the admissions chances of disabled students, a group that has for far too long been overlooked in higher education. Disabled students are equally capable of excelling at Dartmouth and equally deserving of inclusion and opportunity.
Students can change the course of history. And on Jan. 23, Dartmouth students have the opportunity to help save democracy by writing in Joe Biden on the Democratic presidential primary ballot.
In the wake of the landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled to end race-conscious admissions within higher education, another admissions policy is currently under fire. Legacy admissions have come under scrutiny due to their historical tendency to favor affluent, white students disproportionately and often at the expense of Black, Asian, Native American and Hispanic students, which is a valid argument. A considerable number of Dartmouth’s peer institutions decided to sunset legacy admissions prior to the ruling. These institutions include, but are not limited to, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan. Each institution made the decision independently, but at the core of their decisions lies a shared belief that legacy admissions constitute a discriminatory policy.
We, as Jewish students, share in our tremendous grief for the loss of life suffered in Israel and Gaza over the last several weeks. Many of us watched in horror as our friends and family were bombarded by rocket fire; we wept at the murder of innocent civilians and prayed for the safety of our brothers and sisters in captivity. As the members of Hillel and Chabad are diverse in their perspectives on the complex issues facing the Middle East, it is neither our place nor our responsibility to take a political stance on behalf of Dartmouth’s Jewish community.
President Sian Leah Beilock released an email statement Saturday morning defending the arrest of two Sunrise students the preceding night. She argued that these students threatened “physical action” that “must be considered a threat of violence” and that the arrests were necessary to maintain the “physical safety of all those who call our campus home.” This is a false justification for the College’s true motivations: Squashing our right to peacefully protest. The College's attempt to propagandize these peaceful demonstrators as violent individuals is a deliberate smear campaign to manipulate the student body, isolate and shame the individuals arrested and weaken support for the Dartmouth New Deal.