Although one of its founders never thought it would last this long, The Dartmouth Review, an off-campus conservative weekly that has sparked innumerable controversies on campus, celebrated its fifteenth anniversary this spring.
From the numerous clashes with College presidents to attacks on Dartmouth administrators and professors, The Review has created a clear image and identity for itself since its founding in 1980 and has become, for better or for worse, a part of Dartmouth's culture.
The early years
Four conservative Dartmouth students -- Greg Fossedal '81, Gordon Haff '81, Benjamin Hart '81 and Michael "Keeney" Jones '82 founded The Review in the spring of 1980.
Although all four are considered The Review's founders, according to Haff the paper was Fossedal's brainchild.
Fossedal was the editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth before resigning due to a clash with the paper's editorial board. He then started The Review with Haff, Hart, Jones and some other writers from The Dartmouth.
With support from conservative alumni such as George Champion '26, the former chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, and an advisory board boasting conservatives such as former U.S. Congressman Jack Kemp and Patrick Buchanan, The Review vaulted from obscurity to immediate legitimacy among conservatives.
In a letter to prospective subscribers in 1982, Dinesh D'Souza '83, then-chairman of The Review, outlined the paper's platform.
According to the letter, The Review supported the restoration of the Indian as the College's mascot, favored courses stressing Western civilization and disapproved of reverse discrimination in college admissions and faculty hiring.
In a 1981 Chronicle of Higher Education article, D'Souza said, "The purpose of The Review is to present an enlightened conservative perspective both on national issues and on the way we see national issues applying to Dartmouth."
Almost from the beginning, The Review and the College administration clashed. The off-campus weekly applied for incorporation as The Dartmouth Review, but was turned down because the College did not wish to associate the Dartmouth name with the publication.
The Review instead incorporated under the name Hanover Review, Inc., and received a temporary license to continue using the Dartmouth name. When the license expired, the paper continued to use the name The Dartmouth Review, despite protests from the College.
But the administration never sued over the name because the College was reluctant to sue its own undergraduates, then-Dean of the College Manuel told the Chronicle of Higher Education. The College has still never sued The Review over the use of Dartmouth's name.
The controversies
Although The Review claimed from the beginning to present an "enlightened" conservative perspective on both national and college issues, many at the College thought The Review was libelous and unethical, not enlightened.
In March 1982, The Review printed a column by Jones, titled "Dis sho' ain't no jive, bro."
The column, written in so-called "Black English," contained passages such as, "Dese boys be sayin' dat we be comin' here to Dartmut' and not takin' the classics."
The column enraged the College's African-American community and prompted Kemp to resign from the paper's editorial board.
In his letter of resignation Kemp wrote, "I am concerned that the association of my name with The Dartmouth Review is interpreted as an endorsement, and I emphatically do not endorse the kind of antics displayed in your article."
In May 1982, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the College voted overwhelmingly to condemn "the abuses of responsible journalism that have been a regular practice of The Dartmouth Review," largely due to Jones' column.
The Review created another controversy in 1983, when Music Professor William Cole sued the paper for an article he claimed was libelous.
The article called Cole's Music 2 course "the most outrageous gut course on campus" and described Cole as a "lean, scruffy fellow" who "looks like a used Brillo pad."
The suit was settled two years later, but the feud between The Review and Cole reached a boiling point in 1988, when four Review staffers confronted Cole after a class and engaged him in a violent argument.
When a photographer from The Review tried to take a picture of Cole, Cole broke the camera. The students later followed up with calls to Cole's home and printed transcripts of the conversations.
The students were eventually suspended for harassing Cole, although two of the four graduated on time because of an injunction postponing the suspension. Cole left the College in 1990, largely due to his years of fighting with The Review.
The national spotlight
Controversies involving The Review continued throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, with several major incidents focusing national media attention on The Review and the College.
In the early morning of Jan. 21, 1986, 12 students armed with sledgehammers smashed three shanties that had been constructed on the Green to protest the College's investment in South Africa.
A group calling itself The Dartmouth Committee to Beautify the Green Before Winter Carnival claimed responsibility for the vandalism. Ten of the 12 vandals were affiliated with The Review, including several editors.
They claimed the shanties violated town and school laws and the purpose of the attack was not to hurt anyone, but simply to remove the shanties. All 12 students were suspended for their part in the attack by the Committee on Standards.
College President James Freedman surprised many people when he attacked The Review at a special faculty meeting in March 1988. Calling The Review "irresponsible, mean-spirited, cruel and ugly," Freedman said it was "dangerously affecting -- indeed poisoning -- the intellectual environment of our campus."
In what the Valley News called the "gloves-off" speech, he said the College "must not stand by silently when a newspaper recklessly sets out to create a climate of intolerance and intimidation."
But this did not stop The Review from stirring up controversy. In October 1988 The Review attacked Freedman himself, likening him to Adolf Hitler in a column titled, "Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Freedmann."
And in 1990, The Review received perhaps the most attention and condemnation in its 15 years for a controversy involving a quotation from Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf.
Two days before Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish holiday of the year, The Review printed a quote from Hitler which read, "Therefore, I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator: By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord's work."
The editors of The Review claimed internal sabotage, writing in a statement that "the human filth that placed this trash in our newspaper made a mockery ... and cast a calamity upon all those who are Jewish."
But the Collegecommunity was furious, and more than 2,000 people attended a Dartmouth United Against Hate rally on the Green condemning The Review.
The controversies surrounding The Review garnered a good deal of national news media attention in the 1980s, including coverage from The Washington Post, Newsweek, The New York Times and CBS' 60 Minutes news show.
Where Is It Going?
Haff said when The Review was founded, he would have never imagined it would still be in existence 15 years later.
"I looked at it as a fun thing to do at the time ... but I certainly didn't think things would keep going the way they have," Haff said.
But current Review editors said they expect the paper to survive for at least another 15 years.
E. Davis Brewer '95, The Review's current editor-in-chief, said the paper will survive for two reasons.
"We have a strongly entrenched alumni base, and, despite all the negative publicity, we continue to get freshmen every year to write for The Review," he said.
Oron Strauss '95, the former editor-in-chief of The Review, said he thinks The Review will survive for a long time to come.
"It's gotten to a point where people are coming to Dartmouth for the sole purpose of writing for The Review," Strauss said. "And that will carry on for the next 15 years, if not longer."
A.J. Monaco '98, a contributing editor for the paper, wrote in an electronic-mail message that The Review "serves as a place where students can speak their mind unhindered by the constraints of the College administration's pressure."
Strauss said he believes The Dartmouth Review is the best college newspaper in the country. He said The Review "means standing up for what we believe in against the mainstream, against the establishment."
As for all the controversies surrounding The Review, Brewer said people are free to disagree with the conservative weekly.
"There are always going to be people who are not going to agree with The Review," Brewer said. "But any paper who has a political stance is going to have people who disagree with it."
