To the Editor:
The editorial in Tuesday's issue, "Garmire: Release the Numbers", is the most poorly written editorial I have ever read in the pages of The Dartmouth. It is packed with contradictions, meaningless catchphrases and unsupported assertions, and completely fails to convince.
The editorial acknowledges that the U.S. News and World Report rankings may be misleading to students, yet accuses Thayer School Dean of Engineering Elsa Garmire of compromising the exchange of free ideas. How is distorting the truth, as U.S. News does, better than protecting it, as Garmire is trying to do?
"Thayer should not pick and choose the media organizations it deals with" asserts the editorial, with no support for this radical statement. Why should Thayer not pick and choose? If a supermarket tabloid such as the Weekly World News wanted to write an article on Thayer school, would you expect Garmire to cooperate?
The editorial treats the absence of Thayer School from the U.S. News rankings as a veritable sign of the apocalypse. "Garmire eliminated Thayer from consideration and thus deprived students of the chance to make an informed decision." Yet by your own admission, "applicants consider many factors other than the word of one magazine before deciding what institution to choose." Despite what you may think, omitting Thayer school from one magazine hardly restricts the right or ability of students to choose a graduate school. Rather, by refusing to release information to U.S. News and World Report, Garmire has deprived students of the chance to make a misinformed decision.
