The decision by Thayer School of Engineering Dean Elsa Garmire to withhold information from U.S. News and World Report magazine for its graduate school rankings was wrong.
Garmire intended to protest the way the magazine ranks engineering schools by withholding Thayer's information. The result of her actions, however, compromised the exchange of free ideas.
Garmire has said that the U.S. News rankings are conducted in a way that misleads students, and this may well be true. But even if the U.S. News criteria or methodology casts Thayer in an unfavorable light, many other publications provide their own interpretations of the comparative merits of graduate schools. Thayer should not pick and choose the media organizations it deals with.
Graduate school applicants consider many factors other than the word of one magazine before deciding what institution to choose, and U.S. News is just one of many measuring sticks.
By declining to release the information, Garmire eliminated Thayer from consideration and thus deprived students of the chance to make an informed decision. These applicants may go elsewhere for their information about Dartmouth's engineering school, but in a society that welcomes choice, this is unacceptable.
People should have as many resources as possible at their fingertips when deciding where to go to graduate school, and because of this decision, students who hope to attend Thayer have one fewer place to turn.
Garmire's credentials as a scholar and an intellectual are unquestioned. She should do the scholarly thing -- release the numbers to U.S. News and let consumers decide for themselves whether Thayer should be in the Top 50 or the Top 10.