I have to respect you for the firmness of your convictions, and the zeal with which you seek to uphold them. I am certain many people have brought forth the philosophical arguments against what you are attempting to do, and I am also quite certain that such arguments have done little to change your opinions. So I will refrain from repeating what you have already been told.
What I wish to address is the way in which you are implementing your initiative. I have no doubt that you can destroy the Greek system. You would not have risked your job by going public with your plans without full knowledge of your abilities. With that in mind I would expect you to go about this duty (as you see it) with dignity and respect. However, you seem to have chosen a much more underhanded and undignified method.
Everyone is well aware that by announcing this initiative a day and a half before Carnival you were hoping to incite anger and belligerency among students and alumni, with the resulting scandal giving you all the fuel you need to tear down the Greeks. This was bad enough, but Thursday night at the ceremonies you chose to taunt your opponents in a manner unbefitting of any gentleman or woman.
To laugh in the face of the students whose lives you hold in your hand is more than just insulting, it's disgusting and as a president of an Ivy League institution you do your office a great disservice. These students before you are not merely "drunken fratboys," but the best and the brightest men and women in the country, the students of Dartmouth College. We will not stoop so low as to respond to childish badgering.
I understand that you have little experience with Dartmouth Greeks, and have therefore prejudged them to be as shallow and oppressive as the Greeks at other schools, but here at Dartmouth the students, both Greek and unaffiliated, have found a place we thought we could call our own and love with all our hearts. After yesterday's announcement, Dartmouth no longer feels like a home.
What you would have witnessed had you bothered to pay attention, was a community. A campus united regardless of race, sex, religion or affiliation, and if that's what you wished to do then tonight you succeeded. To take this any further would be to work against your own goals, merely for the sake of appearance. If you truly care about this school, then look around you and see with your own eyes and open mind what Dartmouth truly is. You will find a campus of students that loves their school with a fervency no other school in the country can match. If creating a Harvard in New Hampshire is your goal, then you should know that when Harvard students visit this little school in the woods they are envious of our loyalty, and unbelieving of the sense of belonging that Dartmouth students share with each other.
I'm asking you to look beyond your own political goals, and as a man of decency and humanity realize that you hold the happiness of four thousand students in your hand. Here in New Hampshire we have all found a place we can call our own. Please trust us as bright young adults to continue to make our own home here.
Thank you very much for hearing my thoughts and good luck with your future decisions.
