More recipients and administrators reacted yesterday to the hate mailings sent to at least six people last week, condemning the action and calling for the sender to reveal him or herself.
Anti-homosexual and anti-Jewish pamphlets containing offensive cartoon strips and dialogues were mailed through Hinman Mail to Student Assembly President Josh Green '00, officers of the Dartmouth Rainbow Alliance, Dean of the Tucker Foundation Scott Brown, Interim College Chaplain Gwendolyn King and Rabbi for Dartmouth Hillel Edward Boraz.
Acting Dean of the College Dan Nelson, who did not receive a pamphlet, told The Dartmouth his office is investigating the situation and wishes to "convey concern about what happened and support for the people affected."
"I have no idea what the sender or senders were hoping to accomplish but my reaction to this is it reflects very poorly on whoever it was that sent them," Nelson said.
Nelson said the College is attempting to uncover who sent the hate-filled pamphlets. The return addresses printed on the envelopes were "Crusade for Christ HB 5072," but Campus Crusade for Christ Student Director Owen Fletcher '00 has denied that his organization or any of its members were responsible for sending the mailing -- a claim Nelson said he has "no reason" to doubt.
The apparent misidentification of a student group is the aspect of the incident with the most clear disciplinary implications.
"If it is indeed the case that someone sent something out under someone else's name ... that could be a violation of College policy," Nelson said. "One of the things about ideas at a community like Dartmouth is if anyone of us have ideas we want to interject ... along with that comes a responsibility to accept ownership of those ideas."
Nelson would not specify if he believed the sender was affiliated with the College, saying he has "no idea who was responsible," even though the pamphlets were mailed without U.S. postage through the Hinman Post Office
As for the content of the mailing itself, Nelson said portions might violate the College's Principle of Community, but those violations are not followed by disciplinary actions.
"We have a very few set of rules and regulations that spell out at Dartmouth what people can't do and very few of those have anything to do with the content of speech," Nelson said, but added "I think they ought to stand up and take ownership of that idea and engage the rest of the community about it."
Speech and actions Nelson said would violate College policy would take the form of something like threatening someone with harm.
In an interview with The Dartmouth yesterday Boraz said he considered the mailings to be "anti-Semitic in the sense that they are anti-Jewish," but said "we live in a free country and people can send mailings."
He also said "the unauthorized use of the return address was inappropriate."
Boraz, along with Green, received a pamphlet titled "Where's Rabbi Waxman?" which depicted caricatures of a deceased rabbi who was sent to hell for not believing in Jesus. The rabbi questions, "Lord Jesus, is everyone lost who rejects you?" The Jesus figure answers, "Yes, I am the only way to heaven."
The rabbi had previously rejected scriptures which "indicate the Messiah has already come" with the words, "Gasp, I've seen these Scriptures before. If I accept them, my people will disown me."
Brown said he believes he might have received another anti-Jewish pamphlet, with the CCC return address, to "stoke the fire" of a controversy from earlier this year involving both Brown and the CCC surroundVing the distribution of the C.S. Lewis book "Mere Christianity."
Brown received a pamphlet titled "Love the Jewish People" which indicated the only one who can save the land of Israel is Jesus.
While Brown said he believes steps need to be taken to "preserve the quality of the community" in light of the mailings and "express concern for those who might have been injured," he questioned whether College rules were broken.
"As far as official policy goes, in my own point of view we all have the right to say many offensive things -- that doesn't mean it's right to say them," Brown said but seconded the opinion that there could be policy implications of the return address misrepresentation.
Brown, despite previous disagreements with the CCC, said he believed the group's denials. "I think that this information goes well beyond anything I have ever seen from the Campus Crusade for Christ."
In a column published in today's issue of The Dartmouth, DRA Secretary Chris LaBarbera '02, who discovered two pamphlets addressed to the DRA on Sunday, wrote, "Try to realize how this mailing hurts me, my friends, my family, my Christ, my God. The pamphlet was not designed to heal, to convert or to redeem -- it was specifically designed to instill fear, to target, to segregate and hate. This mailing is persecution."
The anti-gay pamphlet depicts homosexuals encouraging children to be homosexual and threatening to "infect the nation's blood supply" with HIV. "If research money for AIDS is not coming at a certain level by a certain date, all gay males should give blood. Whatever is required to get national attention is valid. If that includes blood terrorism, so be it." The pamphlet responds that their actions are "cold-blooded murder."
The homosexual pamphlet goes on to compare gay men with child molesters -- "Even children were not safe from their gross perversions" -- and said, "God doesn't make homosexuals. If he did, he wouldn't condemn them."
A character in the cartoon says, "I became a modern day Sodomite because my teachers said it was a harmless alternative lifestyle. They lied through their teeth, so now I'm doomed to hell."
King, who received a different mailing, could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Brown and Boraz said they had decided during a meeting in the middle of last week not to go public with their receipt of the pamphlets because they believed the mailing might have been limited to just administrators.
"We weren't sure what the intent was -- if it was just to attack the administrators individually or if it was to injure the community as a whole, which in our view was more serious," Brown said.
