To the Editor:
Alexandra Garrison '07 did a good job of summarizing the position of petition trustee candidate Stephen Smith '88 on freedom of speech ("Smith Out of Touch With Students," Feb. 15). On his website, Smith makes the suggestion that Dartmouth adopt a freedom of speech policy. Garrison calls this "unnecessary." She proceeds to claim that Smith's insistence on such a policy means he is "out of touch with students."
Reasonable Dartmouth students can disagree on whether a written freedom of speech policy is healthy for our institution or not, but Smith's insistence on an explicit policy certainly does not make him either in or out of touch with students.
Taking a full view of the issues facing Dartmouth, and the positions Smith has taken on them, it is clear that he's deeply in touch with student sentiment in Hanover. He is the first and only candidate to endorse reform of the Committee on Standards, where Dartmouth lags miles behind in the area of due process. He is, again, the first and only candidate to recognize Dartmouth's bureaucracy problem, where the number of administrators keeps increasing almost exponentially every year -- along with tuition. And while in Hanover for Winter Carnival, Smith spoke with several campus groups and made a strong case that the current administration has let Dartmouth's focus on the undergraduate slip toward a more research-based institution.
Instead of throwing out rhetoric about freedom of speech, Smith has made a simple recommendation: Dartmouth should just adopt the First Amendment. In my view, that puts him in touch with students. It is worth noting that Smith has been the only candidate to take the hard positions on free speech -- and he stuck his neck out, doing it first, before he knew where the other candidates stand.
