In its 239-year history, the administration of Dartmouth College has proved woefully inadequate at addressing egregious gender inequality on its campus.
From the misogynistic shadow cast by the obviously phallic Baker Tower to the unsung (except by male athletic teams) stanzas of our alma mater, women are marginalized and made to feel inferior at every possible juncture.
The prospect of Alpha Xi Delta losing its house on Webster Avenue to the infamous Beta Theta Pi draws more attention to this issue. More importantly, however, it illuminates a viable solution to the overarching debacle: the College must repossess each of the fraternity houses on "Dude Row."
While it might prove difficult for the College to gain possession of the houses (with alumni corporations legally possessing them and all), there are surely ways in which impassioned social agendas can be utilized to trample individuals' legal rights.
For example, I propose that the College require, for safety's sake, that each fraternity house install a helicopter pad on its roof for emergency "Good Samaritan" evacuations. This is no doubt reasonable, if not necessary, given the extent of binge drinking present in those male-dominated dens of iniquity.
The fraternities, unable to pay for such a safety necessity, would be forced to borrow vast sums of money from the College. These loans would be impossible to pay off, effectively giving the College economic control and ownership of the physical plants. Failure to comply would result in immediate permanent derecognition (and by permanent, I mean permanent), consigning rebel houses to the same fate as Zeta Psi -- withering away into a state of general neglect and disrepair.
With the scores of passionate, intelligent, strong-willed and successful Dartmouth women -- so full of conviction in helping their repressed sisters -- such schemes would be easy to realize.
Theta Delta Chi's proverbial fall from grace as a result of Kappa Kappa Gamma's successful boycott demonstrates their social and political power on campus.
Theta Delt consequently lacks prospective members and female companions. Sigma Phi Epsilon, by popular opinion, has now replaced the void created by Theta Delt in the Big Three.
Sisters and Daughters of Dartmouth, the Fairchild Foucault Pendulum of gender equality has for too long been swinging on the side of Dartmouth's patriarchy; the only way to rectify such an injustice of 36 (or 239) years is to let it swing -- nay! Push it! -- so that it may be stuck on the other side.
Equality and justice are laws of averages. We must not only rectify but make amends for the women of Dartmouth who have been victims of social injustices.
We must ignore the history of pre-1972 Dartmouth; our postmodern reconstructive view tells us that their ways, thoughts and opinions were base, corrupt, contemptible and condemnable, worthy of notice only in a study of social inequality or primitive life forms (which frat boys truly are).
The campus must not be a shrine to the way things were, or even how they are, only to how they should be; change is inherently good.
Tear down Phi Delta Alpha and its 100-year-old walls, merge Kappa Kappa Kappa with The Tabard (the only forward-thinking institution involving men on this campus) via a female-dominated "social bridge" and make Alpha Chi Alpha the "Old Barn" by donating it to the organic farm (it houses animals already).
In their current state, these buildings and the organizations they house exist only as monuments to the indignities suffered by generations of Dartmouth women at the hands of the elitist, empowered and ultimately corrupt "Dartmouth Male."
Fraternities such as TDX, Psi Upsilon, Chi Heorot and Alpha Delta can remain; physically separated, they will be weak in comparison to the estrogen flooded social thoroughfare, Webster Avenue, because, as we all know, men are unable to demonstrate solidarity.
I hate to wax poetic, or be a teary-eyed idealist, but it is with a sliver of hope that I say these bastions of indecency, discrimination, and testosterone may one day be purged from the Dartmouth campus like the sickness that they are.
However, we must take this one step at a time; the first step, the most important, is the prohibition of Beta Theta Pi's return to campus in its lawfully owned monument to male dominance.
