As a Dartmouth student, Todd Zywicki '88 was known for his outspoken and frank manner the beginnings of a pattern of behavior that marked Zywicki's tenure on the College's Board of Trustees, and may have contributed to the Board's decision not to reelect him to a second term a move unprecedented in recent times. Zywicki's tenure on the Board will end just under two weeks from today.
Patrick Rutty '88, like Zywicki, was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity while at the College. He described Zywicki as "outspoken on stuff that did matter and stuff that didn't matter."
"I never felt like he was jamming his opinions down my throat," Rutty said, and likened the experience of debating with Zywick to "more like jousting."
Government professor emeritus Roger Masters, who taught Zywicki when he was an undergraduate at the College, remembered him as an intelligent, inquisitive student.
"I recall [Zywicki] as one of the students who was very much at ease speaking out in class, even if it was critical of me, which I like," he said.
Zywicki's time at the College was marked by "a lot of turmoil" surrounding such issues as apartheid in South Africa and the feminist movement, which led to an atmosphere of intense "political correctness" on the Dartmouth campus, Rutty said.
"The stifling atmosphere of political correctness is awful and massively counterproductive, and against what the liberal arts education is all about," he said. "[Zywicki] took [the refusal to be politically correct] and applied it to his continued studies. He brought that to his candidacy [for trustee]."
While at the College, Zywicki worked for The Dartmouth as an opinion columnist, sports writer and advertising director. An opinion piece he authored in 1987 highlights his resistance to the atmosphere of political correctness at the College during a time when students were protesting the College's investment in companies that supported apartheid.
"It should be obvious that those who are really concerned about aiding oppressed citizens would concentrate on freeing the more highly-victimized citizens of Nicaragua, rather than South Africa's blacks," Zywicki wrote in his column.
Zywicki's fellow professors at the George Mason University School of Law, presented a different picture of their colleague.
Zywicki is "bright" and "thoughtful," according to George Mason professor Lloyd Cohen, who added that "there is nothing controversial about him."
Timothy Muris, also a law professor at George Mason University, said that although Zywicki "clearly has distinct views," he is not "belligerent or an in your face' kind of person."
"Everybody enjoyed working with him," Muris said, reflecting on his work with Zywicki on a U.S. government committee, adding that Zywicki was "responsive to criticism."
While Zywicki has published many articles in academic journals, he often relies on more mainstream media outlets to express his ideas.
He often contributes to the Volokh Conspiracy, a popular conservative blog. Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and one of the blog's founders, said in an interview with The Dartmouth that he has known Zywicki for almost 20 years and prizes the "calm, thoughtful, measured tone" that Zywicki adds in his contributions to the web site.
Zywicki's byline has also frequently appeared on the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal., with most of the pieces centering on his area of academic expertise, bankruptcy law.
Elected by alumni as a petition candidate to the Dartmouth Board in 2005, Zywicki has sparked controversy throughout his tenure.
Along with the other petition candidates on the Board T.J. Rodgers '70, Peter Robinson '70 and Stephen Smith '88 Zywicki was a signatory on an amicus brief filed in support of the Association of Alumni's 2007 lawsuit against the College.
The Board reprimanded Zywicki in January 2008 after he called former College President James Freedman "truly evil" and made other controversial statements in an Oct. 27, 2007 address at the John William Pope Center, a higher education think tank.
Throughout his time on the Board, Zywicki's actions have led to diverging views of him within the alumni body, Rick Routhier '73 Tu'76, who in the past has headed the Alumni Council's trustee nominating committee, said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Zywicki has a tendency to "play fast and loose with the facts," John Engelman '68 said. Engelman, who currently serves as a member of the Association executive committee, described Zywicki as a "professional provoker."
"Law professors are taught to be very precise with the words they use, but he seems to subscribe his own definitions to words, [which is] irresponsible," he said.
Zywicki, in an interview with The Dartmouth, disagreed with Engelman's analysis, citing his own work as a frequent editorial writer and expert witness called before Congress as evidence of his academic integrity.
"I only reach my opinion after a very serious in depth analysis of facts," he said, but added that he thought he was elected to the Board because alumni were searching for more "straight talk," and believed that he could provide that.
While Zywicki has been effective in promoting his views, that does not mean that he has always been effective in using his arguments to create change, Routhier said.
"I just don't know how good he was at bringing those arguments away from the press and public and bringing them to the group of people that mattered, which was his fellow Board members," Routhier said.
Rodgers, however, said he found Zywicki's perspective especially valuable for the Board, although he acknowledged, "Unfortunately, [Zywicki] is not a political guy. What you see is what you've got."
"You hear a comment about how the machine actually works on the inside, which is a perspective that was really missing," Rodgers said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "Zywicki was extremely valuable on the Board in terms of understanding academics."
Engelman affirmed, however, that Zywicki has an attraction for the public eye.
"For a guy like Zywicki, there's only one thing worse than bad ink, and that's no ink," he said.
Jim Adler '60 Tu '61, who has served on various Association committees, said that Zywicki has a "deep need to say and do outrageous things."
Zywicki, however, described his outspoken nature as a benefit for the Board.
Zywicki said many of his accomplishments on the Board, such as the creation of the standing Committee on Academic Affairs, were possible due to a "willingness to push back against a culture on the Board that had come to believe that anybody who had any complaints were just malcontents."
"I would just make arguments and ask questions, and the response I would get was You're not supposed to ask that question,'" he said.
According to Zywicki, he ran for election to the Board to change the College, not to add a line to his resume.
"People do this for two reasons to do something or to be something," he said. "I've done it to do something."
