This week, a group of concerned Dartmouth students released a “Freedom Budget.” The document comprises a list of demands on an administrative regime heretofore remiss in its treatment of minority communities. It calls for gender-neutral bathrooms, the institution of mandatory social justice seminars and harsher punishments for hate crimes, among other reforms. Although many of the specific proposals outlined in the “Freedom Budget” are impracticable, mainstream Dartmouth has showcased its immaturity in harping on the specific details of a document that represents, above all, an important call for change.
Facebook status after Facebook status, comment after comment and letter to the editor after letter to the editor have uncritically hailed the Dartmouth experience as the best thing since Wonder Bread (incidentally, one of the whitest carbs on the market). One addition to the string of ignorant insults is “Oppression and Oatmeal,” a WordPress site that mocked the “Freedom Budget” by presenting a set of ludicrous demands that were supposed to operate as some sort of reductio ad absurdum. The now-deleted site recommended that Dartmouth ban meats from dining halls, rename buildings after “positive feelings, seasons or non-carnivorous woodland creatures” and transform frat row into a “bathroom mega-complex” — which does not represent a radical shift from the status quo.
For some, Dartmouth is a beer-fueled riot. This college, it seems, provides a warm and inclusive community for straight white men. Who knew?
No one, the protestors least of all, labors under the illusion that Dartmouth is anything but a haven of privilege — an institution practically designed to enable those fortunate enough to create offensive blogs, stumble into Collis for a few drunk mozzarella sticks and have a generally fun and unreflective time. The issue here is whether the institutions that facilitate tails events, harbor, offensive blogs and even those strong male friendships that the fraternities supposedly offer operate at the expense of others.
There is a veritable boatload of evidence that Dartmouth represents a hostile environment for certain communities. But mainstream Dartmouth continues to dismiss this evidence out of hand. Those who hold the presiding opinion apparently consider themselves arbiters of correctness.
What they forget is that a majority opinion in an insular town is a minority opinion in much of the educated world. Have 100 percent of the national news outlets adopted the banner of Dartmouth’s most radical contingent because they are all conspiracy theorists under the influence of strong liberal Kool-Aid? Are all of the potential applicants that Dartmouth lost uniformly deluded? Finally, are hundreds of members of our own community hopelessly irrational?
Anything’s possible. We might live in a matrix controlled by an evil demon intent on deceiving us. But, hopefully, we are all in a position to recognize that the rest of the civilized world may be onto something here, radical skepticism notwithstanding. Even if you give your own opinion and your Greek letters disproportionate epistemic weight, I think multiple national publications and several hundred Dartmouth students should be enough to sufficiently counterbalance your arrogant certainty.
Because, ultimately, one positive experience is just that — one positive experience. It does not invalidate anyone else’s negative experiences. The only scenario in which your positive experience could play that evidentiary role is a scenario in which you think your experiences matter more than other people’s.
Part of the point of the diversity that the “Freedom Budget” hopes to bring about is that it forces exposure to different points of view. If this vast body of evidence is not enough to produce anything more than a knee-jerk defense of Dartmouth as it currently exists, then you are in dire need of the reforms it proposes.
