Since I was accepted to Dartmouth, I’ve read and heard various admissions materials and welcome speeches that emphasize that my classmates and I were chosen for our accomplishments from a large, strong applicant pool. In effect, Dartmouth underscores how so many talented students are turned away in order to help us conceptualize the incredible opportunity we have earned. Like its peer institutions, Dartmouth thrives partially due to its ability to select the individuals it most wants as members of its community. In other words, Dartmouth is exclusive.
Micro-communities within Dartmouth function similarly. If Dartmouth’s research programs and fellowships took all who applied, they would lose their academic prestige. If our a cappella groups accepted all who auditioned, their performances would be mediocre at best. If the Dartmouth Outing Club allowed all members to lead outdoor trips without proving their competence, students on trips would not be guaranteed a physically and emotionally safe experience. And if Dartmouth’s Greek organizations took all those who rushed, houses would not have nearly as strong group dynamics or campus presences.
Exclusivity on campus is acceptable when everyone who wishes to engage in an activity or join an organization has an equitable opportunity to try doing so. When this is not the case, when some potential members have stronger chances due to factors outside their ability to contribute effectively to the organization’s purpose, reform is warranted. For example, I commend the Panhellenic Council for its recently announced reforms partially intended to combat the inherent biases in women’s recruitment, because a woman’s fit for a given sorority should determine her chances of getting a bid — not her demographic information.
Exclusivity becomes most problematic under one or more of three conditions. First, no organization should practice exclusivity solely for the sake of leaving some people out, rather than for the purpose of preserving the organization’s strength. Second, we must do everything we can to eradicate exclusivity applied on the basis of unfair criteria, like race, gender or sexual orientation. This form of exclusivity — more appropriately called discrimination — has no place at Dartmouth. Finally, those perpetuating exclusivity must not do so in a way that is mean-spirited, demeaning or irrevocably damaging to one’s self-worth.
For the most part, however, we should accept exclusivity as an unfortunate but inevitable reality of life. College President Phil Hanlon’s recently announced steering committee targets three forms of “harmful behavior” that take place at Dartmouth, particularly in social spaces: sexual violence, high-risk drinking and exclusion. Placing exclusivity on the same level of social malady as high-risk drinking and sexual assault delegitimizes the need to combat the latter two problems. I find it insulting to victims of sexual assault at Dartmouth and colleges across the country. Unlike exclusivity, high-risk drinking and sexual assault are not “inevitable realities of life,” and we must treat these epidemics with considerably more energy and urgency than the ambiguously defined and perpetually mystifying problem of exclusivity.
I remember the first time that I consciously stepped out of my all-inclusive-all-the-time mindset. In high school, my class dean announced that every candidate who had run in our class elections would jointly serve as class president as a reward for running. Though this is absurd and would probably never happen at Dartmouth, I find it relevant. My frustration did not stem from the inefficiency of having five class presidents, but rather from the way in which it undermined my high school’s mission of preparing students to thrive in and beyond college. Working so hard to prevent us from experiencing disappointment is counterintuitive and leaves us unprepared for real-world rejection.
Dartmouth should prepare its students to effectively overcome the exclusion rife within post-college life rather than insulate them from it. Every Dartmouth graduate will face some form of rejection, whether from a potential employer, a romantic interest or a social group. By overemphasizing the eradication of all exclusivity, not just forms that are mean-spirited or discriminatory, the College risks cushioning graduates and fails to target more troubling social problems.
