College President Sian Leah Beilock:
As you did, I've thought a lot about my response to your March 31 letter ... putting an initial draft aside for several days, editing out the more inflammatory language, and trying to cool the flash of anger that I felt when I first heard about your hiring of the new General Counsel.
My initial, and still current, thought was that this was both an excellent political strategy and a total capitulation to the administration’s pressure tactics, with the former being a short-lived tactic and the latter an existential failure on the part of the Board and yourself with an impact to be felt well into the future.
Not only was the decision wrong but the timing could not have been worse, as it was announced within a few days of the herculean defense of higher education and research by the president of Princeton University in his essay in The Atlantic. And, recently, with the announcement of the revocation of two F-1 student visas at Dartmouth, we’ve also seen that the hope that the new general counsel would protect the College has proven ephemeral.
So, my sense of great disappointment continues ... and, as a result, I will not be coming to my 55th reunion this summer and my record of continuous annual giving to the College since 1970 will now end.
I don't doubt your concern for Dartmouth and for higher education in general ... I just question your judgement and your lack of appreciation for something other than the financial balance sheet.
Tom Charles ’70
Tom Charles is a member of the Class of 1970. Letters to the Editor represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
