Re: Dartmouth’s community has mixed feelings about being the Ivy League’s ‘Switzerland’
The Dartmouth Club of Idaho just invited all alumni in Idaho to a fun Sept. 12 alumni get-together at a Boise winery.
The only alumni meeting I want to attend is one opposing the Trump administration's authoritarian takeover of our cities, institutions and foreign policy.
I strongly oppose College President Sian Leah Beilock’s utter failure to stand against Trump’s brazen attacks on academic freedom and scientific research. She asserted that the College can only take positions on issues that directly relate to Dartmouth’s “academic mission” — just who determines what is or is not the College’s mission? Beilock calls this policy “institutional restraint.” It muzzles the academic freedom at the heart of our College’s mission.
If the impending dictatorship of Trump and his minions, with all of its chilling so-called “institutional restraints” on our freedoms of speech, assembly, press, religion, etc., doesn't concern us all, why did Dartmouth alumni even bother to get an excellent liberal arts education?
Dear readers, I hope you care about this. Do you? As the late Rep. John Lewis would say, are you ready to make some good trouble, necessary trouble, to help stop Trump?
Masked men with no identification are kidnapping people in the United States! Wake up! Less wine and more activism!
Even if you disagree with my point of view, doesn’t defending democracy and the Constitution bring us all together?
If there will be a Dartmouth contingent at an anti-Trump protest in Idaho on Labor Day, let me know. That is something worth gathering for.
I trust I’m not alone.
Rambunctiously yours,
Will Browning ’78
Will Browning is a member of the Class of 1978 and an emeritus professor of French and Spanish at Boise State University. He served as entertainment editor of The Dartmouth from 1976-1977. Letters to the Editor represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
