Last week, in this space, I argued that the federal investigation into the Geisel School of Medicine had brought Dartmouth’s commitment to institutional restraint to its first real test. I resisted prescribing exactly how the College should respond. The investigation had just begun, and the “fierce defense” of Dartmouth that College President Sian Leah Beilock has promised could take many forms, including cooperation with federal investigators.
I still believe that. But a Valley News interview with Geisel’s new dean Jennifer Hunt, published the day before she began her tenure on Aug. 1, made me realize that the investigation raises another, related question.
Asked about the federal investigation, Hunt said that responding to government requests for information is “part of the dean’s job.” Such requests, she added, “usually aren’t even noted, they just happen in the background.”
Perhaps she is right. Cooperation may prove to be the wisest legal strategy. Colleges and universities should comply with lawful investigations, and deans or presidents should not confuse public performance with effective leadership.
Still, I found Hunt’s description, and the silence from Beilock so far, striking. Recent federal investigations into the medical schools at UCLA, Yale, UC Davis and UC San Diego did not simply remain in the background. Each concluded with federal findings that the schools violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating on the basis of race in admissions. In press releases, the U.S. Department of Justice described those practices as illegal, emphasized that the medical schools’ admissions policies are discriminatory and “anti-American,” demanded changes to those policies and stated that it would pursue litigation if settlement negotiations failed.
As I thought about Beilock’s silence and Hunt’s comments, I found myself asking what principle determines when Beilock chooses to use the institutional voice restraint is meant to preserve. To better understand that question, I spoke with Dartmouth professor John Carey, who chaired the faculty committee that drafted Dartmouth’s Institutional Restraint Policy.
Carey explained that the committee’s recommendation was straightforward: Dartmouth should “speak on behalf of the institution on issues that pertain to the institutional mission.” Otherwise, he said, it should “exercise restraint.” The Geisel investigation, for example, “certainly clears the bar” established by the committee because it directly affects Dartmouth’s institutional mission, Carey added. At the same time, he cautioned that institutional restraint is not the only consideration. Legal strategy, timing and other factors may appropriately influence what the administration ultimately chooses to say publicly.
That understanding is also consistent with the administration’s own explanation of the policy. College spokesperson Kathryn Kennedy told me institutional restraint “does not prevent President Beilock or other administrators from issuing statements or taking action in support of Dartmouth’s mission,” pointing to Dartmouth's amicus brief supporting Harvard in litigation over federal research funding as one recent example.
Taken together, their explanations persuaded me that the philosophy itself is coherent. The examples that follow, however, make me wonder whether I could recognize the philosophy in practice.
Even before Dartmouth adopted institutional restraint in Dec. 2024, Beilock had shown that she was willing to use the institutional voice decisively. When protesters established a pro-Palestinian encampment on the Green in May 2024, Beilock concluded that the moment required decisive action. The College called law enforcement to dismantle the encampment, resulting in 89 arrests. The decision later prompted a faculty censure of the president and a student vote of no confidence. Whatever one’s view of her decision, it demonstrated that this administration is fully capable of using its institutional voice and acting quickly when it concludes the moment demands it.
A different exercise of presidential judgment followed reports of swastikas drawn outside of Jewish students’ rooms in September 2025. Before investigators had determined what had occurred in the second instance, Beilock again used her institutional voice, writing to the community within hours of its discovery that she was “shocked and sickened” by what she described as targeted antisemitic harassment.
The concern for Jewish students was entirely appropriate. Looking back, what troubles me is the certainty with which the college president spoke before the facts had been established. Hanover Police later concluded that the marking was not a swastika, and Dartmouth Safety and Security ultimately reached the same conclusion. Although the College informed the community of that finding, Beilock herself did not publicly return to the community to acknowledge that the factual premise of her original message had proved incorrect.
Then there is the Black Family Visual Arts Center controversy. Honorary naming decisions rest with Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees, although Beilock has said she provides input into those determinations. The Board’s decision to establish an ad hoc Naming Policy Committee before addressing difficult cases may prove to be the right approach, and thoughtful deliberation is preferable to arbitrary decision-making.
Still, I have found myself wondering about the president’s own voice. Dartmouth Student Government, the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault, Women of Dartmouth and The Dartmouth’s Editorial Board have all publicly called for Leon Black’s name to be removed from the building. Yet Beilock has embraced the trustees’ process without publicly taking a position on whether the Board should remove Black’s name from the building.
What ties these episodes together is not that they reached the wrong result. Reasonable people can disagree about how the administration responded in each case. It is that they reveal very different judgments about when the institution’s voice should be used. These are not obscure examples chosen to make a point. Along with Geisel, the encampment, the swastika incident and the Black Family Visual Arts Center controversy were among the highest-profile controversies on Dartmouth's campus over the past two years — the moments most likely to test any president’s stated philosophy.
Institutional restraint is meant to provide a principle for those choices. It asks a president to preserve the institution’s voice for the moments when Dartmouth’s mission and independence are most at stake. Yet as I have watched these controversies unfold, I have found it increasingly difficult to discern how the principle is applied. Sometimes the president speaks immediately and personally. Sometimes she allows institutional processes to take the lead. Sometimes she defers to trustees or legal counsel. Those choices may be justified. What is less clear is the judgment that connects them.
A philosophy should make the reasoning behind decisions intelligible, not merely justify them afterward. If the Dartmouth community cannot understand when its president chooses to speak personally, when she acts through institutional processes and when she remains in the background, then institutional restraint risks becoming less a philosophy of leadership than a justification for decisions already made.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
