In case you missed the news, the College has been installing security cameras in Greek houses without informing house managers or other house leadership. Department of Safety and Security director Keiselim Montás wrote in an Oct. 8 email to campus, after The Dartmouth began asking Greek house leaders about the projects, that the project would be temporarily paused.
It seems a lot of people are surprised by the fact that the College undertook this project without talking to any current Greek house leadership. They shouldn’t be.
I find it a little bit ridiculous that Montás claimed in his email to campus to have consulted “general student leadership,” yet student body president Ikenna Nwafor ’27 claims he did not know about the cameras until he learned about the installations from students. He previously told The Dartmouth that he emailed Montás twice about the project and received no response. A College spokesperson told The Dartmouth that the administration consulted with “general student leadership,” but acknowledged that many of those students are no longer on campus because they graduated.
This is the Dartmouth administration’s classic playbook. Montás and Safety and Security know that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Contractors entered private student spaces and began installing cameras without any justification, clarification or perhaps most importantly, explanation of who can see the footage. Now that there’s student pushback, Montás can “pause installation” and conduct a performative dialogue period –– a College spokesperson said that “meetings with students addressing these concerns” started yesterday with “DSG leadership and SVP Josh Keniston, and will continue later this week” –– but the College has already gotten away with at least half of the job. The cameras already installed at the Kappa Kappa Gamma and Alpha Xi Delta sororities will keep rolling, and Safety and Security/the College will have access to our private spaces seemingly on demand.
The argument that common areas in Greek spaces are the same as common areas in dorms is both pathetic and ridiculous. It’s called a Greek “house” for a reason –– access is exclusively offered to members and their guests. I can enter the common space of any dorm and use it in accordance with College policy. In contrast, I am unable to enter a random sorority, sit in the living room and watch the activities of the sisters. This morning, I woke up and walked through my fraternity’s living room and kitchen in my boxers to get a Polar Seltzer. I can do this because the people who live in the house are my brothers, and I know they won’t care what I’m wearing (or not wearing). I wouldn’t have done this if I still lived in a dorm because the expectation of privacy is different than in a Greek house.
It isn’t lost on me that this situation is unfolding at the same time our country is having a lot of important conversations about Greek spaces and their merit in general. The Dartmouth’s Editorial Board, of which I am a member, recently published a column about our own campus’ problematic rape culture in response to the lawsuit filed by a former Cornell student alleging she was raped by seven members of Chi Phi fraternity. Might the cameras help address these issues? I think not. The way to prevent sexual violence is either a structural change to the Greek system — up to and including its abolition — or preventative action before victims are already traumatized, not remedial enforcement. An estimated 80% of rapes and sexual assaults are never even reported. So, the idea that cameras which are checked only when a policy violation or crime is reported to Safety and Security are going to address sexual violence in any significant way is misguided.The College should focus its efforts to on providing more education about sexual violence and collective cultural shifts driven by pressure from peers.
In fact, student reactions to initial installations clearly indicate that more cameras are only going to make people feel nervous and unsafe in their own homes, which for some is one of the few places on campus that they feel they can be truly themselves in the first place.
A College spokesperson also told The Dartmouth that the cameras are “even more important following the shooting at Brown and violence on other campuses across the country.” This argument is well-taken, but it ignores the very real concerns that are cropping up about student privacy. It also begs the question: Is the installation of cameras in Greek houses really the most effective way to prevent violence on campus? Dartmouth has immense power and influence in the state. If the College is worried about gun violence, it could spend money to lobby the New Hampshire government to pass stricter gun laws or safety measures. The College increased lobbying spending by 534% in fiscal year 2025 to advance its own interests related to research funding and the endowment tax, so this isn’t an entirely random suggestion.
What is the purpose of a Greek space? Although my feelings on our Greek system in general are very mixed, it doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon. In my experience, one of the perhaps few positives to come out of Greek organizations is the chance for students to spend quality time with one another without being perceived by outside authority figures, and the chance to learn to be themselves and develop healthy relationships with peers. Sometimes a lack of oversight makes people feel a sense of impunity leading to heinous, inexcusable actions. As long as we have the Greek system that we do, it is both the College’s and our collective responsibility to regulate our spaces and ensure that they don’t reach these points.
However, in a generation suffering from unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression and loneliness, allowing students to be together and feel a sense of ownership over their spaces can be a really good thing. For me, learning who I am and how to make healthy, long-lasting friendships during my time in a fraternity has been one of the most important dimensions of my Dartmouth education.
Installing cameras in Greek houses, among other residences, means watching students in a world where young people are already watched and pressured almost everywhere and all the time. We’re told that the job market is crunched, our phones are listening to us and that cameras are monitoring our every move. Is it so unreasonable to ask for just one space that isn’t overtaken by a compulsive need for an authority to monitor? For places where we can be with each other and enjoy being young?
These cameras pose a clear safety and security threat to students who now feel unsafe in their homes. The Department of Safety and Security must remove all the cameras they have installed and terminate any future plans they have to install more.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
Eli Moyse ’27 is an opinion editor and columnist for The Dartmouth. He studies government and creative writing. He publishes various personal work under a pen name on Substack (https://substack.com/@wesmercer), and you can find his other work in various publications.
