WRONG WRIGHT

Now that I have been identified as a “Dartmouth Blog,” I feel obliged to weigh in on the proposed new Dartmouth Constitution. It now seems clear to me that the motivation for these Constitution changes was the election of the three “upstarts” to the Board of Trustees. Why is this so bad? The new Constitution supporters’ rational for their unilateral change in the ratification proportion -- 2/3rds vs. 3/4ths -- is a little soft given that the US requires 3/4ths of the states to ratify any amendments to our nation’s constitution. Changing a constitution is, by its nature, a very serious matter. Also, the proposed change of one Trustee nominee versus multiple petition candidate nominees reverses the prior nomination-process complaint. If it was unfair then, why would it be fairer if it were reversed under a new Constitution? There are other disturbing elements to this Constitution situation, but I will let them slide for now.

My perception (and, I believe, that of many other alums) is that the root of the current fracas is President James “Diversity” Wright (and his three predecessors … yes including Kemeny … but maybe not McLaughlin). To me Pres. Wright is a one-trick pony. I have yet to read anything he has written that seriously ranges into any of the other facets of a liberal-arts education. I once asked him at a luncheon in Hanover why Dartmouth didn’t have more Rhodes, Fulbright, and other senior honors scholars. His response was stupefying … he said he didn’t want students, who tried for such honors and failed, to have this failure define their Dartmouth experience. One has to conclude that the Dartmouth Trustees have plotted the route that Wright has been following. Therefore, again to me, I see the Trustees as not acting in the best long-term interest of our college. Thus, I welcomed the election of the upstarts and still do. I never believed that the Board of Trustees would be “taken over” by these upstarts … but that they would start asking the tough questions that I felt needed asking.

Have these upstarts been so inconvenient as to warrant such an extraordinary act as changing our Constitution? After all, “diversity” should also mean a diversity of ideas. We have, unfortunately, seen what self-perpetuating Boards have done to neuter corporate governance over these last few decades.