More than two years have passed since the reader comments were published. At the time of publication, I had deadlines to meet, and then I was hospitalized for pulmonary emboli. This is my first reading of the replies. I’ll try to be brief.

Fenster Moop’s objections as to the lacunae in the chain of argument are justified. My explanation is that the draft of my piece exceeded the permissible length, and cuts were necessary. As the suit was covered in the press, I presumed a general familiarity with the case.

Succinctly: I was elected to the Alumni Association executive committee. At the first meeting, we were informed that a trustee committee was “studying” changing the proportion of elected to appointed trustees–which the1891 agreement between the Board and the Alumni Association had concluded. Dartmouth had recognized the agreement as a contract as a defense in previous litigation NOT involving the AoA. It was an inviolable contract (unless both parties agreed). The executive committee was denied tghe means to report to the alumni, its own constituency, what was afoot. (I cashed my personal cds and drew on other assets for the more than $30k to report what was going on. The college would not provide addresses for our membership, and even threatened to sue us for use of old lists we had obtained.) The majority of the executive committee believed (and I still believe) it was our duty to defend our rights under the very contract that had provided for the formation and continuing existence of the AoA. The court never found the 1891 agreement to be anything other than a contract; our defeat came through the election of a new executive committee in a campaign so replete with lies that would require far, far more space to detail and refute than is available. Let one suffice for the purpose: The state of New Hampshire had historically had the right of approval for any changes in Dartmouth’s governance rules in the charter. A few years before our election, the college had asked the state to remove that requirement, and the state passed the bill without discussion. After the Board chose to change the proportion of elected to appointed members, a Dartmouth alumnus in the legislature, named Hess, was outraged, especially as he had been a sponsor of the bill. He asked Maureen Mooney, a colleague in the legislature , to submit anither bill repealing the previous measure. We on the executive committee had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. When Dartmouth’s vice president, a member of th executive committee, asked us to issue a statement opposing the Mooney bill, we explicitly stated, and voted, to take no action. It was the view of the majority that the relationship between the state and Dartmouth was not within our purview. Nevertheless, in the ekection campaign, the trustee- and administration backed candidates, in conjunction withh the college itself stated that we in the majority had asked Rep Mooneyy to introducethe bill as a way of reversing the trustees’ action. In fact, not only had we done no such thing but the bill itself would not have reversed the trustees’ action. Surely ouir opponents knew that, but that did not stop them from claiming that we were seeking to impose state control over a private college, that we were seeking to undermine the SUpreme Court decision in the famous Dartmiouth College case.

Fenster’s argument that the 1769 charter had been raised during the wrangling in 1891 but had been settled then to the explicit satisfaction iofall parties. Moreover, the validity of the 1891 agreement had NEVER been challenged (indeed, as Ii stated above, had been affirmed by the Board on several previous occasions.

Scott’s slam at me– that I had used my simultaneous “officership” in the Hanover Institute and the the Alumni Assciation in serving as legal liaison in the Association’s suit — is nonsensical. There was no conflict of interest (that Darftmouth VP Spalding was on the executive committee certainly did present a conbflict of interest). Perhaps Scott has misunderstood the college’s charge that I had “hidden” my affiliation with the HI in my candidacy. But I had hidden nothing. I had been completely open about my role in the HI, and, in fact, my office in the HI had been cut from my candidate’s statement, not by me, expressly because

@Dean. The Fire post calls it “Dartmouth University,” which is not an endorsement of its credibility. By the way, Dartmouth is one of the few schools to hold a “Green Light” rating from Fire, a rating it received for censoring two apparently offensive letters (offensive to Fire, anyway) by pulling them from its website, at Fire’s request.

From an outside (UK) perspective, it seems that if the alumni don’t like what is going on at Dartmouth, they should stop giving Dartmouth money?

Reference to the charter shows that the trustees alone were authorized to elect their successors in 1769. They have been so authorized ever since, as that clause has never been amended or stricken by a court.
While there are schools where alumni directly elect trustees, it is false to claim that Dartmouth is one of them.

Lots of problems afflict higher education; but the interests of reform are not served by wild and confused ad hominem posts, specifically:
– Gado is implying corrupt financial benefits on the part of particular Dartmouth trustees. These are serious charges and he should detail them if he can. If his argument is large donors are using their financial support to drive an institutional agenda he dislikes and believes objectively bad for Dartmouth, he may be right on the merits ; but not necessarily on the imputation of wrong-doing in its implementation.
I agree with Gado alumni have a legitimate interest in their almas mater; and should elect a meaningful portion of trustees; if only to limit the insularity of administrations and their hand-picked boards. Elite institutions which cavalierly blow off their alumni at a time when they will need generous alumni support to maintain the tremendously high cost and labor-intensive campus experience which is their distinctive offering won’t be able to sustain their elite status indefinitely. We can try to push these institutions into a different balance (and truly greater intellectual and cultural diversity in the faculty on campus); but these battles won’t all be won , and when we lose them, it is time to move on and support different and more meritorious institutions.