Dull, reactionary, weekly based near the campus of Dartmouth College. Funded largely by former National Review editor William F. Buckley, the Review is known for taking conservative stands on political issues. Accused, sometimes unfairly, of being anti-semitic, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic.

The Dartmouth Review was established in response to the brewing PC speech crack-down in 1980. As the title suggests it is a student run, but independent, newspaper at Dartmouth College. The paper has long been hated by the college faculty, because they report on professors performances and because of the paper's political editorials which occasionally suffer from knee-jerk conservatism.

The Review also has a rather long list of notable staffers among them Dinesh D'Souza and Laura Ingraham.

It surprised me, even though I knew of the paper's reputation to read the following by, Jeffrey Hart, Professor Emeritus of English, from the paper's website (dartreview.com):

(Note to those worried about copyright issues. This is not the entire text by far, I have only pulled parts.)

"One afternoon, during the Christopher Baldwin editorship of the Review (1988-1989), Baldwin was sitting in the office chatting when a freshman unknown to the Review entered and said, "You can't believe what is going on in Professor Cole's Introductory Music 5 class." "What," said Baldwin, "is going on?" The freshman proceeded to describe ā€œlecturesā€ consisting of obscenities, unintelligible rambles, diatribes against whites, wacko asides, and long absences from the classroom during which the professor did whatever. Baldwin refused to believe this tale. A few days later, the freshman turned up with a Cole lecture recorded on a cassette. When played, it proved to be much worse than he had been able to communicate earlier. Cole outdid himself with the obscenities and whatnot, but added a defense of the man threatening to blow up the Washington Monument, plus a great deal about cockroaches. All of this was in a music course offered for degree credit.

"Baldwin had the tape transcribed and printed it in the Review.

"In the same issue he also printed student reports on the misbehavior of a lame-duck member of the English Department, who was not discussing the required reading, not assigning required essays, and mostly taking his class to movies at the Nugget. Both Professor Cole, who is black, and the English professor, who is white, were featured on the cover of the Review and in the exposes inside."

"Baldwin and three staffers went to Professor Cole's classroom after his "lecture" was over and presented him with a letter containing a formal invitation to him to defend his conduct in an unedited response to the Review. Harsh words were exchanged. Cole shoved. And filed charges, which were soon to be taken up by the disciplinary committee, then known as the CCSC."

"President Freedman appeared on the steps of Parkhurst Hall equipped with amplifying equipment and surrounded by black students plus a few bongo drums, and made a passionate speech against 'racism.'"

"Then, still before the CCSC hearings, there occurred a candlelight 'vigil' parade against 'racism' down Webster Avenue past the fraternities. In other words, this was a parade against Baldwin and the Review.

"It did not emerge until the subsequent law suit brought by Baldwin et. al. that the candlelight parade had been organized from Dean Shanahan's office, which even supplied the candles, and that the fraternities were more or less ordered to participate.

"The CCSC suspended Baldwin for SIX terms, the rest for lesser sentences though substantial, for 'vexatious oral exchange' with Cole. A wit said the charge sounded like something that is outlawed in Georgia. The defendants before the CCSC raised about $300,000 (foundations, private contributions) and sued. Dartmouth put up $300,000 and became the defendant."

"The trial, which took several days in a North Haverhill state court, was an amazing event. The lawyers for the students, exercising their "discovery" privilege, excavated files and cartons from Parkhurst. Therein they found memos and administration-faculty-CCSC correspondence of such a self-incriminating nature that the Judge was at first startled and then entertained. One faculty member of the CCSC had written to Dean Shanahan that he was going to "get" these Review stinkers, and neither he nor the Dean felt any need to disqualify such a member of the Committee."

Needless to say, the judge ordered the students back to school. I posted this story with my write-up, to point out that blantly partisan papers sometimes are necessiary to fight back against institutional corruption, where the normal press really isn't all that non-partisan. I look forward to a retort from pingouin, who I had a debate with in the past over similar matters.

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