s another class of Dartmouth students graduate, The Dartmouth Free Press wants to offer its hearty congratulations to all those leaving Dartmouth and also offer a few warnings for those still here. Almost every graduating senior, employed or not, is perplexed by the same question: What do I want to do with my life? Not only does the advice most of you are getting from friends and family sound clichÉ, it also is probably worth challenging. So, as The Free Press’s third year concludes, let me espouse two things for us graduating seniors to think about.

First, life is short. The next twenty years are a blink of an eye away. Those who tell you that life is flexible, and you can easily go from one career path to another, may just be trying to make you feel better. Tracks are so-titled ‘tracks’ for a reason. Go to law school, and the debt will most likely land you in a high-paying but slavish law firm. Become a banker for a few years, and pretty soon you are trying your hardest to retire by forty-five. Change is difficult, especially when you are surrounded by people who all have one mountaintop in sight. This fatalism is not intended to scare you. It is just an important reason not to defer what you really want to do until some later time. The best advice I can give is not to defer anything. Don’t defer enjoying life until retirement, don’t defer helping the world until you make it, and don’t defer your dreams until you figure out what they really are.

When I think of missed life opportunities, I think of my two uncles that live in India. Why? Well, my two uncles don’t talk. Now, I don’t mean they don’t keep in touch or that they bicker. I mean that I have two uncles, younger brothers of my mom, that have not spoken a word to each other for more than a decade. Even more amazing is that they live a shouting distance from each other and in the same building, but they don’t talk, their wives don’t talk and even their children, my cousins, don’t talk. Full of whatever emotion and ego that has built over the years, these two uncles of mine valiantly sustain their self-exclusion. Though I respect them for many other things, I think they provide an excellent example of how not to live your life. Just as it is important to not defer your career dreams until later, it is important not to defer reconciliation and taking chances on people. As we leave Dartmouth and our time and egos get stretched only more, I hope we don’t leave family and friends in the dust. Carpe diem. Talk to those people you’ve missed since our first year at college. Make your peace with parents and friends. Far better to look back fifty years from now and say that we discarded some pride and began afresh with another person, than to live a life of regret. Take a chance.

Second, there are many ways to make a difference. It is a myth that you either sell out or that you don’t. Senior fall and corporate recruitment came and went. As one group of Dartmouth students condemned another for the career choices they made, salvos were thrown from both sides. Would-be Dartmouth graduates: let us call a temporary cease-fire on the wars of I-am-a-better-person-than-you. We are not all meant to do same thing or contribute to society in the same way. Some of us will become public school teachers, some of us will save lives on the operating table and others will do people’s taxes. But no matter what profession you choose, you will have the choice of helping other people or not. Don’t worry about selling out. Worry instead that you will never grow the backbone to stand up for what you believe in as you advance through life. We all compromise. Politicians do it to get and stay elected. We keep our mouths shut to keep our bosses or colleagues happy. Dartmouth graduates heading into corporate life, hold your heads up high (for now). But, with the prestige and power that you might attain will come incredible opportunities to do good at the cost of personal gain. If, at those moments, your knees weaken and you take the easy road, the derision of your peers is much deserved. I want the principled and world-conscious of Dartmouth to strive for and achieve these high ranks, but also don’t want them to then squander their newly attained opportunities to do good.

Even here at Dartmouth, we chose to work for change in many different ways. Some of us mentored a child. Others built houses. Some of us took to the streets in protest. Others sat on committees trying to make Dartmouth a better and kinder place. Some of us make a project of ourselves, working hard to broaden our own sense of vision and purpose. Others, like me, helped a tentative idea for a liberal Dartmouth newspaper grow and solidify. I am very proud of the contribution I was able to make, and I hope that many of you are of yours. In less than three years, The Free Press has grown considerably, and has now published five twelve-page issues this term, more than any other non-D publication. We were listed in The Nation magazine as one of the top ten collegiate alternative publications in the country, and The Free Press interview with Howard Dean was recently picked up on The New York Times website. How my contribution compares to organizing a peace protest or bringing hope into a child’s heart, I can’t say. But it does tell me that there are many paths we can walk and still make a difference. Am I an activist? I don’t know. I do certainly hope though, no matter where life takes me, I do my part in thinking about others and making the world a happier place.

Finally, Dartmouth would be nothing without the people who make it. Thank you for giving me four wonderful years. Keep in touch (for my sanity, if not yours).

Kumar Garg

Editor Emeritus

s in the past, Dartmouth must be a place of opportunity for students of all backgrounds. It is hard to imagine education occurring in an environment that is fully like-minded and homogeneous. And so Dartmouth seeks to attract a student body that reflects the richness of the world in which we live, and to offer an education that enables and empowers.”

-President Wright’s Inaugural Speech

Dartmouth has long approached the diversity question in the wrong way. It has been commonly assumed by many that Dartmouth’s diversity problem is a recruitment problem. The logic is simple. Our image of non-intellectualism and conservatism attracts certain prospective students and discourages others. Dartmouth will become more diverse as more diverse people choose to come here. Recruitment of these diverse individuals is our goal.

The logic of recruitment defers a great deal of that responsibility. If we change who comes here, all will be well. The intolerance will stop. The misogyny will come to an end. In an interview a few days ago with the Free Press, Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg stated “We’ve become more diverse internationally, racially, ethnicity…I think they’re bringing things with them.” Such thinking is far too hopeful, because Dartmouth’s diversity problem is Dartmouth itself. Dartmouth’s institutions perpetuate the problems that it wishes to better. Until now, the Administration was unable to recognize that it was part of the problem. In report after report, it has blamed everyone but itself. “Change comes slowly.” “Diversity is beyondour control.” “Our location limits us.” Such arguments must stop with the release of the Report of the Committee on Institutional Diversity and Equity.

Diversity cannot be “attracted” to this campus. It must be fostered here. Most Dartmouth students arrive relatively open minded. They expect to make close friendships with students very different from themselves. And yet, that does not happen on this campus. The problem is here and it is here that we need to fix it.

By not allocating real resources for its goals or an institutional voice to its effort, the College has been fighting this battle with an empty gun. We must plant the seeds of diversity on this campus. Those of similar backgrounds and experiences tend to meet each other on this campus. The opposite does not occur often. Changing the make up of students will not help if Dartmouth simply assimilates. Dartmouth consistently recruits more and more minorities, but until students begin to intermingle, all we have is more oil and more water without the two mixing.

If Dartmouth is going to begin to recognize that diversity is about more than recruitment, it needs to start at the beginning. Our mission statement currently expresses its opinion on diversity as, “A commitment to enriching the Dartmouth educational and social experience by attracting and retaining gifted and talented students, faculty, and staff of diverse backgrounds, experiences, races, and economic circumstances.” That is why our current mission statement must be revamped. Such a statement fails to recognize diversity as a process that occurs on-campus, after-admission, and in the Dartmouth community. Finally, our college has committed itself to change diversity from a footnote of our mission, to an integral part of our mission.

The battle for diversity cannot and will not be won in the Admissions Office. Minority students do not necessarily make a campus diverse. The institutions that exist here are the problem and that is where change must occur. Only then can we truly have a diverse campus. Not because we bring in a new crop of students, but rather because the current students have been able to break free of their segregated groups $mdash; of their group of friends who all dress the same, think the same, vacation in the same spots $mdash; to find the diversity that lurks in the corners of our campus today.w

Interviews conducted by Surabhi Gaur

ou are a New York City taxicab driver, a very dangerous profession in our society. You are hailed late at night by a young African American male. You observe the male’s clothing and decide that this may be trouble. Despite your obligation to pick him up, you drive on. Was your decision to racially discriminate a significant one? Dinesh D’ Souza, a former editor of The Dartmouth Review, does not seem to think so. In his recent visit to the Dartmouth campus and in a debate over affirmative action, D’Souza asserted that racism, although it may still exist, is no longer holding back the African American community and is not a justification for affirmative action.

As D’Souza writes in his book, The End of Racism, “Racism undoubtedly exists, but it no longer has the power to thwart blacks or any other grouping achieving their economic, political, and social aspirations. It cannot be denied that African Americans suffer the slights in terms of taxi drivers who pass them by, pedestrians who treat them as a security risk, banks that are reluctant to invest in black neighborhoods, and other forms of continued discrimination.” Mr. D’Souza, although he may not realize it, has pinpointed the importance that race still plays in our society. Race matters. It matters to the taxicab driver who sees a young black male as a mugger; to the cop who assumes that a black male in a nice car is the likely perpetrator of a crime; to the shopkeeper who follows the minority around the store.

These are not minor inconveniences. These are barriers to opportunity. Mr. D’Souza argues that the taxicab driver who drives away is playing the odds in his favor. Why? Because the taxicab driver has incomplete information. The cabbie is “playing sociologist” and uses skin color to make assumptions about the behavior and character of his fare. D’Souza does not realize that we are all taxicab drivers. We all operate under incomplete information. We all therefore make assumptions. If D’Souza admits that in an arena of incomplete information, people sometimes defer to race to guess whatever information they are missing, then race plays a key part in the way that people, even today, evaluate each other.

This is a harsh truth; America is no meritocracy. For every cop who follows you, for every person who chooses not to hold the elevator for you and for every person who decides to cross the road rather than talk to you, you are hurt in the game of life. The recipients of this discrimination have to work harder to achieve as much as those who do not receive it. If one group fares worse than another, could this be a cause? Imagine two people of equal ability start a race with one runner on a far smoother part of the track to run on. If during the race, the other runner begins to fall behind because his course is harder, is the race unfair? The runner on the gravel path is running a different race. When colleges admit their applicants, they are not and should not be blind to such discrepancies. Just as high school grades from different schools must be compared in context, the burden that is daily racial discrimination must be as well.

For D’Souza, discrimination is a burden unworthy of respect. He writes, “African Americans now live in a country where a black man, Colin Powell, who three decades ago could not be served a hamburger in many Southern restaurants became chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff.” For D’Souza, there is a Colin Powell within us all. If he can do it, so can we all. This argument is wrong. One wealthy woman in a sexist society does not mean that society is free of sexism. If one African-American plays the game of life so well that he can overcome the bad hand given him, does that mean all African Americans should be expected to play with worse hands? Colin Powell’s success does not imply that equal opportunity exists for all. Incredibly, D’Souza fails to deeply reflect upon the fact that his own example, Colin Powell, was a beneficiary of affirmative action and is proof that recalibrating entrance evaluations to account for race has positive results. His argument is dangerous. If D’Souza had been writing immediately following the Civil War, maybe he would have pointed to African Americans elected as Senators from the South as his example of why racism did not matter even then.

D’Souza unfortunately expects more from some communities than others. He blames the culture of the African American community for its lack of success in attaining the American dream. His cultural explanation, however, begs the question: does social circumstance create culture or does culture create social circumstance? Is the Black community’s belief that it cannot succeed at the white dream a product of the racism it faces, or is the racism it faces a reflection of a lack of desire for success? Imagine that in this unfair race, the runner on the harder path, because he is falling farther behind despite effort, starts to lose hope and starts to run slower. It is definitely the case that the mindset of the runner affects the way he runs the race. Is it fair, however, to blame the disheartened runner? D’Souza thinks so. He, D’Souza, was not disheartened. Therefore, he asks why anyone else should be.

D’Souza is speaking from his own experience. It is essential that this be understood. D’Souza’s life experiences are the critical foundation to his perspective. When we search to create a diversity of perspectives in a community, we are in fact searching for a diversity of experiences. Race matters in the way someone will be treated all his or her life. We walk a different earth because our skin color is of a certain hue. Our race is a unique and transformative contributor to our perspective. It is not just a proxy for class or economic advantage. When colleges look to create a diversity of perspectives on a campus, they would be foolish not to consider the assumptions of race that have been a subtext of nearly every event in a candidate’s life. Two people, one black and one white, will have experienced the world in different ways. The experiences, and consequently perspectives, of those who have been the victims of discrimination will be uniquely different from the rest.

For D’Souza, it is not important that someone experiences discrimination; it is that person’s response that is worthy of consideration. His distinction, however, is a faulty one. It is not a diversity of conclusions that we seek, but a diversity of questions. Successful in life, D’Souza asks the question of why anyone else cannot do the same. Imagine a Dartmouth filled with Dinesh D’Souzas. That Dartmouth community might choose not to question a number of things. D’Souza does not realize the fundamental truth of his own conclusions; that his life experiences were essential to his perspective.

We, the students of Dartmouth, are here to learn. The pedagogical framework that is the college learning environment is principally built on the intellectual and social interactions of the student body. We learn from each other.

We learn when what we believe based on our experience conflicts with the perspective of another. We learn when those who have been treated differently question our assumptions. In this learning, in the classroom and outside, race matters. Experience is fundamentally altered by race. In an academic community that looks to learn, diversity of race is essential. Dinesh D’Souza is wrong: race still matters.