A new campus pro-Israel organization called J Street U is currently applying for COSO recognition. This campus inter-faith group will promote an open discourse about the importance of a peaceful, two-state solution in Israel and Palestine. Although the group is openly pro-Israel, it stresses the role of Israel and all other nations in creating peace between all peoples in the Middle East. Still, the general reaction to the title of “pro-Israel” has caused some people to ask whether outwardly supporting Israel only serves to further polarize the debate on the middle east.

The association of “pro-Israel” with “anti-Palestinian” or “anti-Muslim” has always surprised me. At the end of every year, my Hebrew school votes on where to donate its tzedakah money. Tzedakah means” justice” in Hebrew, and each week the school collects money in order to redress the injustices of the world. The first year of the Iraq War, one of my friends suggested that we give to an organization that sent teddy bears to Iraqi children. Our Jewish history teacher, a native Israeli, took the podium and explained that we could not use our money to do this, because Iraqis hated Israel.

Anger seized me. Did she not understand that if we left them without toys, they would certainly come to hate Israel? Did she really believe that Iraqi children, possibly without homes, maybe mourning family members, were more focused on hatred of Israel than their own misery? Even if they were, would that be any reason to deny them compassion? I envisioned a vicious future without teddy bears and full of division—all due to an unwillingness to relinquish prejudice and fear.

In that moment, I was ashamed that I had ever sung Hatikvah (or, “Hope”), the Israeli national anthem, because I had lost hope. I had lost faith that this country could mean anything other than a blind and rigid instinct of self-defense. Our teacher’s statement made clear that a knee-jerk protection of Israel had overcome a commitment to tzedakah and tikkun olam (repairing the world). An intense and irrational instinct had replaced the most important Jewish values—the values that I, as a Jew and a person, hope to struggle for through the rest of my life.

Both in the classroom and in the global discourse on Israel, we sometimes lose track of these values. It seems that a healthy desire to protect Israel’s existence is often undermined with a fear of “the other”—whether the Palestinian, the Muslim, or anyone who disagrees with Israeli policy. As a result, many people today prefer not to define themselves as “pro-Israel” because the term has come to connote a narrow-minded and insular defense of all Israel’s actions.

I’m accustomed to insularity. I grew up in an area with a very small Jewish minority. Some people told me being Jewish was weird, others worried that I was un-baptized, and someone once asked me if Jews believe in God. People just didn’t have room for Judaism in their worldview. In sophomore year of high school, a rabbi spoke to us as part of our school series on spirituality. Afterwards, I asked my friend what she had thought of the lecture. She shrugged and answered that she hadn’t listened because Judaism wasn’t “her religion.” Just as I had when my teacher spoke against donating toys, I envisioned a future fractured by religious ignorance.

I wish to dedicate myself to preventing such a future. On-campus groups such as Multi-faith Council are a great way to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding, and I have learned much from my participation. While I was looking to take interfaith cooperation beyond discussion, a friend introduced me to J Street U, the campus arm of the political organization J Street. I was thrilled. J Street, which supports a two-state solution, is firmly grounded in the values of social justice and human rights. It offers an opportunity to advocate for humanitarian values and to put interfaith work on the ground by working with Jews and non-Jews to promote peace. Our small, close-knit campus offers a special opportunity for people of different backgrounds and beliefs to work together, and this microcosm will provide useful training for the larger world. Ultimately, I believe that the work of groups such as J Street U will provide a firm foundation for an Israel that I can be proud of.

On Wednesday, February 23, three women, all now healthy sexagenarians, shared their experiences from years of working as Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers in the Deep South to an audience in Filene Auditorium. The event, called “Hands on the Freedom Plow,” was one of a series of events celebrating Black History Month, and was co-sponsored by the History, Women & Gender Studies and African American Studies departments. One of the women, Judy Richardson, recalled a story of a former cohort’s altercation with the police. “Don’t touch the fur, don’t touch the fur,” the woman told police as they placed her under arrest for participating in a sit-in at the local diner in Mississippi. Sit-ins were one of many tactics that Judy Richardson, Penny Patch and Janet Moses learned to use to fight discrimination and racism during their time organizing with SNCC.

Their stories evoked humorous and sometimes somber responses from those in attendance. Audience members struggled to fight back tears as Patch, one of SNCC’s first white female organizers, told of the time an elderly black woman offered to get up from her seat and allow Patch to sit down simply because she was white.

Beyond the discussions of fighting racism and discrimination in the context of the women’s’ experiences, a conversation about generational expectations of political advocacy was embedded within their stories

The women, like most SNCC organizers, were in their late teens to early twenties when they worked as organizers. Patch and Richardson both left Swarthmore, the college they were currently attending, to go south. They believed that their presence in southern states could help change the racial hierarchy that had long existed in American society. Not unlike civil rights advocacy today, the movement they took part in was energized by college students, both black and white.

The women were initially unaware of what they would face because, as Richardson told a History class earlier in the day, “If we had known the kind of people and thinking we were up against, we might not have went.” Even if a ghostly figure had appeared to warn her about traveling to Mississippi and organizing demonstrations against inequality, I doubt Richardson would have passed up the chance. Listening to her statement, I could not help but wonder if Richardson’s present thoughts about her younger years demonstrated a certain amount of pessimism that comes along with growing older.

So, what happened to her “anything is possible” attitude? Has she suddenly become content with the status quo in her old age? Of course not. Richardson’s will to see change is still alive, but society’s view of her as someone who might have the desire or capacity to bring about that change is dead. When we think of people like Patch, Moses, and Richardson we have the tendency to imagine sweet ole’ ladies who spend their days visiting grandchildren and cooking holiday feasts for their families. We rarely look to them to spawn the next great American social movement.

College students fall victim to this polar assumption. It has become widely accepted that young, enthusiastic college students are overly eager to organize for any cause. Along with devaluing the causes college students organize by dismissing them as products of a youthful phase, we create a society in which aging men and women are encouraged to withdraw from public political discourse.

Even at Dartmouth, the large elderly community of Hanover is expected to support events at The Hop, but is not consulted when the administration proposes budget cuts and employee layoffs. Why have we created a community in which there is no space for aging, concerned women like these?

Through their very presence on our campus, the women of SNCC reminded me that as people grow old, nothing changes within them to make them less concerned about society. What changes are our expectations of them. We expect them to quiet down and give us a peek into an earlier time and place.

Along with valuing the history lessons that people like Patch, Moses and Richardson offer us, we might start making space in society and at Dartmouth for their voices, too. Their personal accounts can be read in a new anthology of narratives by women that organized for SNCC: Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC (University of Illinois Press, 2010).

With surges of anti-choice bills in state and federal legislatures, America’s political climate has taken another turn towards social issues. In fact, the political climate hasn’t been so anti-choice in decades. For example, Arizona is introducing a barrage of bills that would force women to view ultrasounds of their fetuses. Another bill in Congress would prevent businesses from offering their employees health insurance that covers abortion.

And in an effort to make it even more difficult to obtain abortions, the House recently passed a bill that would axe all funding for Title X and Planned Parenthood. This bill is moving forward despite that fact that Planned Parenthood is already barred from using federal funds to provide abortions, outside of rape and incest cases. Instead of decreasing abortions, though, Planned Parenthood has said that this bill would eliminate important health services provided to lower-income women. Most outrageously, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska Republicans are attempting to pass laws that would legalize homicide against abortion providers—so much for protecting life.

Given all of this recent anti-choice fervor I shouldn’t have been surprised when the movement reached our lonely corner in the frigid North in the form of an advertising campaign. Perhaps you’ve noticed the flyers cropping up all over campus with grainy black and white images of an ultrasound of a fetus, labeled“Baby Lucy.”Vita Clamantis, a campus anti-choice group associated with Aquinas House, has been putting up posters in order to “provoke thought and discussions at Dartmouth.” The organization plans to post more flyers showing the monthly development of the imaginary Baby Lucy. According to one flyer, Baby Lucy tells us, “By now, I can grasp with my hands, kick, or even somersault! I am five and a half inches long and weigh nearly half a pound. At this point, eyebrows and eyelashes have appeared on my face.” According to the Aquinas House website, the flyer campaign is supposed to culminate in a baby shower for Baby Lucy at the end of term. In an apparent attempt to make this egregious campaign less polarizing, the bottom of each flyer directs those in need of support to contact an unplanned pregnancy center for post-abortion healing.

After seeing this footnote, my curiosity was piqued—what exactly, is a “pregnancy center?” From the title, it sounds a bit like Planned Parenthood—so why would Vita Clamantis, with its staunch anti-choice position, be supporting it? As it turns out, the Dartmouth Free Press has reported on the Pregnancy Center of the Upper Valley before (formerly known as the Care Net Pregnancy Center of the Upper Valley). It is one of many “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) in the U.S. which are supposed to look like real abortion clinics (and are sometimes even located closed to Planned Parent locations), in order to lure pregnant women and inundate them with anti-choice propaganda.

Using federal funding, CPCs offer free pregnancy tests similar to those found at CVS. And even though CPCs rarely staff medical technicians, they nonetheless offer ultrasounds. When asked whether or not they provide abortions, CPCs dodge the question. As a part of a Congressional report for California Congressman Henry Waxman in 2006, undercover reporters showed that 87 percent of CPCs they visited provided false or misleading information. The false information provided by CPC counselors included statements to the extent that having an abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, or that abortion causes post traumatic stress disorder comparable to the kind seen in Vietnam War veterans. A 2010 report by NARAL shows that CPCs also give false information regarding the risks of surgical abortion. This information states, for example, that abortion might result in a woman’s uterine lining being sucked out. Women who have visited these CPCs also report being interrogated about their religious beliefs, being shown graphic depictions of abortions, and even being asked to pray with counselors.

The CPC in West Lebanon is no different. In 2008, DFP reporter Mary Novak visited the Pregnancy Center of the Upper Valley, posing as someone worried about an unplanned pregnancy. , Along with stressing the increased risk of post-abortion stress, counselors falsely advised her that having an abortion would increase her risk of infertility in the future. While they were sure to emphasize the risks at every stage of abortion, they had absolutely nothing negative to say about natural childbirth, which is far more dangerous than having an abortion. The counselors also pressured her to get an ultrasound, interrogated her about her religious background, and offered her a Bible. Towards the end of her visit, Mary was directed to a downstairs gift shop to start buying baby clothes. Mary Novak described it as a “frightening and intimidating” experience.

Women’s reproductive health is already under attack. Vita Clamantis is perfectly within its rights to question individuals’ beliefs with “Baby Lucy” blurbs. However, their association with the Pregnancy Center, an organization that uses scare tactics to prevent abortions, is disturbing. Regardless of one’s personal opinions about abortion, it is reprehensible that a campus group would support and donate to a center that poses as a medical clinic and knowingly disseminates false information in order to mislead women.

And, dear reader, if you happen to find yourself unexpectedly pregnant, please don’t go to the Pregnancy Center of the Upper Valley; you’re not likely to find accurate information there. Besides West Leb’s Planned Parenthood is just down the street.

On Wednesday, February 9, I went to the photo studio at the bottom of the Hop to get my picture taken. I was surprised to find that the hallway was bustling with activity—men and women, undergrads of all class years, and Dartmouth staff and faculty. All were wearing identical shirts—a black T-shirt emblazoned on the front with the word “FEMINIST.” Some 200 or more individuals on campus had their pictures taken that afternoon—even President Jim Kim and Dean Sylvia Spears joined in the celebration of gender equality.

Intrigued by the events taking place, I found myself wanting to learn more and decided to ask a few questions of some of the people who participated in the “I am a Feminist Project.” First I wanted to know, why is “feminism” such a dirty word? From everything I’ve read about feminism and from all the self-identified feminists whom I’ve spoken to, feminism is, at its core, about gender equality—something that most people would say that they are in favor of. Yet so often I hear men and women who are in support of gender equality and practice it in their everyday lives say, “I’m not a feminist, but …” Their reluctance to identify as feminists seems to stem from the fact that many are afraid of the negative stereotypes associated with feminists, such as “man-hating” or “feminazis,” according to Sapna Chemplavil ’11. Although false, these images of feminists as being opposed to any form of masculinity, and as being prone to over-moralizing, often pervade popular culture and the Dartmouth campus.

Aside from these negative stereotypes, there are other common misunderstandings about what those who support feminism and gender equality stand for. Nikki Brown ’11 says, “I think many people on campus are reluctant to view themselves as feminists because they associate the word with ‘female issues,’” from which many men attempt to distance themselves. Men who do this probably don’t realize most feminists believe that feminism addresses both women’s and men’s issues. Although Brown now proudly proclaims herself a feminist, in the past she was less eager to identify as such because she held some of her own misconceptions about what it meant to be a feminist. “I never wanted to think of myself as a feminist growing up because I associated the word with a culture of victimization,” she says. “Recognizing that there are issues in our culture does not mean that in recognizing the issues you are weak, but rather that you are strong and committed to working to change the status quo.”

Sometimes the cause of feminism goes unheralded because many Dartmouth students think that there isn’t a need for feminism anymore. When asked if things were better for women at Dartmouth, Mayuka Kowaguchi ’11, founder of the Orchid Project, says, “Technically, yes. But in reality, no.” Her sentiments are due in part to the fact that women at Dartmouth have made significant strides since the college went co-ed, while there are still uniquely gendered problems on campus—sexual assault and male-dominated Greek spaces, to name just a couple. In spite of these pressing issues many students believe that gender parity has been reached and subsequently that initiatives like the “Portraits of a Feminist Photo Project” are unnecessary. “There are a lot of people who can’t see the need for a feminist element on campus—and therefore don’t understand why they need to exist,” says Meg McCue ’11, another Dartmouth feminist.

The Portraits of Feminists Photo Project seeks to debunk many of these conceptions by questioning our assumptions of who feminists really are. Flipping through the photo gallery, it’s immediately obvious that Dartmouth feminists are an incredibly diverse group, one that includes people of all races, ages, and genders. The organizers of the project see a lot of promise in the project’s ability to debunk stereotypes and correct misunderstandings. “I hope the project will elicit a discussion about what feminism means to people and hopefully show people that anyone can be feminist. It’s not a scary word,” Brown says. Her efforts are paying off judging by the number of people who showed up to the event. Nearly 200 signed up for the first day alone, and there wasn’t enough time to accommodate everyone who wanted their picture taken. Chemplavil says, “I really hope people realize that a much larger number of people on campus consider themselves to be feminists than they originally thought.”

Ultimately, Kowaguchi hopes that when people embrace the term “feminist,” they’ll pave the way for others to understand the meaning and power behind efforts for gender equality. Like Brown, Kowaguchi was also initially reluctant to call herself a feminist, afraid of the negative stereotypes it carried. It was only after a conversation with a close friend that she realized, “If you call yourself a feminist then people who know who you are will know you’re for gender equity. You are the explanation. You are the definition.” Her realization that only by accepting the label “feminist” could she help to rebut the stereotypes often associated with it.

And seeing the nearly 200 portraits of men and women who are proud to call themselves a feminist, I can’t help but agree that this photo project is really ground-breaking in terms of debunking myths and stereotypes about feminism.

So, if you get a chance, check out the Portraits of Feminists Photo Project on February 28th at Collis. Participate in V-Week. And above all, if you like gender equality and everything that it entails, then don’t be afraid to call yourself a feminist. After all, you’re not alone.

Dartmouth employees are systematically losing their health care. They have been fired without representation in budget meetings, and an increasing number of jobs are being subcontracted to private corporations. According to SEIU local 560 President Earl Sweet—leading custodian of Dartmouth Hall and a Dartmouth employee for over thirty years—“Campus is being torn apart.” And yet the plight of workers has gone largely unnoticed by students. Instead of examining questions of community responsibility, we focus on the narrow concerns of our social lives and our GPA’s. We spend our time drinking at fraternities and applying for internships. We fundraise for Haiti relief and donate to local charities—certainly worthy pursuits—yet we fail to address the major moral problems of our immediate community.

At a February 2 panel discussion organized by Dartmouth Students Stand with Staff, these questions of responsibility—of justice, equality, and democracy—were addressed by panelists Phoebe Gardener ’11, Robert Polanco ’11, and Earl Sweet. Through the discussion, panelists and audience members articulated a broad critique of the corporate values that largely govern Dartmouth life and the world beyond. According to moderator and Assistant Professor of History Russell Rickford, “Dartmouth is at the center of the rottenness of the system.”

Union President Earl Sweet began his remarks by emphasizing the attachment that he and other employees feel to the college and its students. “Everyone I represent says their job is serving the students,” he said. Commenting on his long relationship with the school, he added, “You can’t walk away from here… [after] all these years… and not have a feeling for Dartmouth.” This attachment has made the administration’s recent attacks on employees especially bitter.

The first round of layoffs began in 2009, when sixty employees were terminated. Another forty were laid off in 2010. Additionally, numerous employees were pressured into early retirement, while others experienced significant cuts in their hours (and thus their salaries). This January, the administration went one step further by drastically cutting health care benefits for all staff members. According to Sweet, many employees now pay an additional four thousand dollars on health care per year—an amount previously paid by the college. For working class families, the effects of these cuts have been catastrophic. Many employees are now struggling to pay for the doctor’s visits and medications needed to keep them healthy. Indeed, some employees can’t even afford to have their children treated at the hospital.

In light of present and future major expenditures—such as the new Center for Health Care Delivery Science and upcoming Thompson Arena and Baker library renovations—Mr. Sweet said, “I have to question, how much of this is needed? We had no say in it.”

Students Stand with Staff (SSwS) leader Phoebe Gardener ’11 used her introductory remarks in part to discuss the general goals of her organization. It was founded in 2009 amidst Dartmouth’s $100 million deficit, and operated in response to the administration’s top down approach to budget cuts. In opposition to this approach, it advocated for the representation and involvement of staff in the budget cut process. Additionally, SSwS opposed the subcontracting of positions to private corporations. And yet, according to Gardner, “It was and continues to be about something much bigger… We were [and are] fighting against a specific set of values.” These values include the primacy of cost-saving and efficiency in administrative processes, and the “values of placing money over people.”

According to Gardener, these values shape not only our community, but the entire world.
These corporate values, reflected in the assault on workers, are also visible in student life. We have inculcated them to the point where resumes and GPA’s become a necessary means to a lucrative end. We, too, have accepted the primacy of efficiency and profit. We study so we can ace an exam and get that crucial recommendation. We pull all-nighters so we can get the A’s that will get us into law school. With these goals and values, according to Gardener, “Our work becomes a task to be done.” Genuine intellectual exploration is sacrificed on the altar of “the transcript.” Course selection is often predicated on median grades statistics. As we submerge ourselves in this world, we become blind to the existence of other community members. This blindness, in turn, allows the causes of this suffering to remain unchallenged. “I, as a student at Dartmouth… am implicated in workers’ rights on campus,” said Gardner. Indeed, by allowing this injustice to continue, we all are culpable.

Robert Polanco ’11 emphasized Dartmouth’s influence in national policy-making. When students from elite colleges, trained in efficiency and profit, gain positions of influence, corporate values dictate how they view the world. These corporate values, in turn, make possible some of the U.S.’s more barbarous policies. Polanco specifically cited the U.S.’s bloody role in 1980’s Nicaragua. He additionally referenced working conditions in the anti-union south—where multitudes of citizens earn starvation wages. Regarding Dartmouth, Polanco said, “When people suffer here, no one ever talks about it.” This conspiracy of silence—this habit of ignoring—then follows graduates to the halls of power, where habit becomes law.

At the start of the discussion, Professor Rickford asked, “How can we create a more equitable working world at our campus and beyond?” Surely, a place to begin is with events like this. Apathy on campus partially derives from ignorance. How many students are aware of the most recent benefit cuts? How many know that some Dartmouth employees can’t afford to take their children to the hospital?

Thus, discussions like this educate; they inform us of the suffering within our community. And yet, if we hope to create a better world, we must also examine ourselves. For surely, ignorance alone is not the source of the world’s troubles. Rather, we all experience fundamental consumerist, individualistic, and narcissistic tendencies which isolate us from our fellow human beings. We are taught from a young age that little matters beyond personal advancement. Our corporate and consumer society provides us with no moral education, but rather images of the beautiful, successful people we can become—if only we work hard in school, or buy that pair of jeans. We are trained to care only about ourselves. Consequently, the assault on workers continues, largely unchallenged.

Now, more than ever, we must ask ourselves what it means to be members of the Dartmouth community. At this elite institution—at this pinnacle of education and privilege—employees are unable to take their children to the hospital. At this bastion of enlightenment, ideals of justice and democracy are trampled beneath the imperative of efficiency. We must question these trends. We must challenge corporatism and individualism. And we must work to reassert our humanity and to establish justice at Dartmouth and beyond.

Several unrelated cases of food poisoning have gone unreported by students after they consumed some spoiled, uncooked vegetables at Dartmouth Dining Service’s Food Court and Home Plate facilities. The three cases, each involving a different type of vegetable, has called in to question DDS food-handling practices along with its methods for obtaining student feedback regarding its food and services.

Consumption of uncooked vegetables often leads to poisoning since improper rinsing and storage can lead to the development of foodborne illness-causing bacteria. The United States Department of Agriculture recommends that uncooked vegetables be kept below 42 degrees Fahrenheit and be monitored every 30 minutes to ensure that this internal temperature is maintained. It seems as though DDS is disregarding these recommendations. Former student DDS workers—who did not want to be indentified—have reported that DDS salad bars are not checked regularly and that the temperature is often higher than it ought to be.

Even more concerning are the admissions that the former student workers have made concerning the preparation and rinsing of uncooked vegetables. While the USDA recommends that vegetables be thoroughly washed and checked for signs of decay or damage, the students contend that during their tenure at DDS they often saw employees rush through the rinsing process. As a result, salad and other spoiled vegetables were placed onto the salad bar that would have otherwise been discarded if checked properly.

These admissions have bewildered the throngs of students who depend on DDS for their daily intake of fruits and vegetables. Upon finding out about the recent cases of food poisonings, Rochele Brown ‘13, a vegetarian, admitted that she “rarely eats from the salad bar or uncooked vegetable side items because they often taste spoiled and dirty.” When asked if she had reported this to the DDS staff, she replied “no, because I wasn’t sure if my opinion was representative of most students.”

While it is hard to confirm whether students agree with Brown, the recent cases of food poisoning reveal a real danger that could result from DDS’s failure to seek feedback from the student body about its food and service quality.

In comparison to other colleges, DDS takes few surveys of campus opinion. While DDS has attempted to start a quality survey group among a select group of students in the past, the findings of those surveys have not been made public. Other colleges, like Emory and Harvard, regularly survey the student body at large to get feedback on quality. They then update their menu offerings in response to student needs.

For example, in a 2009 survey of nearly 3,000 undergraduates, Harvard’s dining services found that students thought it was falling behind in its commitment to serve fresh food. Similarly, surveys of Dartmouth’s campus would more than likely find that students are increasingly dissatisfied with DDS’s improper handling of fresh produce.

The recent cases of food illness caused by uncooked vegetables have gone unnoticed because, like other areas of Dartmouth’s bureaucracy, those charged with running DDS consistently fail to seek input. If we continue to depend on select groups of student to represent everyone’s views and experiences in any area of campus, we will never have a meaningful conversation that helps us to improve experiences on campus.

It is not enough to say “we’re here if you want to come talk.” Rather, DDS and the administration must actively seek to implement ways in which the campus at large can efficiently share their experiences. While not everyone will have time or feel comfortable with intruding on DDS supervisors to inform them of their spoiled veggies, most students will have 5 minutes over spring break to complete an online survey that both applauds DDS’s strengths and highlights its weaknesses. And if the survey should reveal that veggies are consistently spoiled and cause student sickness, DDS will have the input it needs to make the change. With this said, I only have one question for DDS—where’s the survey?

Last week marked the birthday of one of the most iconic civil rights activists in our country’s history: Martin Luther King, Jr. After a month-long series of celebratory events—ranging from theatrical and musical performances to campus lectures—hopefully his social revolution will resonate with a new amplitude among Dartmouth students, even those who don’t care about politics. But if Martin Luther King Jr. has shown us anything, it is that you do not have to be a politician to make progress happen and indeed that the greatest progress is often made by groups of people who do not sit in conference rooms behind closed doors.

Some recent happenings here in snowy Hanover have demonstrated to me that certain people and institutions within our community, such as The Dartmouth and the selection committee for the Dean of the College, have failed to take the message of the King Holiday to heart.

Granted, I generally also loathe holidays. But something about being surrounded by other intelligent, critically thinking students instead of my alcoholic uncle makes it easier for me to get that warm feeling inside that reminds me that the power of symbolism has at least a little magic left these days. Still, some people fail to grasp what MLK Day symbolizes—the unified force of large groups of people all asking the same question—and instead they only see the holiday as a celebration of an admittedly imperfect individual.

An article published on Jan. 10th in The Dartmouth entitled “What About Washington?” by Roger Lott argued that while MLK was influential, he is undeserving of a more extensive celebration than George Washington. The author, in an interesting choice of words, stated that our nation’s greatest African-American hero “had his dark sides,” citing evidence that he may have engaged in plagiarism in college.

Judging by the author’s flawed comparison of the two men’s histories, in which he concluded that plagiarizing in college is a more egregious offense than owning slaves, the author’s intent is clear: pick a famous white politician and use his cultural rapport to belittle the achievements of MLK, Jr.

From start to finish this article provides a healthy serving of examples of exactly how to bring social progress to a halt. I am not sure if the author was aware of the racism implicit throughout his piece or if he was simply following the old media mantra “there’s no such thing as negative publicity.” Either way, I am glad he exercised the First Amendment, as his article provides a convenient platform from which I can do the same.

First of all, the author begins by trying to justify the fact that George Washington owned slaves because he eventually freed them. His argument is that since slaveholding was aligned with the common “mores and expectations” of the 17th century, it is not deplorable. Is this not the exact mentality that prevented us from overcoming slavery at all, the same indifference that allowed the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust? Just because something is socially acceptable does not make it morally right, and publishing such an opinion in a newspaper is as ridiculous as calling Glenn Beck a journalist.

Yes, I think we can all agree that owning slaves and committing plagiarism are both immoral. But that isn’t even the point. These facts are both irrelevant to our patriotic celebration of MLK’s achievements. Calling the personal behavior of Martin Luther King Jr. “disgraceful” is itself a disgrace. It is the gift of progress—not the men themselves—which we celebrate every year.

Secondly, while MLK was born 80 years ago, George Washington was born over 300 years ago. The messages of our late founding fathers do not bear the same urgency as that of MLK. We are no longer trying to free ourselves from the religious oppression of the British Empire. Racism, however, undeniably still exists in the United States, and especially at Dartmouth College.

Third, we already celebrate George Washington every day. He is on the face of the most printed piece of paper in the United States: the one-dollar bill. He has both a city and a state named after him. To claim that George Washington has been overlooked is to stretch an already unfounded argument to the point of absurdity. So… What About George Washington? I think he can share the historical spotlight.

Racial equality is only the beginning of what we can learn from Martin Luther King, Jr. There are always certain cultural and social deficits in the national psyche that simply cannot be filled in by any congressmen or president, Republican or Democrat. In these taboo situations, when a representative government or administration ignores the needs of a large portion of its constituents, we must resort to power in numbers.

Appropriately timed, one such situation is currently unfolding in the political microcosm of our College on the Hill. Last week at Dartmouth, seven impassioned students sent an email to campus asking for more transparency in our administration regarding the reasons for the sudden resignation of Acting Dean of the College, Sylvia Spears. The details of the email are discussed inside in an article by Ben Turner ‘13.

Most people thought the message was a bit mysterious if not downright confusing. Perhaps you were not aware that there have will have been three acting deans in four years who left in a similarly mysterious fashion.

If anyone were to help achieve President Kim’s goal of Dartmouth’s becoming the national leader in sexual assault policy, it was Sylvia Spears. It was in large part her idea to create a late night shuttle to prevent sexual assault, and while The Dartmouth Editorial Board recently claimed that the shuttle runs too early to have any effect, a recent crime alert on campus for an attempted rape at 10 pm has proven otherwise. Dean Spears may not have had the final solutions, but she certainly knew where to start on issues like these.

Most importantly, students appreciated her unbiased advocacy in the administration and her personal mentorship. So why would she leave the College without any subsequent job offer? And why did Dean Crady, former Dean of the College, supposedly “resign” from his position only to become the Vice President of Enrollment Management at Gustavus Adolhpus College?

We do not know whether there is a good reason for the capriciousness of our administration over the past four years, or whether there are some deeper problems afoot. Perhaps there is nothing we can do to keep Dean Spears and perhaps she is truly moving on to greater things. That is exactly the point: we are all in the dark and there is nothing we can do but use our voices. Even if it is too late to preserve Sylvia Spears’ deanship, we need to demand the record be set straight by college officials.

As Anise Vance, one of the authors of the letter, explained to me, the people who care most about the problem are seniors, as it has taken them a full four years to recognize the fact that they are not properly represented by the administration. Like a disease that kills an organism after it has already passed it on to the next generation, this is a problem the Dartmouth Bureaucracy can not fix on its own. It may not affect you until your senior year, but if you don’t ask questions now, future generations of Dartmouth students will never get answers.

Any administration or government that does not pay heed to a large fraction of its constituents is a broken one. This is what Martin Luther King Jr. believed and why I am confident that the College will make the correct decision and begin to explain its decisions publicly. That is why we celebrate the birthday of MLK.

The announcement that Acting Dean of the College, Sylvia Spears, will not be applying for the position she assumed in August 2009 has sent waves through the Dartmouth Community.

Eleven days after Provost Carol Folt announced the beginning of a national search for a new dean, eight students announced their own search—a search for more diversity, transparency, and continuity within Dartmouth’s administrative leadership.

In an open letter to the community containing a link to an online petition, Dartmouth students Anise Vance ‘11, Katie Lindsay’11, Justin Varilek’11, Aryana Jacobs ‘11, Amrita Sankar ‘12, Angelo Carino ‘11, Sebastian DeLuca ‘14, and Antonio Brown ‘11 highlighted Dean Spears’ many accomplishments during her brief deanship. They referred to her as “an invaluable force for positive change… whose inconsideration for Dean has left many students with ‘a sense of confusion.’”

Some of the confusion has to do with the implications of the timing of Folt’s announcement.  Dartmouth typically begins organizing administrative search committees in October, but this time they waited until January to begin their search.  This leaves many to wonder whether the delay was caused by a sudden change of heart by President Jim Kim or other College administrators, or perhaps some unexpected event that occurred in the interval between October or November and last week. Although a national search was always expected, it was assumed by many close to the administration that Spears was a shoo-in for the position.

Jim Kim showed his support and positive expectations for Spears in a quote in the June 25, 2010 edition of The Dartmouth:

“I think Spears has done a fantastic job as [acting] Dean of the College,” Kim said. “We’re going to do a search but it’s hard for me to imagine there’s someone who will bring as much expertise and such a great track record to the job.”

Whether or not Kim has since strayed from the sentiments conveyed above is unclear since the official word from the administration is that Spears has opted out of consideration for the job.

Students who doubt Spears’ willingness to step aside are accusing Parkhurst of intentionally concealing the search process. Other students posit that perhaps there was some sort of internal conflict within the administration that they are hesitating to disclose to the public for confidentiality purposes. But the truth is that these are all just guesses. Perhaps Dean Spears simply did not like her job. But then why would she not make a simple statement explaining herself? Who is trying to keep her silent?

Whatever the case, petitioners believe that the administration needs to develop long-term plans for more transparent search processes in the future, and shed immediate light on the reasons Spears chose not to apply to keep her job.

Also at issue is the search committee’s lack of diversity. Two out of ten female members and one person of color is not exactly a representative cross section of Dartmouth.  The problem is that the person to whom we usually defer for diversity issues at Dartmouth is Dean Spears herself. As a result, petitioners are concerned that the new dean will be less sensitive to issues of diversity than Spears, who joined Dartmouth in 2007 as director of OPAL and is noted in her official college bio as having worked in “university settings in affirmative action/equal opportunity and multicultural student services.”

Members of the college community have also expressed concern over the news that yet another Dean will be appointed. The College, which has seen three Deans of Students over the past four years, is still recovering from the 2009 departure of Dean Tom Crady after less than two years in the post.

In response to the news that students should expect a new Dean by July 2011, a member of the class of 2013, Jake Epstein, said he thinks, “inconsistent leadership does not make for a cohesive community. Honestly, I am not sure what the Dean of Students does because I am just getting settled in the college and now she is leaving. I do not think the college has been straightforward about the process and in my opinion, if she has not done anything unprofessional then it is odd that the administration is not considering her for the job she already holds.”

Sylvia Spears was unavailable for comment at the time of print.

Thus I will conclude with the following question addressed directly to President Kim: Why exactly did Dean Spears choose not to apply for Deanship next term?

Collegeprowler.com gives our College an A+ for academics, an A for Greek life, a C for weather, and an A+ for campus dining. Consistently, Dartmouth has a reputation for good food. But while DDS may have received a perfect score online, it’s still a college dining service, and students with dietary restrictions should do some preliminary investigation before getting ready for that freshmen fifteen.

Before we go any further, let’s lay down some definitions. A vegetarian is someone who doesn’t eat any meat at all including fish. A vegan is a vegetarian who also avoids eggs, dairy products, and any other food containing animal products.

The Hop offers hummus, veggie dumplings, and really good vegan soups every now and then. The grill is also quite vegan friendly. Employees use a separate corner of the grill to make egg and daily-free veggie burgers. Plus, they usually have soymilk and refrigerated, vegan, Indian-inspired meals.

Collis is probably my favorite place to eat on campus. They offer a lot of great vegan soups, stir fry and a number of desserts as well as delicious pasta with vegan cutlets (a vegan take on chicken parmesan) and tofu veggie ravioli in the refridgerators.

Food Court makes some pretty mean hummus wraps. There’s also a lot of soymilk to be had here, along with tofu, chick peas and kidney beans in the salad bar perfect for some serious veggie protein. However, when ordering at the grill, vegans and vegetarians need to be a little more careful. The grill chefs do their best to keep vegetarian items separate from meat but during rush times, some overlap does occur. I was told that if this is a major concern, grill workers would be happy to steam clean the grill before cooking my food. All you have to do is ask. Black Bean Burgers served in FoCo are delicious, but sadly, they contain both milk and eggs.

Homeplate’s Panini line is definitely worth the wait. You can add or remove whatever you want to their paninis to make them vegan or vegetarian, and they are delicious. Homeplate also offers soymilk, a salad bar, and usually some form of steamed vegetable.

On the whole, DDS employees in all dining locations are happy to speak with students about their dietary restrictions and what they should and shouldn’t order, so students shouldn’t hesitate to ask.

Two nude men are featured in this three-panel photograph, entitled Daybooks (2009). Photo courtesy of David Hilliard.

David Hilliard is the current Artist in Residence here at Dartmouth, creating photographic polyptychs: multi-paneled art praising ordinary life. Hilliard grew up in rural Massachusetts, and now creates photographs that are detached and isolated, much like the landscape of New England, from which he draws inspiration. This week, I got the chance to sit down with Hilliard and ask him a few questions about his recent exhibition, Highway of Thought, which was on display in the Hop a couple of weeks ago.

DFP: So your exhibition is called Highway of Thought, which I found it to be an aptly named collection. How did you come up with the concept of Highway of Thought, and how did you end up naming it that?

DH: Well it’s named after one of the pieces in the show, which is a portrait of my father’s—I call it his journal, but it’s not really his journal—it’s a book of quotations that he keeps. My father’s a kind of atheistic historian, so there are different quotes and Highway of Thought came from one particular quote in that journal. The photograph is my father’s book open with this beautiful penmanship. He has this incredible handwriting that he tries to perfect. And then on either side—it’s a four-panel photograph—on either side are just his big hands, which are working class hands. My father was a factory worker, never went to college, but is enlightened and self-taught, so I was interested in this kind of juxtaposition of those hands that seemingly couldn’t have written those words. I like that disconnect between the two, and that’s where the title came from.

But in general, the exhibition, which I think is 15 photographs, is a kind of overview. It was an opportunity coming here to Dartmouth for me to look back at my work and choose a series of pictures that show different ways in which I create pictures formally, that touch upon different themes in my work.

But Highway of Thought seemed like an apt title because it was like an overarching theme—if this were a show in New York or at a gallery, it’d be work made within the past year and it would be much more thematically cohesive. This is a bit of a stretch; I like to think the show is comprised of various portraits of people engaged in a search—a kind of journey, a spiritual journey, a sexual journey, a search for identity, people longing to forge their way in the world. And I know that’s a big net to throw around work, but that’s a portrait of free thinkers. The pictures range from my mother sitting on the beach in southwest Florida reading the Bible, two men together in a Connecticut cabin reading art books, a couple engaged in a kiss on a bed, a pregnant teenager with her boyfriend. It’s all a journey that everybody’s trying to figure out as it goes along. It’s a little touchy feely, but I like it; it seemed cohesive in that way for me.

DFP: How do you explore the diptych or triptych form, which a lot of your work features. Do you ever branch off from that or do you like the way you’re able to talk about space and time?

DH: Although I studied cubism, really my roots are in performance theatre and film. And I love narrative and I love narrative writing and fiction. But for me it’s like storytelling and it’s a way to link photographs together with shifting focus that allowed me to kind of move through a space. So it is very much about cinema. Although I love the triptych form, it’s really just about gathering pictures. You could say, “Why can’t you do that in a single photograph?” Maybe, but I don’t think you could point in quite the same way. It’s a combination of photography meets cinema: the still image meets the moving image.

DFP: Are you influenced by a certain geographic area or some other kind of space?

DH: I’m interested in this thing. The official term is environmental portraiture, which is quite simply the figure of a space, and the figure informing the space and the space informing the figure, so the two are in dialogue with on another. I’m definitely interested in the New England landscape. I’m from New England. I love the kind of gentle nature of the New England landscape. It’s not particularly grand; there’s a lot of subtlety. It’s softer; the weather isn’t particularly dramatic for the most part. But its subtlety— I like that.

DFP: I noticed that many of your photographs feature raw sexuality. Part of what appeals to me about your work is its discussion of being gay, especially in Daybooks, where there’ s this physical and emotional distance between two men. Could you tell me more about that?

DH: In that same exhibition, on the other side, there’s a picture from way earlier (in 1994) where you have a blatant kind of sexual moment where one man is bending down kissing the other man. And there’s also nudity, there’re testicles, there’s kissing. So it’s not just sex, it’s also love. And I made that a while ago. And that was a different time. Not that I was an angrier artist, but I was, as far as my politics, maybe pushing a little bit harder to be in-your-face about it. And that photograph is totally voyeuristic. You’re in a doorway looking at something. So depending on your politics or your point of view you’ll either walk by that door, close that door, so it implicates the viewer.

And then years later, quite recently, I make Daybooks, which is still about love between two men. There’s a physical distance between them, maybe an emotional distance, but I like the idea that they’re two men, they’re both undressed, they’re in the same room by the fire so it’s highly unlikely that they’re arguing. They’re just in their own space. They’re together but they’re not together and that’s another beautiful part about being in a relationship. It’s not just about the sex and the kissing; it’s also about being together but in your own space.

And it’s not just that I identify myself as a gay man. Yes, I make queer art. I’m politically active. And you know, it’s funny that you talk about Daybooks. One person who came into the gallery said, albeit nicely, that I was perpetuating stereotypes. And I said, “Well, you know, I’m sorry you feel that way, but I would just say that for me it’s quite political. I’m just standing up and being counted. These moments happen.”

There’s something very political about making this fireside, almost Edwardian, photograph of two men together. I don’t see a many pictures like that. As a graduate student, I set out to make work righting that wrong. I want to make beautiful photographs of men together languishing in landscapes and kissing and holding and I want to fill all those voids that exist in the history of art where [gay men] were shamed and avoided. At the same time, I make other work. I don’t put the pressure on myself to address every major topic, but I think being a gay man and standing up and showing normal sides of a lifestyle is very political. And if someone sees that as perpetuating a stereotype, then that’s unfortunate.

DFP: But it’s interesting how, in Daybooks, the image of two men involved romantically is not just sexualized, but seems to be going something beyond that to something more taboo.

DH: Yeah, maybe it’s taboo. Well you’re a smart guy; you’re at Dartmouth. I’m going say something you probably already know: the reason it’s interesting for me to have the picture of two men kissing, and across from it is Hot Coffee, Soft Porn. It’s two photographs that represent two men each engaged in something that is decidedly personal, private, like two men in a bedroom kissing, making love, and then the other photograph—it’s two brothers eating crappy food and watching porn together. One isn’t better than the other. It’s a personal choice. At the end of the day, it’s the choices that we make and I could keep going. Many of my photographs dealt with that.

I had a whole body of work about that (and some of the pictures are in the show). I was making pictures down in Florida with my mother, who’s a born-again Christian, and she has her crazy lifestyle. It makes her happy, it keeps her going everyday. She gets out of bed and reads the Bible, I get out of bed and I do something else, and you get out of bed and you do something else. I love the idea, that in that picture, in those two photographs are men engaged in their own kind of personal choice and moment. Sometimes it’s funny to see who takes issue during First-Year Family Weekend; it’s funny to see who wouldn’t look at what, who got a chuckle. There are issues of taste in that show that are brought up.

DFP: It is very homoerotic. When I saw that picture, I thought about the possibility of this pseudo-incestuous relationship going on.

DH: Oh you mean the homoerotic between the two brothers? Wow (laughs), I love that.

DFP: It’s not quite like they’re together but then it is.

DH: That’s a very interesting read. It is intimate because it’s not a bunch of men. It’s two men watching porn and they’re sitting on a couch together. Whether it’s homoerotic or not, it’s definitely an intimate photograph; it’s more intimate than a lot of men would get with one another.

DFP: And I guess a lot of it goes back to defining masculinity, because I know much of your work also does that.

DH: There are definitely rites of passage. Of course, I’m a man; I’m a gay man. My world was decidedly masculine. I address the feminine in my work, but it’s very different, it’s somewhat distanced in a way. But men fascinate me. Straight, gay, old, young, boys becoming older boys, becoming teenagers, becoming young men, becoming middle-aged men, becoming old men. All of those phases of your life have their complications. You’re 20-something and I’m 40-something. At 19, I had very different issues than I have now and I love that.

There was a time, when I was 19, that I wasn’t making my artwork—but it was a time like the Kiss photograph. That’s me in that picture. I was young, that moment was real. And now in some of my photographs, it’s more like an older man looking back and remembering. It’s funny getting older as an artist. I make work in real time about being 40. And this is to answer your question about the rites of passage: the evolution of men is great. I love that there’s a subtext to my work on masculinity.