Mick Freedman - Dartmouth Review editorial on Dartmouth's president's movement to impute racism to the editors

National Review, June 10, 1988

Mick Freedman The following, a splendid example of Young Exuberance, appeared as an editorial--we learn that its author is William Grace, '90--last week, in the conservative Dartmouth Review. The introductory material explains the context. President Freedman of Dartmouth is associated with the movement to impute racism to the editors of the Dartmouth Review, three of whom were suspended from college recently as punishment for insufficient docility to the proposition that in order for the community not to be racist, it must allow a black professor with impunity to loll about a class on music as if it were a course on scatology. The editorial is a fine metaphor against wage and price controls. Suppress wage and price levels here, and they pop up--there! Enjoy.

IN AN APRIL 26 article, the Dartmouth Review reported that President Freedman had drawn "record crowds" during his Midwestern speaking tour. College News Service chief Alex Huppe was quoted as the source of the report. He added, with customary precision, "President Freedman's remarks on teaching a diversity of cultures, and his ideas and vision, have caught people's interest. The president has extraordinary popularity among the members of the alumni clubs that he visited."

According to Review sources, Mr. Huppe considerably understated the tenor of alumni response to Freedman. What follows is a report from the Review's Chicago correspondent:

Chicago, Ill.--President James O. Freedman of Dartmouth College spoke before fifty thousand wildly cheering Dartmouth alumni at a packed Wrigley Field stadium on Monday. Surrounded by burly bodyguards, the novice Ivy League prexie waded through a densely packed crowd of admirers and well-wishers to a podium bristling with microphones.

As the giant scoreboard flashed "Jimmy O.," Freedman pranced across the stadium stage waving genially to the fans, who gave him a forty-minute standing ovation. Mr. Freedman was clad in a green sequined jumpsuit. When alumni finally retook their seats, Freedman put a microphone to his lips and whispered "otherness." Instantly, thousands of women in the crowd screamed, and several dozen fainted. Alert paramedics rushed to the aid of those members of the audience overcome by awe. The president and his bodyguards then departed the stage and ran for the safety of a black Lincoln. Women and photographers pressed against the vehicle's windows and fell haplessly to the ground as the limousine sped off.

Earlier in the day, ecstatic wives of Dartmouth Alumni Club members had rushed the dais during a luncheon at Chez Paul, a three-star restaurant long considered one of Chicago's finest. "I just wanted a piece of his hair ... or his suit," said one lovestruck Dartmouth wife.

Freedman will speak in Detroit tomorrow at the Silverdome.

In a minor by-play to the day's events, a Dartmouth '72 was found to be in possession of a Wall Street Journal newspaper during the customary pre-speech frisk at the stadium gates. The alumnus was transported to Cook County General Hospital and treated for minor bruises and lacerations prior to being released.