Dartmouth College: Abolition of Speech Code

Case Materials

• "Dartmouth Ends Confusion Over Speech Policies, Affirms Commitment to Free Speech, and Removes Troubling Documents From Website," FIRE Press Release, May 9, 2005: In a remarkable development for liberty on campus, Dartmouth College has issued a clear and unambiguous statement in favor of free speech. The statement ends what Dartmouth called “confusion” about the college’s policies by removing from its website documents containing language that earned the college a poor, “red” rating on FIRE’s speechcodes.org database. This action follows a series of communications between FIRE and Dartmouth.
• "Dartmouth College’s Page on ‘Speechcodes.org’ Until May 9, 2005," May 9, 2005
• "FIRE Letter to Dartmouth College President James Wright, April 19, 2005," April 19, 2005
• "FIRE Letter to Dartmouth Trustee T. J. Rodgers, February 28, 2005," February 28, 2005
• "Letter to the Dartmouth Community from Dean of the College James Larimore, May 11, 2001," May 11, 2001
• "Letter to the Dartmouth Community from President James Wright, May 10, 2001," May 10, 2001

Media Coverage

• "Lighting the FIRE of Liberty in Philadelphia," Chris Perez and Robert Shibley, Pennsylvania Independent, January 25, 2006: FIRE encourages all Penn students to take advantage of the tools we provide, to learn their rights, and to monitor and protect liberty on Penn’s campus. And if a situation does arise, remember: the resources of FIRE are there to protect you.
• "Dartmouth Shifts—to the Right?," Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Education, June 28, 2005: Just days before the election results were announced, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education said that the college had clarified its policies in a way that made it “a national leader in the battle for free expression on campus.”
• "10 great cigars and why I smoked them," Mike Adams, Townhall.com, June 13, 2005: I smoked my first CAO Cameroon the week that the FIRE defeated speech codes at two American campuses on two consecutive days. Where do these guys get all their energy?
• "Dartmouth Praised for Taking Lead in 'Free Expression'," Jody Brown and Jim Brown, Agape Press, May 16, 2005: Dartmouth College in New Hampshire is being lauded for leading the Ivy League "in respecting individual liberty and free expression."
• "The Lone Pine Revolution," Scott Glabe and Michael Ellis, The Dartmouth Review, May 14, 2005: Two bespectacled, suit-wearing academics make for unlikely revolutionaries. However, the election of Hoover Institution fellow Peter Robinson '79 and George Mason University law professor Todd Zywicki '88 to Dartmouth College's Board of Trustees, announced Thursday, is perhaps the most significant event in the institution's recent history.
• "Red Light, Green* Light," Scott Glabe, The Dartmouth Review, May 13, 2005: In what the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has called “a remarkable development for liberty on campus,” Dartmouth has cleared up the mystery surrounding the College’s speech code. General Counsel Robert Donin, in a May 2 communiqué (see inset), wrote to FIRE to “confirm that neither President James Wright’s May 10, 2001 letter nor Dean of the College James Larimore’s May 11, 2001 letter represents a binding statement of Dartmouth College policy or can be relied upon to support a complaint based on the content or viewpoint of controversial speech” [emphasis added].
• "Dartmouth trustee vote raises controversy," Jason Schwartz, The Daily Pennsylvanian, May 13, 2005: By focusing on freedom of speech, Robinson and Zywicki are following in the footsteps of Silicon Valley tycoon T.J. Rodgers, a petition candidate who was elected to Dartmouth's Board of Trustees last year.
• "Free speech org. lauds College policies," Rebekah Rombom, The Dartmouth, May 10, 2005: David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said yesterday that the organization would improve Dartmouth's free speech rating from a poor "red light" to the highest rating, a "green light."
• "Freer Speech at Dartmouth?," Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Education, May 10, 2005: Can speech that hurts feelings get you in trouble at Dartmouth College? That’s what libertarian critics of the college have been charging for some time, saying that the college has a speech code that squelches free expression.
• "Voting in action-packed trustee election ends," Stuart Reid, The Dartmouth, May 6, 2005
• "Trustee Election at Dartmouth Is Seen as 'Battle for Academic Freedom'," Paul Fain, The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 5, 2005: Elections of trustees to college and university boards are generally a snooze. Not so at Dartmouth College, where an alumni vote for two slots on the Board of Trustees has featured as much drama as a mudslinging congressional campaign. The results of the election will be released in the next few weeks.
• "Ivies confront free speech uproar," Rebekah Rombom, The Dartmouth, April 7, 2005: President James Wright signed a letter last week encouraging colleges and universities to become involved in the Ford Foundation's new program encouraging academic freedom, entitled "Difficult Dialogues: Promoting Pluralism and Academic Freedom on Campus."
• "Free Speech and Its Limits," Robert Donin, The Dartmouth, March 18, 2005
• "Encouraged But Not Convinced," T. J. Rodgers, The Dartmouth, March 7, 2005: As part of the electioneering surrounding the current Trustee election, my views on free speech at Dartmouth have been quoted to support certain candidates and attack others. Politics aside, since one of the two promises I made during the 2004 Trustee election was to improve the climate of free speech on campus, I am very sensitive to that issue -- especially when my position is misrepresented. To be clear: I believe there has been and continues to be a serious free speech problem at Dartmouth.
• "Campus Speech Codes At Dartmouth," J. Scholer, The Dartmouth Review, October 23, 2003
• "Playing with FIRE," Michael Ellis, The Dartmouth Review, June 2, 2003: When a college student’s speech offends the sensibilities of his school’s administration, the means of recourse are few. The case is easily hushed up by the campus PC police and the student is left to fend for himself amidst the stifling academic orthodoxy. To whom can the beleaguered student cry out for help? The resources normally called upon for aid in times of duress—parents, professors, administrators, or campus publications—are irrelevant or useless. They are either powerless to stop the persecution or quick to jump on the student for promulgating ‘distasteful’ speech.
• "The Punishment Does Not Fit the 'Crime'," The Dartmouth Review, November 11, 2002