Fallout continues at Dartmouth College after a lengthy, enigmatic email appeared in students’ inboxes on Monday threatening “physical action” if administrators do not meet a long list of demands by Mar. 24.
The eight-page, grievance-filled email came from a group of discontented students, reports The College Fix. The same group also sent its detailed protest missive to various Dartmouth bigwigs. The message outlines the group’s demands for reparations because of an alleged atmosphere of racism and oppression at the Ivy League school in rural New England.
The group calls itself “concerned Asian, Black, Latin@, Native, Undocumented, Queer, and Differently-Abled students.”
Its impressively long list of demands includes (but is certainly not limited to):
- Enrollment quotas for black and Latino students of “at least 10 percent each”
- An outright ban on the use of the terms “illegal aliens, illegal immigrants” and other terms the students don’t like
- A policy against hate speech that strongly punishes offenders
- Increased enrollment, financial aid and legal help for illegal aliens
- Gender-neutral bathrooms in every campus building
- Queer studies coursework in every department
- Compulsory cultural sensitivity training for professors
- Mandatory coursework on the theme of social justice
- Use of the preferred gender pronouns for all students and staff
- Conversion of all ethic studies programs into free-standing departments
- A rule making The Dartmouth Review, the school’s conservative paper, stop using the word “Dartmouth” in its name if it ever uses the word “Indian” again
The shadowy group of insistent students said in its menacing email that the goal of its multitude of demands is to end the “institutional violence” caused by “racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism.”
The eight-page letter warns Dartmouth that it has until Mar. 24 (the first day of Dartmouth’s spring term) to respond with “its exact commitment” — including a monetary commitment — to each and every demand the group has made.
“If the Dartmouth administration does not respond by the indicated time, those who believe in freedom will be forced to physical action,” the letter threatens.
Response to the intimidating school-wide email has been decidedly mixed.
Junior Nick Desatnick, the editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth Review, characterized the email’s demands as “very radical” and noted that a lot of students have noticed the phrase “physical action.”
“The purposeful ambiguity made it an ultimatum,” Desatnick told The Daily Caller.
He also noted that the creators of the document have since appeared to backtrack a bit from any implication of violence.
Desatnick suggested that responsibility for the email is likely to lie with “a pool of disenchanted individuals who transition between” a few radical student groups.
“I think it’s important not to take this document too seriously,” he told TheDC. “There’s a sense that there are problems at Dartmouth and I think this an attempt to garner attention that will diffuse in a few weeks.”
In the general student population, notes the Fix, some students thought the email was hilarious. Others were mad about it. Some said the charge that Dartmouth is racist is ludicrous. Still others agreed with the message but not with the terroristic threats of “physical action.”
Nobody seems to know for sure who sent the menacing email, but radical leftist groups have staged protests on Dartmouth’s campus in the past.
Last April, for example, a radical group made a big to-do about sexism, racism and capitalism. Administrators at the Ivy League bastion promptly capitulated. Dartmouth canceled classes in order to hold a daylong public forum addressing far-left grievances. (RELATED: Dartmouth cancels classes after leftists crash recruiting event with litany of absurd complaints)
In April, the offended students were part of a group called Real Talk Dartmouth that had crashed a college recruiting event to protest what they labeled is a toxic climate on campus.
Also, the vague threat of physical action against American colleges and universities over complaints about racism, capitalism and other –isms is not unique to Dartmouth and may, in fact, be becoming a trend.
In January, at the University of Michigan, members of the University of Michigan Black Student Union said they, too would have to resort to “physical action” if a list of seven demands issued on Martin Luther King Day was not met within seven days. (RELATED: Michigan black student union: ‘physical action’ if seven demands not met in one week)
Michigan officials met with the students and at least partially met their demands. (RELATED: UMich meets demands of black students who threatened ‘physical action’)
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