Whatever happens at Dartmouth, we should be grateful for the
controversy the debate stimulated. It is not often that
arcane disputes about college governance spark heated commentary on the
editorial pages of major newspapers and at prominent
internet sites. The public instantly grasped that what
happened at Dartmouth concerned more than the mechanics of
how a board of trustees is to be elected. It concerned the
character of liberal arts education at one of
America’s premier colleges. If nothing else, the drama unfolding at
Dartmouth reminds us how effectively the status quo can be exposed and
challenged by a little outside initiative.
We expect that
the inauguration of the Alexander Hamilton Institute for
the Study of Western Civilization in Clinton, New York will
prove to be a similarly tonic enterprise. Readers will recall our
enthusiasm—followed quickly by disappointment —when a
center named for Alexander Hamilton was first announced and
then torpedoed by Hamilton College. The whole sorry episode
was yet another example of college administrators
capitulating to ideological pressure from a left-leaning,
activist faculty. It was not a happy eventuality for
Hamilton. Rocked by multiple scandals—from a plagiarizing
president to the disaster of Ward Churchill—Hamilton became
a national poster-child for academic fatuousness. Probably,
we should not have been surprised that the Alexander
Hamilton Institute never got off the ground at the college
that bears the name of that illustrious Founding Father.
After all, it was dedicated (as a press release announcing its opening
put it) to programs “focused on American ideals and
institutions.” In the academy these days, “American Studies”
means “anti-American Studies,” and here was an initiative
that (in the words of its original charter)
“proceeds under the premise that the
reasoned study of Western civilization, its distinctive
achievements as well as its distinctive failures, will
further the search for truth and provide the ethical basis
necessary for civilized life.” What a provocation!
The good news is that, thanks to three dissident Hamilton
professors who persevered to create the institute,
Hamilton students will be able to enjoy the fruits of
this salubrious educational enterprise, even if they have to
leave campus for downtown Clinton to do it. Independent
trustees at Dartmouth; a new institute operating cheek by
jowl with the college that disowned it: these are glad
tidings. Among other things, they suggest that academic life
is susceptible to genuine renovation. It’s just that the
ideas might well have to come from outside the twittering
purlieus of established academic opinion.
