The Dartmouth College Republicans are not amused. Nor are they happy about the turn of events and, in my words. Compare the words of Dartmouth College Republican Chloe Ezzo (pictured above) to those of the Dartmouth College Office of Communications here.
They put out their own informal Statement to their followers (and included me!).
So enough of me and not enough from Chloe and Griffen Mackie speak, Skip!
Emphasis mine:
Hey guys, I wanted to reach out and explain what exactly happened last night. At five o’clock, Anna Hall and Jim Alberghini told me that the Dartmouth administration was forcing us to “transition the event to virtual.” When I asked why, they said it was for a “confluence of reasons.” When I asked for clarification, they told me they officially decided a few minutes prior. However, it does seem like this was a decision they had made a long time ago and only decided to announce at the last minute. After the virtual event, Dartmouth released this statement:
Which is here and already fisked. Again, it is nothing than CYA and trying to get ahead of the complaints and trying to ward off we who fisk things like this seriously (and because it’s fun to make them look bad). So let her speak and Griffen Mackie, Skip, get to it!!
This statement is both factually wrong and embarrassing to read:
1. We spoke to some members of the police during/after, and they took it as a personal insult that Dartmouth cited safety concerns as a reason for canceling the in-person. We had State Troopers, Hanover Police officers, and SWAT members in/around the building.
And police from Lebanon as well; I talked with some of them.
Moore Hall may have been the safest place in all of New Hampshire. They would never allow things to spiral out of control and never expressly advised Dartmouth to cancel the in-person event. When I wrote that earlier, I was misinformed in the chaos of trying to completely change the formats at the last minute. AGAIN, THE POLICE NEVER TOLD DARTMOUTH TO CANCEL IN PERSON.
2. Chloe and I were in constant communication with the administration before the event. Over the past week, I had about six meetings with various members of the administration/IT support. All the while, Chloe was in almost constant communication with Dartmouth administrators. So much so that I joked with Chloe on Wednesday that emailing the admin had turned into a full-time job for her. For them to now insinuate that we failed to communicate with them is frankly disgusting.
3. They also cited concerns from our leadership. Chloe and I explicitly expressed our desire to have this event in person, even as they informed us of THEIR decision to have a virtual event instead. Any “concerns” that were raised during the planning of this event was always in light of what the perceived situation was with Antifa and how to best mitigate any threats or disruption they might pose. Is the Administration suggesting that we should not discuss the logistics and safety of such a high profile event with them for risk of them taking our comments out of context?
4. Time and time again, the administration told us that it was “our event” and that they simply were there to assist (more on that later). In our meetings earlier in the week, they made a suggestion on how much staff we needed. Yesterday morning, [Anna] Hall commanded that we have a certain number of volunteers—first seven and then nine. All-day I rallied people to help, and by the end, I had 12 students ready to go (not to mention a handful of community members that offered to help as well). About a half hour before the Admin pulled the plug, Hall demanded to see a list of our volunteers. I was in the auditorium setting up the IT for the event and simply did not see the email (the wifi is not great in the basement) while Chloe was organizing with the speakers. If anything, this demonstrates the administration’s failure to communicate with us. We were scheduled to meet with Hall and Jim at around 5:00–if they had simply waited ten minutes to talk to us during our scheduled meeting, we would have told them that staffing was not an issue. Although I don’t think this was ever a serious reason for canceling because Admin didn’t seem to care when I told them that we were overstaffed.
5. In regards to the dissemination of the visitor policy and the prohibition on bags in the building, again, Admin is simply not telling the truth. For example, our last LISTSERV has a subject line of NO BACKPACKS ALLOWED.
6. Furthermore, we sent out dozens of emails over the previous few days communicating the Dartmouth policy to the community members we knew were coming. I went to a speaking event last week; community members came, and no one checked anything. In contrast, we planned to follow all of Dartmouth’s guidelines and stop people at the door if they didn’t comply with them. Why was our event the one that got canceled?
They are right – and I was the recipient of a number of texts and emails in the runup to the Andy Ngo event. CONSTANT communications!
And to the nub that shreds the Dartmouth College statement that it concerns itself with protecting individual Liberty and Rights:
For Dartmouth to claim that they “protected” free speech is absurd. In reality, they allowed the Dartmouth Anarchists to make threats and get exactly what they wanted. By forcing us to go virtual on such short notice (with only one laptop in the entire building to use), they seriously disrupted our event, embarrassed our organization, and created a roadmap for derailing our future activities. The Dartmouth administration capitulated to threats from domestic terrorists, and it is shameful.
I have tried my best to work with the Admin. I have always been kind and genuinely understanding. Even last night, I stayed calm and worked with them to produce something. However, it is clear from their statement and hindsight that they never had our best interests at heart. They never wanted the event to be in person. They blamed “both sides for being unreasonable.”
Sidenote: both sides? What both sides? It’s clear that one of them didn’t want the event to happen and made threats to stop it. So in the words of the Knight Templar in “Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail”: they [the Dartmouth Administration] choose poorly.
And, most importantly, they were worried about the anarchists giving Dartmouth bad PR.
So, they are now trying to throw us under the bus and gaslight us into believing this was all our fault.
And instead, have brought us upon them if they were worried about getting bad PR. It’s not just me and it isn’t just Steve and it won’t be just Liz Gabert (radio) and 603 Alliance and a bunch of other state level bloggers here in NH and VT – we’re taking this to national level talkers and bloggers.
Again, the Dartmouth Administration used their Positions of Power to oppress a young lady and the conservative organization she belongs to and helps lead. Maybe the Dartmouth Admin is thinking along the same lines that “if only Whites can be oppressors, then everyone are victims” in that Republicans are oppressors and THEY are the victims – and believe they can get away with it!
Oh wait – I’ve looked at the staff pictures in a number of departments – both Anna Hall and Jim Jim Alberghini are WHITE! Most of the staff is as well. How do they explain that non-diversity away?
No, we’re not going to throw Dartmouth College under the bus. Instead, we are going to knife their tires, put sugar into the gas tank, and jam the doors closed. Then let them sit there inside in the hot and muggy August sun.
