Very similar to what Chloe Ezzo had sent me but a wee bit more pointed and I have added some emphasis. Also, he included screenshots from the Antifa based organization, Northeast Antifa, that have successfully made the Dartmouth Administration look weak, spineless, craven, and trying to do the CYA butt dance – see bottom of this post.
I wanted to reach out and explain what exactly happened last night with our Andy Ngo and Gabe Nadales event. At five o’clock, Anna Hall (Senior Assistant Dean for Student Life) and Jim Alberghini (Associate Director, Conferences and Events)…
Sidenote: guess I shouldn’t call the smarmy one “the Logistics dude” anymore. I shall attempt to use his correct title going forward. However, the adjective remains. And the following is Dartmouth’s statement again. Don’t stop reading, however, as Griffin has more details below. And screenshots, too!
…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:
“In light of concerning information from Hanover police regarding safety issues, similar concerns expressed by the College Republican leadership, and challenges with the student organization’s ability to staff a large public event and communicate effectively (including dissemination of the visitor policy and a prohibition on bags in the building), the College has requested that the Extremism in America panel be moved online. The event was not canceled. The College has supported the event virtually.
Then why did smarmy Jim Alberghini (Associate Director, Conferences and Events) tell me that my livestreaming services were no longer needed and that I had to leave? That certainly cancelled the event for me, right? And those people who traveled for hours were canceled from attending as well. This is not something he, and Anna Hall, and Diane Lawrence can get out from underneath as they prevented too many people from participating.
This decision aligns with Dartmouth’s policy on freedom of expression and dissent:
Freedom of expression and dissent are protected by Dartmouth regulations. Dartmouth prizes and defends the right of free speech and the freedom of the individual to make their own disclosures, while at the same time recognizing that such freedom exists in the context of the law and in responsibility for one’s own actions. The exercise of these rights must not deny the same rights to any other individual. The institution therefore both fosters and protects the rights of individuals to express dissent.
Protest or demonstration shall not be discouraged so long as neither force, nor the threat of force is used, and so long as the orderly processes of the institution are not deliberately obstructed.”
This statement is both factually wrong and embarrassing to read:
And here is where Griffin’s account varies a bit from Chloe’s. Essentially the same but some additional details:
1. We spoke to some members of the police during and after the event, 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 and around the building. Moore Hall may have been the safest place in all of New Hampshire. They would never allow things to spiral out of control and (according to multiple officers privately) never expressly advised Dartmouth to cancel the in-person event.
2. Chloe Ezzo (Vice-President, College Republicans) and I were in constant communication with the Administration before the event. Over the past week, I had approximately 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 Administration 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 unilateral 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. Are the Administrators 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, 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 Administration 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)…
Well, that answers the question for me. It’s clear that it was Jim Alberghini was most likely the one that said “you’re on your own” with respect to my request for wired Internet access. With Griffin’s observation that WiFi is the pits in the basement, and assuming that’s where the the auditorium is located, my attempt to livestream was doomed from the outsight. Couple that with his smarmy “your livestreaming services are no longer needed” says a lot. He WANTED the event to fail – sabotaging others’ attempts to assist is the mark of stout little fellows.
Just one more data point, if you connect the dots, that further makes the case that the Administration wanted this Andy Ngo event shut down.
…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 PM (two hours before the event)–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 the Administrators 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, the Administration is simply not telling the truth. For example, our last Campus Wide-Email has a subject line of NO BACKPACKS ALLOWED.
Furthermore, we sent out dozens of emails over the previous few days communicating the Dartmouth policies to the community members we knew were coming. I went to a speaking event last week 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?
For Dartmouth to claim that they “protected” free speech is absurd. In reality, they allowed the Dartmouth Anarchists and other outside ANTIFA groups to make threats of violence 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.” 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 Griffin has done a great favor to us that participated (or at least showed up and then were turned away). Remember what the lesson is that the Dartmouth Administration just “taught” the local Anarchists – threaten to cause trouble and we’ll cave. Like a wet napkin in a hurricane (and just about as quickly). We WON’T stand up for our students’ Rights – we have no courage and sense of duty.
The Heckler’s Veto:
So, with the below, it is clear that the Dartmouth College Administration caved into self-proclaimed Communists?
So if I was to flip this on its head, a bit, did the Dartmouth Administration throw in with the Dartmouth Anarchists and let them be the “front man” while did the dirty in the backroom? They certainly achieved the results that the Dartmouth Anarchists and Northeast Antifa wanted, right?
And those two groups didn’t even have to step out in that 10 degree evening, did they? They set the stage and the Administration did the heavy lifting for them!
