The Boston Globe - A show of respect urged at Dartmouth: Native Americans allege campus racism

The Boston Globe

A show of respect urged at Dartmouth
Native Americans allege campus racism
By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff | November 23, 2006

The president of Dartmouth College has apologized to Native American students for a series of events on campus that many of those students view as racist.

In an e-mail sent to the student body Monday, President James Wright delved into the school's troubled history with Native Americans and exhorted students to do more to make the university a welcoming and respectful place.

"They are members of this community . . . they are your classmates and your friends," Wright wrote of Native American students. "And they deserve more and better than to be abstracted as symbols and playthings."

The Native American Council, a group made up of mostly faculty and staff, with a few students, took out an advertisement in the student newspaper Monday detailing a string of incidents this fall that they described as racist. On Columbus Day, fraternity pledges allegedly disrupted a Native American drumming circle, according to the ad.

Earlier this month, the Crew team held a party with a "Cowboys and Indians" theme. Team captains later apologized in a letter in the student paper, The Dartmouth.

Informally, Dartmouth had an Indian mascot until the 1970s, when the Board of Trustees decided to discontinue its use. Some students and alumni have continued to use the symbol, however, and that has heightened tensions.

The Dartmouth Review, a conservative, independent student newspaper, gave away T-shirts with the Indian symbol to incoming freshmen, according to a student writing on the newspaper's blog. At Homecoming, at least one Dartmouth student sold T-shirts depicting Holy Cross's mascot performing a sex act on a "Dartmouth Indian," the university said.

The Dartmouth development office sent to alumni a calendar that included a photograph of an alumnus who held a cane that featured a carved Indian head. Dartmouth has apologized and said the development staff did not notice the cane in the picture.

The ad, taken out by the Native American Council , also expressed concern about a dining hall mural painted in the 1930s that depicted Dartmouth's founding. It shows one Native American holding a book upside down and one lapping rum from the ground. The mural has been covered for years and is set to be removed during renovations, but will be preserved by Dartmouth's Hood Museum of Art.

Dartmouth's 1769 charter created a college "for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land . . . and also of English Youth and any others." Officials say the mission was quickly lost, however, and only 19 Native Americans graduated from the college over the next 200 years.

In 1970, Dartmouth renewed that original commitment to Native American students and set out to recruit them. There are now about 150 Native American students, constituting 3 percent of the student body -- a much higher percentage than at most elite, private universities. The school also has a dedicated office to work with those students and a Native American studies program.

But especially this fall, several Native American students said they are not feeling welcome.

"I really feel like the college does not care enough about Native students," said Samuel Kohn , a sophomore who is from Montana and a member of the Crow tribe.

Kohn praised Wright's letter and his decision to meet with a group of Native American students last week, but said the president's comments were long overdue and didn't go far enough.

In a telephone interview, Wright said he was still considering other ways to address these problems, such as speaking in greater depth at freshman orientation about Dartmouth's history with Native Americans.

Some students are describing his efforts as pandering. Joe Malchow , a junior, wondered on his blog, dartblog.com , whether Wright was really defending free speech or whether he was "making a weak-kneed concession to a political interest group while trying to insulate his office from criticisms from everyone else."

Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@ globe.com.

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

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