<p>Bad taste is an Ivy tradition. I remember one game with Harvard when their band was formed in the crimson H and the announcer came on and said something like Yale will now stem the red tide and the band came out of the tunnel as a giant tampon that marched into the H. </p>
<p>After being warned against obscentity by the city, they did a salute to Amtrak; they made a train and a tunnel and drove the train in and out of the tunnel. They also did a salute to sperm whales with a spurting fire extinguisher thing, a salute to language arts and all the cunning linguists, and they made what they called the world’s largest woman and then brought out a big fake chainsaw and cut her in half from the crotch up. (The memory of drunk old grads in their tweeds and fancy coats chanting “chainsaw, chainsaw” is difficult to erase.)</p>
<p>So a tradition of bad taste is exactly what the Ivy League is about. It can cross boundaries and become actually offensive. There was a tradition of throwing oranges at the Princeton band but then a girl was blinded and that stopped.</p>
<p>I think the best line about this kind of thing goes to an unknown UConn fan who was a few rows behind us as the band went through it’s usual silliness. We could clearly hear her say in a tone of complete disillusion, “And to think these are the future leaders of our country.”</p>
<p>I’m sure this is truly dismaying to the vast majority of the Dartmouth community that would never ever do something like this. You can’t really compare it to football and ice hockey either, which are much better attended and where most of the fans are much farther away. I haven’t been to the Darmouth squash courts, but in most squash facilities that are set up for spectators, the fans are right on top of the courts–5 or 10 yards away at the most. The players can hear every word. </p>
<p>But I also think that behavior like this is more common in our colleges and universities than one would hope. In the last few years Williams College has struggled with racist and homophobic graffiti. Yale has had swastikas painted in the snow, men holding sexually offensive signs outside the Yale Women’s Center and a widely circulated email ranking the atractiveness of freshman women. These are things I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure that others could easily add to this list. </p>
<p>So it’s not a justification of what happened at Dartmouth. Far from it–I hope the administration disciplines the guilty. I’d also be impressed if the soccer team and the fraternity kicked the perpetrators out. I wouldn’t want to be a teammate of someone that yelled grossly obnoxious things at a sporting event.</p>
<p>As the mother of two current Dartmouth students I can’t tell you how sad this makes me. Not just for the people directly involved, but for the horrible press tossed at all Dartmouth students. I especially feel for the kids who were just admitted to Dartmouth early decision on Tuesday and now have their relatives saying “You’re going THERE?” I just feel compelled to tell my CC friends that I know so many Dartmouth students. And if you want to generalize, the generalization should be that the Dartmouth kids are smart, kind, and caring. I think NM was right in saying that admissions officers are looking for open-minded, caring people. Do any of you wonder if athletes who enter through the recruiting door are more likely to avoid the “niceness” screening? Don’t want to cast stones at all athletes! But I’m telling you the Dartmouth students I know (and I know A LOT- I have a bunch here visiting right now) are such fantastic people.
This just makes me (and the kids in my kitchen) so sad :(</p>
<p>Speaking as the parent of a current Dartmouth student who doesn’t fit ANY of the stereotypes some of you are throwing around so lightly, I’m really offended and surprised at you all.</p>
<p>Approximately 12 idiots misbehaved at a game and suddenly the majority of Dartmouth students are bigots, racists, drunks, and don’t know how to behave decently? </p>
<p>Marite, I recently spent time with a bunch of current Harvard students and observed that about 50% of them were bossy, self-important egomaniacs. Shall I now assume that YOUR kid is also? I have news for you: some Harvard students are ALSO known to heckle visiting teams using terms of which none of us approve. (Apparently this disgusting behavior, like binge drinking, is not uncommon at college games these days. Which is, I would agree, a problem that should be addressed.)</p>
<p>I’m not sure why people think that kids in the Ivy league are supposedly better behaved than any other kids at any other school. That in itself makes me chuckle. The Ivy league, as one poster has pointed out, has always had it’s share of dark, borderline offensive humor…what is sad is that this group of kids…or any group of kids at any school…would become personally tactless in their taunts. It all started out as ‘good fun’ at my son’s match…lots of joking about how much more the visiting team kids pay in tuition and those sorts of comments and it went downhill from there and they aren’t in the Ivy League. Unfortunately I think the kids need to police themselves about this type of behavior. Alittle peer pressure from other students can go along way to preventing some tongue in cheek black humor from becoming personal and tactless and offensive rather than some administrator yellling at the kids and telling them they have “***** for brains” and punishing them. Hopefully some of the Dartmouth student body will corner the offenders and knock some sense into them.</p>
<p>Where did I say that ALL Dartmouth students were racists, homophobic, anti-Semites? I am appalled that this kind of behavior is being written off as over-enthusiastic support for one’s side. I am also concerned that the only consequence they look likely to suffer is having the whole college experience a “teachable” moment! The whole college did not indulge in this kind of behavior. Some did. And they need to be taught that this is not acceptable behavior.</p>
<p>I have no dog in this fight, although one of my dear friends has a daughter at Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I find it amazing that some of the posters here are belittling the Dartmouth kids for being rude in the rudest terms possible.</p>
<p>It feels like piling on.</p>
<p>It also feels like some of you are looking for any excuse to run Dartmouth down.</p>
<p>Some kids acted like idiots. Trust me, it could (and probably does) happen anywhere.</p>
<p>And, winning the prize for the biggest overreaction, “bagel” is a common term used to tennis to indicate a zero score. To suggest it’s an anti-Semitic comment is ridiculous.</p>
<p>The racist email to which you refer was written by ONE student and circulated via an organization run by six students that has no official college affiliation, and receives no college funding.</p>
<p>President Kim was greeted with open arms by thousands of current students, faculty, alums, and others. He is widely admired, and his appointment is regarded as a brilliant one.</p>
<p>Yet you see fit to suggest that he should return to Harvard because of the pathetic, adolescent–and yes, offensive–attempt at humor by ONE idiot.</p>
<p>Let’s see…Larry Summers, PRESIDENT of Harvard, informs current, former, and future female students and faculty that he regards them as being naturally inferior. Now THAT is “sad.” </p>
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<p>By whom? I see people simply pointing out that it is very unfortunately all too common on college campuses these days. (Even at – GASP!!!-- the “upper” Ivies where those truly superior students go, unlike the drunken stupid racist bums like my son that are forced to settle for dumps like Dartmouth.) I don’t see anyone saying it is acceptable.</p>
<p>I figured this thread had either digressed to moralizing or what’s appropriate punishment when it continued for so many days. And what do you knpw? It’s both.</p>
<p>First: I know quite a few Dartmouth students, some of whom are athletes, and I can tell you they passed whatever “niceness” barometer there is in admissions. I am completely sick and tired of the presumptions that an Athlete is automatically LESS qualified than anyone else who attends any school, let alone one in the Ivy league. This kind of leaping assumption is just as bad as if someone had said I know a black kid at Dartmouth and the ONLY reason he is there is due to the color of his skin. It’s ridiculous assumptions like this that keep this country spinning in circles. And I also find it ridiculous that we’d hope that some mooks would meet up with the offending parties to kick their butts in some back alley brawl… as if physical altercations are going to teach a valuable lesson.</p>
<p>From what I understand, the school and the offending players ( members of the soccer team?) are coming together so as to NOT sweep this thing under the rug. Harvard has received an apology, as had the family who was in the line of fire of whatever was said. What exactly else is appropriate punishment? It’s being addressed promptly. What else do you really suggest? </p>
<p>Let’s not use the bad behavior of a few students out of nearly 4000 to generalize about this school in particular or the Ivy league in general. At any sporting event, there becomes a “mob” mentality where things often become hyped and have the potential to go in a bad direction. Happens all the time… right down to middle school basketball and preschool t-ball. Let’s have some reality here. </p>
<p>And if college doesn’t provide “teachable moments” what the heck does it do? Do people honestly think the ONLY way to teach anyone a lesson is to have them handed out in a court of law? It’s not an either/Or thing, folks. There are lots of ways to teach these kids responsibility and it doesn’t have to come with an iron first. Sometimes a conversation or a public forum will suffice.</p>
<p>I agree that this was bad behavior by a few students. My problem with it is that it appears to be bad behavior by an organized group of students (in this case, apparently, the soccer team). Does Dartmouth have institutions that tend to concentrate the idiots into organized groups, which encourages them to misbehave as a group? I’m sorry to say that at some schools, fraternities play this role. I don’t know enough about Dartmouth to say, really, but this is different from one or two drunken hecklers.</p>
<p>Obviously, not. There is absolutely no excuse for a kid at a top college NOT to know what would pass for even semi-decent behavior. They’ve had “public forums” and DARE programs for 12+ years already. How many more years of forums do we, as adults interested in education, need to get the idea that it…ain’t…working! “Teachable moment” is just a cop-out, IMO.</p>
<p>Hmmmm - given its only been active about 14 hours before you posted, its kind of impossible for it to have continued for so many days. I think you missed that small fact - but then it wouldn’t have made your holier than thou rant so amusing</p>
<p>I still deplore the inappropriate actions of the Dartmouth hecklers, but just in case anyone thinks that Ivy League students should be or are above heckling:</p>
<p>I live in Southern NH and did run into racism problems 20 years ago. Something about states where just about everyone is white can sometimes make you feel out of place. We walked into a restaurant in Northern Maine this past summer and it can be a little unnerving when everyone stares at you for a few minutes.</p>
<p>I’ve read about minorities feeling a little uncomfortable at Dartmouth in the past. I was going to suggest Dartmouth as a place to apply for grad school to my son. This story is one of those little things that puts doubt in my mind. I think that you’re less likely to see this sort of thing in schools where there are far more minorities in plain view.</p>
<p>“Ivies, though, try hard not to accept bigots including not wanting to accept homophobes. That kind of criteria for admissions acceptance isn’t something that most colleges use”</p>
<p>“How exactly do they gauge that?”</p>
<p>From the essay, recommendations and interviews.</p>
<p>I remember asking an Ivy admission officer to give me an example of a high scoring URM with excellent ECs who was rejected, and the admission officer told me about a guy like that whom her school rejected because his essay reflected homophobia.</p>
<p>"Bad taste is an Ivy tradition. I remember one game with Harvard when their band was formed in the crimson H and the announcer came on and said something like Yale will now stem the red tide and the band came out of the tunnel as a giant tampon that marched into the H. "</p>
<p>Very true. Harvard’s band formations, for instance, historically have been designed to make the crowd groan. Of course that kind of fun is different than is calling members of opposing teams offensive names.</p>
<p>Admissions Stats for the Class of 2013:
“This year, 45 percent of the students admitted to Dartmouth are students of color, the most diverse group in the College’s history. Students of color currently make up over 30 percent of the student body.”</p>
<p>The Dartmouth of today is much more diverse than the Dartmouth of the past. On my child’s floor alone are students from Pakistan, the Czech Republic, and Hong Kong. The students are from all 50 states and many minority groups are represented. A good number of Native Americans also make up the student body. I find my child encounters much more diversity at Dartmouth today than at the public high school they graduated from.</p>