Around 600 university leaders recently signed a letter opposed to Trump's intervention in higher education. The only Ivy League president who did not sign the letter was Cyan Beylock, president of Dartmouth University.
Instead, she wrote her letter to campus, saying that higher education institutions should strive to “promote their status as a trustworthy beacon for knowledge and truth.”
“Reflections do not mean surrender,” she added.
Her critics and supporters say it's a kind of message and so far has helped keep Dartmouth out of the Trump administration's crosshair.
Six of the eight Ivys face major multi-billion dollar funding threats as they try to punish them for concerns about anti-Semitism and other issues. Harvard University alone could lose more than $2 billion. And all non-Ivy Dartmouth is being investigated for allegations that they allowed anti-Semitism on campus.
Dartmouth is not specifically targeted, but if the Republican administration is given way, it will not appear unharmed. For example, a high donation tax can cause a significant economic blow. And the administration's visa crackdown involves current and former Dartmouth students.
Dr. Beilock's supporters see her as a champion of free expression and dialogue among people with different political perspectives. They say she is consistent and supports these ideas long before the Trump administration and Hamas attacks on Israel's complex campus politics.
“This is something she's truly committed to,” said Malcolm Mahoney, leader of the Dartmouth Political Coalition, a nonpartisan group that sponsors the debate. “That's not something she does for political ease.”
But for her critics, she is about to bid to save the conservatives from retaliation. They point to police crackdowns of Palestinian parent demonstrations last year, saying she was injured rather than helping political tensions on campus.
There are also many reasons why Dartmouth is not facing the same pressure as his colleagues. Dartmouth, a small liberal arts college in rural New Hampshire, could be off the radar of Washington State Senators. It is also known for its more conservative bent.
And Dr. Beylock appears to have carefully placed her school on a conservative-friendly territory. She hired former Republican officials for her key managers, and took a hard-pressed approach to protesters, focusing on free expression in her public message. She is also looking for friends at high places.
White House officials recently praised Dartmouth.
Halmatt Dillon, a Trump royalist who leads the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, wrote on social media last week.
Dillon said Dr. Beylock recently met her team in a message. (The White House did not respond to requests for comment.)
“Praise for Dartmouth!” added Dillon.
In an interview, Dr. Beylock said her university is careful about protecting freedom of speech. “But free expression does not mean taking away other people's free expression, screaming out speakers, taking over shared spaces, and proclaiming it for one ideology,” she said.
Dr. Beylock added that she will reach out to Ms. Dillon and she will talk to the alumni across the political spectrum. They spoke of academic freedom, diversity of perspectives, and the “importance of intense independence as an institution.”
At 49, Dr. Beylock is the youngest Ivy League president and has been working less than two years later. Her fellow waves, presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia, resigned after a backlash over how they treated the protests of pro-Palestinian students.
By contrast, Dr. Beylock won praise from conservatives as a model for university leadership.
In what her supporters and critics describe as a university basin moment, she allowed armed state police to end the protest camp in College Green. Student activists said the protest was peaceful, but the school said the tents were fraudulent.
It was in contrast to the way the university handled another famous protest on the green in the 1980s. This is when the president tolerated Shanti Town, which students created to protest South Africa's apartheid. One night, dozens of students from the predominantly conservative student newspaper destroyed the shed with sledgehammers.
After President Trump took office, Dr. Beylock appointed Matthew Raymer, the former chief lawyer for the Republican National Committee, as the university's top lawyer. In January, Raymer was insisting in support of Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship. Raymer currently oversees Dartmouth's Visa and Immigration Services Department.
Raymer's employment represents “the type of difference in perspective across my team.”
“We hired Matt as Dartmouth's lawyer, not as a Republican lawyer in Dartmouth,” she added. “And I don't hire people based on political parties.”
Her stance towards the Trump administration split the campus. More than 2,500 Dartmouth alumni have signed a petition calling on Dr. Beylock to “participate in the growing classes of resisting universities and universities.”
“You're embarrassed by us,” read the headline in the student newspaper.
Roberta Milstein, a member of the class of 1988 and organizer of the Alumni Letter, said Dr. Beylock's attitude represents a “wink and a nod to the Trump administration.”
However, other alumni, Gerald Hughes, also began his own petition from the class of 1988, describing Dr. Beylock as a “free speech leader” who “takes a measured, intentional approach.” We received over 500 signatures from graduates, faculty and students.
Dr. Beilock, a cognitive scientist, has studied how high-performance people choke under pressure and said he is not going to change her approach.
Dr. Beilock served as a faculty member at the University of Chicago and later served as Executive Vice Provost. The school was an early champion of institutional neutrality, and the idea is that school officials should avoid opinions on political and social issues, except at the heart of the university's mission. Dartmouth recently adopted a similar policy.
Dr. Beilock said her experience in Chicago “had a huge impact on how I think.”
Chicago also has not signed letters from university leaders. There's also no Vanderbilt, led by former Chicago Provost Daniel Dearmeyer.
Amidst the fuss, the university continues to sponsor programming aimed at bridging campus differences.
On Thursday, Hughes, who launched a Probeilock petition, said, “We moderated a panel with university administrators on open dialogue, respectfully disagreement, and how to improve the environment for academic freedom. (Hughes was one of the students who participated in the Hammer attack on the shed, a situation he refused to discuss in detail.)
In an interview, Dr. Beylock said that while she supports other universities in navigating difficult political situations, her campus will continue to create its own way.
“We can stand with our peers and speak in our own voice,” she said. “They are not mutually exclusive.”
