James Panero is the former editor of the Dartmouth Review, now the managing editor of the New Criterion. This past homecoming weekend he and his colleague Stefan Beck held a book signing at the Dartmouth bookstore for The Dartmouth Review Pleads Innocent. James and Stefan invited “the spiritual mentor of generations of Dartmouth students” — retired Professor of English Jeffrey Hart — to join them for a panel discussion at the bookstore on matters related to the book. James provides a glimpse of Professor Hart in “Hart to Hart.”
In addition to James Panero, Professor Hart was also the “spiritual mentor” to Hoover Institution Fellow and Dartmouth trustee Peter Robinson. Despite his eminence and civility, Professor Hart was frequently a thorn in the side of the Dartmouth administration — witness, for example, his work over the past twenty-five years with the students at The Dartmouth Review.
It is fitting that Professor Hart’s former students carry on in the same spirit. Former Hart student Peter Robinson is the Hoover Institution Fellow and current Dartmouth trustee who was elected to the Dartmouth board as a petition candidate. Peter is of course the former Reagan speechwriter who wrote the “tear down this wall” speech for President Reagan, a story he recounts in How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Peter describes “The Dartmouth fracas.” Here is Peter’s take on Dartmouth’s current constitutional struggle:
Ho-hum about the clash of civilizations? Blas
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