The Dartmouth 07/02/2021

FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2021

VOL. CLXXVIII NO. 7

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Greek Houses aim to recover place of “Radical”: State budget asscembly permits this month bill draws fire from Hanover reps, local Dems

BY ANDREW SASSER The Dartmouth Staff

New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu signed a controversial new statewide budget bill into law Monday. Items included in the budget bill include new restrictions on abortions, limits on the teaching of concepts like critical race theory by public institutions and checks on the governor’s power to declare a state of emergency. All four of Hanover’s representatives in the state House voted against the bill.

State representative Sharon Nordgren, D-Hanover, said that the bill was one of the most “radical” bills she had seen signed into law in

KYLE SPENCER/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

BY PIERCE WILSON

he has been working closely with

The Dartmouth Staff

Following Hanover’s lift of its ban on place of assembly permits from last spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Greek houses — along with dorms and restaurants — can now have their POA permits reinstated. In order to regain their permits, Greek houses must each pass an inspection by the Hanover July.

POA permits allow organizations to hold gatherings of more than 50 people and are granted by the Hanover fire department.

Inspections have 18 health and safety requirements, including mandating that exits are clear and unblocked, occupancy loads are clearly posted and emergency lights are maintained and tested.

Associate director of residential operations Bernard Haskell said that

RAINY HIGH 75 LOW 63

department to support the houses as they prepare for inspections. supporting Greek houses in making preparations, the houses themselves are in charge of ensuring that their spaces are up to standards, Haskell said. According to Haskell, for Greek houses that the College owns, more responsibilities fall on the College. are trying to ensure that all houses are prepared for inspections, and that he has been meeting one-onone with the summer term house managers from each house since this spring.

“All these house managers are new, so it’s a monster learning curve for these kids,” Haskell said. department’s inspections are done in conjunction with the health and

While summer is in full swing in Hanover, a housing shortage still looms over the nearly 130 students who were not approved to live on campus for the fall term. Due to the College’s lack of available beds, these students were placed on a housing waitlist, and some are struggling to scrap together alternative living plans.

The rise in student demand for housing comes as the administration outlines plans to return to “full access”

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houses on July 6, which will give to go inside Greek houses and let members know if they notice any issues that need to be addressed “When we start doing those inspections, everyone should pass and things will go smoothly,” Haskell said.

Haskell said that houses may begin holding gatherings as soon as they pass inspections.

“When the organization signs the digital record at the end of the inspection, if they pass, they basically have their POA,” he said.

128 students remain on fall housing waitlist The Dartmouth Staff

VERBUM ULTIMUM: IT’S THE HOUSING, STUPID

inside Greek houses in over a year.

According to Haskell, in order to

SEE POA PAGE 2

BY CASSIE THOMAS

OPINION

time since the pandemic began, but

pandemic by Aug. 1. Current College infrastructure, however, cannot fully meet the post-pandemic surge of demand for on-campus housing.

“This fall, there is no doubt that students had an appetite to be back,” associate dean of residential life Michael Wooten said. “If you look at what the numbers are, they are a little bit higher than any fall that I’ve seen.”

For the 128 students who applied for on-campus housing and, as of June 23, were denied through the randomized system of preference, D-Plans, major requirements and thesis projects are at risk of capsizing.

Kevin Chen ’22 believed that as a rising senior who had not been on campus since the fall of 2019 and is relying on an on-campus term this fall to complete his thesis, he would be prioritized for housing. Chen is counting fall — so that he can complete a study abroad trip to Vietnam over the winterim and complete his thesis by the spring.

“Since Dartmouth has practically remote options, if I’m not able to take those classes, then my entire plan is in jeopardy,” Chen said.

Chen has so far been denied the opportunity to live on campus in the fall and was placed on the waitlist earlier this summer, upending his thesis and graduation plans. When he reached out to his undergraduate dean, their only advice was to start searching for

but the search in the Upper Valley’s overcrowded housing market has been fraught. a viable option, he would grapple with a new set of issues involved with getting to campus.

“The Advanced Transit bus line does run through the Upper Valley, but the times are pretty inconvenient for a college student,” Chen said. “I usually stay pretty late at campus to study or participate in extracurriculars, and those lines stop running at [4:30 p.m.] sharp.”

Chen said that time away from campus has seriously impacted his social life and friendships.

“I haven’t been on campus for two years, haven’t seen anyone around my age since I live in a pretty rural area,” Chen said. “I mean, how do you socialize on Zoom? It’s just a very tough situation.”

Any plans to reunite with other students have been further delayed for Chen. He said his dean pointed him to mental health resources without suggesting other solutions.

In response to the demand for oncampus housing, the College sent an email on June 14 about the randomized lottery that would give students $5000 to give up a claim to on-campus housing.

An email sent on June 15 also said detail.

Cassidy Nicks ’23, who was put on the waitlist alongside Chen, said this campus housing.

“I don’t think there’s been any prioritization or help in the last year needy students at all,” Nicks said.

“The way they did the housing system completely randomly actually seems like a pretty horrible thing for me

SEE HOUSING PAGE 2

and government professor Russell Muirhead, D-Hanover, added that he believes Republican representatives opted to add these “toxic” amendments in order to satisfy extremists within their party.

“None of what [Republicans] proposed in the budget could have passed on their own merits,” Muirhead said. “They didn’t even try to make a centrist coalition.”

Among the most controversial of the amendments is a provision that would ban the teaching of “discrimination” — for example, the idea that someone is inherently racist or oppressive due to their race or background — by public employers and in schools. The bill also included language that would exempt workplace sensitivity training and public university faculty from potential liability from suits by students or employees. In response to the inclusion of this provision, 10 members of the 18-member Governor’s Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion resigned.

Muirhead said that while the bill is unlikely to have any impact on Dartmouth faculty, as Dartmouth is a private institution, it could act to “censor” public school teachers in conversations on race and history.

He added that because the language could serve to prevent teachers and employers from speaking freely in the classroom or the workplace about these sensitive topics.

“It’s a page out of a totalitarian handbook,” Muirhead said. “If state are saying violates the law, school systems will be vulnerable to losing state support.”

Kate Hilton ’99, who previously petitioned the College to take a stand against a prior controversial budget bill, said that this amendment acts as an “equity gag order” to prevent discussion of systemic racism and sexism in schools, police departments and other public employers. She added that while the bill’s provisions will only last until July 2023, it still presents major problems for educators. the constitutionality of the bill, and the school systems over this bill that will cost taxpayers money,” Hilton said.

Hilton added that she thinks Dartmouth as an institution should take steps to combat the bill, such as submitting an amicus brief on the impact that the bill may have on the families of Dartmouth employees. She also called upon the College to issue a statement opposing this amendment.

In contrast, Rep. Jess Edwards, R-Auburn, a co-sponsor of the bill, said that the amendment is intended to strengthen previous antidiscrimination legislation. He added that the bill will prevent schools and employers from telling individuals that they are inherently “guilty” due to an aspect of their identity.

“Schools should still teach the rich context of the American experience, the good and the bad,” Edwards said.

“However, they need to pull short of pointing to the white kids in a class and saying, because of your race, you are inherently oppressors.”

Another controversial provision of the budget bill introduces new restrictions on abortion. The amendment makes abortions after 24 weeks illegal, except in cases of medical emergency. DartmouthHitchcock Medical Center is the

only hospital in New Hampshire that currently performs abortions at or after 24 weeks, and nder current New Hampshire law, there is no threshold past which an abortion cannot be performed. Additionally, before any abortion is performed, a doctor would be required to perform an ultrasound to determine the age of the fetus.

DHMC did not respond to requests for comments by press time.

Nordgren said that this bill may make it harder to recruit and retain OB/GYN doctors and nurses, as they could be held criminally liable for performing an unauthorized abortion.

She added that the ultrasound requirement could also act as a “shaming mechanism” to discourage women from getting an abortion.

“This bill is just a form of harassing people who may need reproductive services,” Muirhead said. “It is a fundamental attack on the autonomy of medical doctors and women.”

Edwards said that this amendment was intended to provide a balance between the rights of a mother and the rights of an unborn child. He added that the limit was set at 24 weeks to ensure that women would have access to full testing to make an informed decision on whether or not they want to carry their baby to term.

“At some point, we have to respect the life of the unborn,” Edwards said.

“A lot of other states have set limits after 24 weeks.” Currently, 23 states set restrictions on abortion at 24 weeks or earlier.

The budget, which was passed with only Republican votes, also introduction of paid family medical leave. Additionally, the bill requires the New Hampshire governor to address the state legislature every 90 days when a state of emergency is in place. This amendment was added to the bill due to controversies over Sununu’s handling of the pandemic.

Edwards said that some of these non-budget amendments, like the restrictions on the governor’s emergency powers, were added into the budget as it would make it harder for Sununu to veto the bill. He added that Sununu, while initially opposed to this amendment, ultimately agreed to the reform to give some political power back to the legislature.

Nordgren said that “right wing radicals” in the state House made these amendments a “requirement” in order to pass a budget, and that these Republican house members are looking to pass further restrictions on the governor’s powers in future legislative sessions.

Dartmouth Democrats president Miles Brown ’23 said that he was “very disappointed” in the passage of the bill, and added that the bill shows the consequences that local and state government races can have.

“While Democrats won many of the races at the top of the ticket, we didn’t do so well in the other races,” Brown said. “Even though these races are not as glamorous, they’re really important for us to focus on.”

Brown added that the Dartmouth Democrats will be distributing information to students and Dartmouth community members about the bill, and that they are looking forward to energizing the student vote for the 2022 midterm elections as a potential opportunity to retake the state house, senate and executive council.

Nordgren said that she thinks this budget could hurt Sununu’s future political ambitions, especially if he attempts to run against Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan in 2022. She added that while Sununu had a lot of support for his response to the pandemic, he will have to answer for “following the radical right.”

Muirhead said that the bill “should raise some deep concerns in the electorate, and it could weaken [Sununu’s] ability to run a successful campaign.”

New Hampshire house representatives and co-sponsors of Karen Umberger, R-Kearsarge, did not respond to requests for comment.

Rep. and co-sponsor Ken Weyler, R-Kingston, declined to comment, writing in an email that he felt that Dartmouth was “so extremely liberal” that any interview “would be slanted.”

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FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2021

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Students to enjoy mostly mask-free summer on campus

BY CATIE MCCARTHY The Dartmouth Staff

This summer, students are enjoying a return to campus with fewer COVID-19 guidelines following an announcement last Wednesday that rescinded the mask mandate on campus for those who are fully vaccinated.

The new masking guidelines were announced on June 23 during a “Community Conversations” livestream and were implemented for the summer term. The guidelines state that fully vaccinated people not experiencing COVID-19-like symptoms are not required to wear a face covering indoors or outdoors, with the exception of facilities such as Dick’s House and the COVID-19 testing site. Other new guidelines include the removal of all event and gathering limits, as well as the removal of physical distancing requirements.

As of July 1, 86% of the on-campus Dartmouth community has been fully Dartmouth community has been fully vaccinated, according to Dartmouth’s

COVID-19 dashboard.

Dining halls are open as well, and according to the guidelines, the Class of 1953 Commons will restore additional tables and chairs on July 6

“It’s just really good to see people smile,” Piper Stacey ’23 said.

“Walking into [’53 Commons] and seeing people that you haven’t seen in a year and a half is really exciting and feels like college.”

Stacey added that she has been able to attend her virtual biology class while meeting with some of her group mates in person. She noted that this format has allowed her to “have side conversations [and] ask questions” during class without interrupting the lecture.

Student activities, such as some Dartmouth Outing Club sub-clubs, have also begun to have in-person meetings again, according to Stacey, who is one of the vice presidents of the DOC this summer. The DOC will also be running trips all summer, including Sophomore Trips — commonly known as “Strips” — which were not able to run in summer 2020.

“A huge part of the DOC is the

ability to be there, share experience and share food and share time with each other,” Stacey said.

She added that people on DOC trips are able to share cookware and stoves once again. arrived on campus last Wednesday, the day that the new guidelines were place, he did not know about the new guidelines and wore his mask everywhere before realizing that “literally no one was wearing their mask.”

“I felt almost pressured in a sense to also not wear my mask, because I realized that if I had my mask on, it almost seemed like I was the only one that was not vaccinated, but obviously

spaces more frequently after avoiding them in the winter, when he was last on campus, both because he found wearing a mask “for many hours on end” to be “unbearable” and because his room this term does not have air conditioning.

Bryan Tran ’23 said that while he is vaccinated, he still tries to carry a

mask around to protect himself as well

don’t really have a choice” regarding “how many people they are exposed to and how many people they meet every day.”

“I know maybe not all [faculty and to be safe for me and for the people around me,” Tran said.

He added that new developments, such as the Delta variant of COVID-19 and Australian cities returning to lockdown, have caused him to worry.

Associate vice president of facilities, operations and management Frank Roberts said that FO&M has been working to prepare buildings on campus for “resumption of normal activities.” This includes changing “little things” such as taking down signs on buildings and water fountains that have outdated guidelines.

Custodial routines are also being reestablished, according to Roberts, who said that the previous New Hampshire rule that required disinfection of “high-touch surfaces” is no longer in place due to new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others.

“We originally thought the announcement was going to come closer to August 1, which was the original target date for reopening, so we had already started our building by building review,” Roberts said.

Another consideration is the buildings and facilities that have not been in use since March 2020. Water fountains are being specially cleaned since they have not “been operated in, say, 15 months,” Roberts said, and added that FO&M has “a procedure in place to flush the water lines” in some of the smaller administrative buildings that have not been in use compared to residence halls and “major buildings.”

Ventilation systems are also a point of interest, according to Roberts, who said that the quality of ventilation needs to be considered when opening spaces.

While FO&M lacks a complete list of spaces that are not back to full capacity, Roberts said that FO&M is keeping track “building-bybuilding” and “the overwhelming majority of the spaces” are able to return to prior occupancy levels.

Professor pay gap greater at Dartmouth than at peer institutions

BY ANDREW SASSER The Dartmouth Staff

Among its peer institutions, Dartmouth has one of the largest pay gaps between male and female professors. During the 2020-2021 academic year, male professors made an average salary of $218,198, compared a pay discrepancy of $33,831.

Other peer institutions have much smaller gaps in professor compensation.

For example, Harvard University has a gender pay gap of $12,805 between male and female professors. Yale University has a pay gap of $16,631.

College spokesperson Diana committed to “fair and equitable compensation” across the institution and that it conducts pay equity research recent study Dartmouth commissioned found that the gap in compensation

not “surprising,” given that there tends to be less representation of women

for both tenure and non-tenure eligible faculty.

According to sociology professor Kristin Smith, the gender pay gap in academia and other professions and job experience between women and men. However, she added that as more women have “invested” in their education and fewer women are leaving the workforce, other factors like industry and occupation type have larger impacts on the existence of gender pay gaps.

“For example, lots of women are entering into medicine as a profession, medicine,” Smith said. “Typically, there are more men who are surgeons, whereas more women are family practice doctors.”

History professor Jennifer Miller said that the pay gap present in academia is

POA’s coming back for Greek spaces FROM POA PAGE 1

standards for inspections, although

Martin McMillan, the Hanover fire department is required by law to inspect organizations with POAs twice a year to make sure all guidelines continue to be met, but was not able to do so for the past 18 months due to pandemic restrictions. McMillan said that the

based on the size of a space and the types of gatherings held there. For example, the waiting area of the Nugget Theater can have a higher occupancy load than other rooms of the same size because it is a transitional area, he said.

According to Chi Gamma Epsilon fraternity summer president Sean Kim ’23, Chi Gam has been working throughout the summer to prepare for inspections and has scheduled one for the week of July 9.

Kim said that Chi Gam has received

inspections in the fall, but that they them this summer. who perfor ms the inspections, said that several Greek houses reached out to him this week about scheduling their inspections before this weekend so that they could that he conducted three inspections yesterday and will conduct another two today.

McMillan said in an email issues one POA permit each fall for a 12-month cycle and then combines in the spring term.

Haskell confir med that all Greek houses that previously held POA permits will be inspected by summer and that inspections will resume as usual going forward.

“We’re primarily looking at where [Greek houses] hold social gatherings, and we’re looking to see if exit pathways are clear of clutter, alarms have been serviced within the last year and that there’s no large damage like holes in the wall,” McMillan said.

McMillan added that if a house does not pass their inspection, the before a reinspection.

The town of Hanover requires all businesses and organizations — not just Greek houses — to possess POA permits before holding gatherings of more than 50 people. types of spaces are held to the same

the process of preparing the house has been largely independent. department, the police department and [the Department of Safety and Security] want us to have the opportunity to return to normal operations,” Kim said.

Kim added that preparing the house for inspections has been “pretty stressful” because the members of Chi Gam in the Class of 2021 “left the house in a pretty bad condition.” Kim said that as a result, members had to thoroughly clear out some rooms like the storage room and boiler room.

“We did a few big cleans where have a little ways to go,” Kim said.

Sigma Delta sorority summer president Jenna Myers ’23 and Phi Tau gender-inclusive Greek house that their houses are also working towards regaining POA permits.

“We have scheduled our inspection mid-July,” Myers said. “During a normal year, Sigma Delt makes it a priority to open our space to people traditionally excluded from Greek life, like self-identifying women and underclassmen. Regaining our [POA permit] would give us the opportunity to be that welcoming space again.”

Madeleine Bernardeau contributed reporting.

For example, she mentioned that women are typically less represented in academic fields like computer humanities or the arts.

“There is a lot of historical work that shows once an occupation becomes perceived as feminized, that Miller said. “For example, women used to be very involved in coding, but now coding is more male-dominated, and increased accordingly.”

Smith added that other variables could impact the pay gap, including how long a professor has been working at an institution and whether or not a professor has received tenure in their department. She added that in academia, there are fewer women who are full-time professors, as many

of them are much younger than their male counterparts.

According to Smith, women did not attain PhDs at an equal rate to men until recently, so many women in academia may not have been in faculty positions for long enough to achieve tenure.

Miller added that at a recent college faculty meeting, there was a presentation that evaluated the differences in compensation between male and female professors at Dartmouth. She added that she found it “disconcerting” that the presenter explained that, when controlling for tenure status, rank and academic department, the pay gap was

“As a history professor, I think it’s very problematic to explain it away like this, as our department is one of the lowest-paid and we have a lot of female faculty,” Miller said. “You can’t just say that some of you are just less valuable than the rest, and that’s life.”

In terms of alleviating the pay gap

both at Dartmouth and in academia in general, Smith said that it may help to hire older and more experienced female professors. She added that colleges and universities like Dartmouth should look into increasing the pay in some of the and to retain younger female faculty.

Similarly, Miller said that colleges like Dartmouth should feel less obligated to follow market forces when deciding on also added that the College should caregivers, as they are more often female professors.

“COVID took a massive toll on faculty members that were caring for young children, and many of those faculty members are women,” Miller said. “Dartmouth needs to think critically about its policies for faculty — such as the tenure — in order to ensure that caregiving professors are not burdened.”

Fall housing scarce on and off campus FROM HOUSING PAGE 1

much useless for me.”

Although Chen said he wishes the College would take housing waitlist queries on a case-by-case basis, Wooten believed the random lottery system would be the most just way to provide alternatives.

“What we’re trying is to have a process that is as fair as possible,” Wooten said.

“We had a demand which exceeded the supply this year. It would be really case-by-case basis in which we determine which people deserve beds more than others. There are lots of good reasons that all students deserve a bed on the campus.”

Wooten also said that, typically, the waitlist goes down over time as students

commit to other plans for the fall, such as study abroad opportunities and

However, with programs and living plans yet to be seen how many people will be drawn to other housing opportunities.

According to Nicks, it is nearly impossible to find housing for undergraduates in the Upper Valley at this point in the summer.

“I’ve checked Airbnb, Vrbo, various that [do] things both on campus and Nicks said. “… There is nothing in the Hanover area right now and very little within 10 miles away.”

campus. On the whole, Nicks says that

muddy explanations from the College have made the process all the more taxing.

“It feels like we’ve been told what’s going to happen without any input from us,” Nicks said. “The inability to get in touch with someone who can actually help and the feeling like the administration is just making these decisions without any input from frustrating.” students on the waitlist of the option to petition, until September 1, for a transfer term this fall at another institution.

Few other options remain for those not approved to live on campus, aside from waiting.

“I just wish there was a more human response from the school to everyone on the waitlist,” Chen said.

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2021

PAGE 3

THE DARTMOUTH SUMMER EDITORIAL BOARD

STAFF COLUMNIST SPENCER ALLEN ’23

Verbum Ultimum:‘It’s the Housing, Stupid’ The current housing crisis cannot be solved without both the Dartmouth administration and the town of Hanover prioritizing the long-overdue expansion of the housing supply.

On June 14, Dartmouth students received an email from the Office of Residential Life stating that “as expected, demand [for housing] has exceeded our capacity.” So began a student scramble to find off-campus housing for the fall.

The most alarming part of this crisis was just how predictable it was — housing has been in short supply for years. The administration has ignored the need for more housing for nearly two decades, and the Town has failed to implement simple measures that would enable more students to live off campus. The solution is easy: both must immediately prioritize the construction of more housing units.

In response to their inability to meet student need for housing, the College intends to convert doubles to triples and floor lounges to rooms, squeezing an additional 86 beds into the current supply. Additionally, the College ran an extraordinary housing lottery, in which up to 200 students received $5,000 for giving up their fall term housing. The College is at least willing to commit financial resources to housing as many students as possible given its current capacity — we commend them for doing the bare minimum. It is shameful, however, that the College’s slapdash plans were even necessary.

If Dartmouth had built more campus housing over the past fifteen years, there would have been no need for a last-minute plan, especially not one that essentially bribed students to give up their housing.

The housing crisis has endured for nearly 50 years, since Dartmouth first admitted women in 1972 and created the D-Plan to accommodate an increase in student enrollment — so that no male student would have his spot taken by a woman. While today, the D-Plan is touted as a way to increase freedom and flexibility, it has become an incredible constriction on students’ academic paths. Already required to take sophomore summer on campus, students starting with the Class of 2024 will now be forced to take a fall or spring term off as well, all because the housing stock is not sufficient.

Even after the lottery, 128 students were still left on the College’s waitlist and scrambling to find housing this fall — and according to the email sent to waitlisted students, this is actually a lower number than in previous years. The fact that every year over a hundred students are left in the lurch and potentially homeless is absurd and unbefitting of a school with Dartmouth’s stature or financial resources.

Despite the hardships students go through simply to have a roof over their heads while taking classes, the College has not made constructing new dorms a priority. In June 2018, the Board of Trustees approved a plan for a new 350-bed dormitory where the Onion and several tennis courts currently stand; incredibly, the College never submitted the plan to the Town for consideration, and construction never began. Yet several other projects — the Irving Energy Institute, the Center for Engineering and Computer Science, renovations of Dartmouth Hall and nearby buildings — continued through the pandemic last year, all with price tags in the tens of millions. The College clearly has no qualms funding other construction, but building new dorms has apparently fallen to the bottom of the list. World-class campus buildings are great, but they are worthless if the College does not have the housing capacity to allow as many students as possible to take advantage of them.

Constructing new dormitories will also

give the College more “slack” to renovate older dorms. Many of the oldest dormitories continue to struggle with major problems like accessibility for wheelchair users, a lack of air conditioning during the summer months and other hazards. Constructing proper new dorms gives the College the capacity to take older dorms temporarily offline and give them much-needed renovations — and avoid repeating housing mistakes like the Choates, supposedly-temporary buildings which have now persisted for decades.

The Dartmouth administration must act, but so must the Town of Hanover. The Upper Valley has long faced a housing shortage, and the situation only worsened during the pandemic as students rented every available property within driving distance of campus. Expanding the local housing supply for students will free up properties for College and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center employees as well as other members of the local workforce. While a ballot initiative at the upcoming July 13 Hanover Town Meeting to allow more students per bedroom may serve as a temporary solution if it is passed, it could also lead to overcrowding in off-campus housing.

Rezoning parts of the town to allow for more multifamily housing would grant more Dartmouth students, as well as working-class young adults, a longer-term fix. This means upzoning — doing everything possible to allow the construction of more dense housing. Areas near downtown Hanover that are currently zoned as single residence — where only singlefamily homes are allowed — should be rezoned as general residence, where multifamily housing is permitted. Lot coverage requirements and height limits should also be loosened to maximize use of available land, and parking requirements in neighborhoods close to the College should be loosened — students living in those locations don’t need to drive to campus. Additionally, Hanover’s landlords and developers presently have no incentive to invest in worn-down, poor quality houses because they will likely find a tenant regardless. Expanding the supply will create more competition for housing, forcing landlords to either cut rates or improve the quality of the housing on offer.

Yet despite the benefits that more housing would provide, historically, Hanover has been intractable when faced with any change that would impact the “character” of the town.

A 2015 proposal to rezone West Wheelock Street to allow for more dense housing and commercial activity was voted down at a Town Meeting by hundreds of votes, despite winning the support of the Town government. Hanover residents also undermined plans for the College to build a new indoor practice facility near Thompson Arena despite the College agreeing to restrictions on lighting, windows, open hours, and even the height of the building ultimately delaying construction by seven years. Dorm construction plans have faced even tougher opposition. Hanover residents, many of whom claim to support progressive causes nationwide, should recognize that every time they stop the construction of additional housing, the biggest losers are low-income students and the wageearning workforce that serves them at town businesses. Not-in-my-backyard attitudes must end.

The D-Plan, the lottery, the conversion of lounges to dorm rooms and increased crowding into off-campus housing are not solutions. What Dartmouth and Hanover need to do to end this endless crisis is clear: build more housing.

Give us a Break

Dartmouth must give students time off from classes when current events demand it.

In the best of times, Dartmouth’s 10-week term is notoriously demanding — it’s nearly impossible for most students to focus on anything other than their academics. In the worst of times, the intensive Dartmouth schedule is nothing short of debilitating. Students’ schedules leave little room for anything to go wrong, so if — or when — that happens, they struggle to balance their personal situations and mental health with the omnipresent pressures of life at Dartmouth.

And sometimes, things go wrong for nearly everyone, especially when tragedy strikes on campus. Many would expect the College to be sympathetic to students in such situations, but too often, it is not. At best, Dartmouth ignores students’ cries for help; at worst, the College exacerbates their problems. When the situation calls for it — when events make it impossible for academics to be a student’s top priority — the College must recognize reality and give students a break from classes.

There have been countless moments in the last year when Dartmouth should have given students a break from classes. One — or rather, four — stand out among the rest: four Dartmouth students — Beau DuBray ’24, Connor Tiffany ’24, Lamees Kareem ’22 and Elizabeth Reimer ’24 — died in the last academic year, more than any other year in recent memory. Despite the immense tragedy of each of these deaths, it was only after Reimer’s death in May that the College made an effort to provide students with a large-scale space to grieve. Even still, after calls from Student Assembly to give all students time off from classes on the day of Dartmouth’s vigil — and a second day off for first-year students — the administration squarely denied the request, saying that the imminent end of the term made granting an unscheduled day or two off impossible.

It’s hard to believe that one or two days off from classes — which only amount to around 5% or less of the days that students are in a class — are more important than giving students space to grieve. Yes, this cancelled class time would’ve been difficult to make up so close to the end of term. But one day of calculus lectures or economics readings can yield to the need for students to process their grief. While doing so might have meant that some finals would have

had to be rewritten, it is far easier to rewrite an exam than it is to mourn silently.

Some may argue that giving students those days off would be detrimental to the College’s academic reputation, but that misses the point entirely. Students come to Dartmouth because of its reputation as an Ivy League school ranked the 13th best university in the country. Yet what value is this reputation if students are not treated with dignity? Students are people — people who cannot run at full steam all the time, especially after the shock of losing four of their classmates, neighbors and friends this year. Asking for time off was not some frivolous request born out of a desire to take a break before finals; it was a necessity, in recognition of the fact that students could not go on without some sort of relief. No matter its impacts on our academic reputation, the College was obligated to give students one day to grieve. The knowledge that Dartmouth as an institution cares for and respects students through thick and thin is a much truer measure of “greatness” than any arbitrary rankings.

The only rankings the College should be listening to are those of its own students.

According to a survey of members of the Class of 2021, trust in the administration is the lowest it has been in years. While that survey was limited to the graduating class, it’s likely that other classes hold similarly dismal views of the administration. Taking a day off of classes would not have suddenly repaired students’ trust in Dartmouth’s leadership — its response to the COVID-19 pandemic has damaged its favorability too severely for any one action to fix. Yet, this show of support for its students — not the College’s reputation among scholars — would have done wonders to show students that it treats them with the respect and dignity they deserve.

It’s clear that the College has a lot of work to do to make amends with its students after this year, and I’ll admit that a break from classes pales in comparison to bigger issues like comprehensive mental health reform.

However, Dartmouth’s stubborn insistence on maintaining its academic reputation must end. Dartmouth must put its students’ wellbeing above its reputation, for the latter will undoubtedly suffer without plentiful investment in the former.

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST RACHEL FLORMAN ’21

Paying It Forward

In light of the ongoing mental health crisis on campus, College President Phil Hanlon should use his salary to pay for more counselors.

Dartmouth is experiencing a mental health crisis, but it’s not just us: college students nationwide experienced higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation in 2020 than in 2019. The pandemic has only exacerbated existing strain on college counseling centers. Something has to change.

This past May, The Dartmouth editorial board wrote that “students feel angered and betrayed by [Dartmouth’s] inadequate mental health response over the past year”. Personally, I feel betrayed by the fact that it took four student deaths for the administration to hire a second counselor on call. I feel angry because students were previously sent to voicemail or forced to wait in crisis before receiving care. The crisis is all around us: in recent weeks, more than 80 mental health patients have been waiting for emergency inpatient beds across New Hampshire. But that makes me feel betrayed by the admissions materials I received in the spring of 2017 telling me that Dartmouth is exceptional.

I feel angry at our administration for refusing to acknowledge the ubiquity of this crisis, forcing students to risk falling behind in their classes if they need a day off to grieve. I am frustrated with the opacity of our administration, and with my subsequent cluelessness regarding where or to whom I should be airing these grievances. I ultimately turn to an obvious figurehead: College President Phil Hanlon.

Before I make suggestions, let me outline some facts: Dartmouth employs twelve counselors and has pledged to hire two more counselors “as soon as possible”; The Counseling Center utilizes a short-term therapy model “in order to meet significant student demand,” but if a student needs long-term help, they may be referred to a therapist in the community; a one-hour psychotherapy appointment in New Hampshire costs anywhere from $98 to $231; Hanlon earned more than $1.4

million in total compensation in 2017; the average salary for a psychologist in New Hampshire was $80,220 in 2017.

In sum, the mental health infrastructure at Dartmouth is inadequate. Although hiring two additional counselors is necessary and will surely lessen existing strain on Counseling Center staff, it will not be enough to allow for longer-term therapy or meaningful engagement with more of the student body. One solution: hire significantly more counselors. However, where will the money for counselors’ salaries come from? How will we recruit good providers amidst the projected shortage of mental health professionals in the U.S.?

What about the fact that Dartmouth is an academic institution, not a social or medical one? All of these are valid concerns, and I propose a simple solution: Hanlon should voluntarily relinquish his salary for one year and use that $1 million to pay counselors’ salaries.

His $1.4 million-dollar salary was made up of a $1,005,436 base pay in 2017, along with over $400,000 in benefits and deferred compensation.

That amount could easily cover nine or ten counselors’ salaries at $80-$100,000 each. Asking Hanlon to give up his salary would not be without precedent: the Valley News reported that he took a temporary pay cut in April 2020, giving “20% of his salary for the subsequent 12 months to the Dartmouth College Fund … for financial aid.”

Even with a decreased salary of $800,000, rather than the usual $1 million, Hanlon still earned roughly $300,000 over the income threshold for New Hampshire’s top 1% of earners. Assuming that he returned to his full pay in April 2021, using his salary as a funding source for new counselors could alleviate some concerns about the College’s projected fiscal losses. It would also be a powerful symbol: amid significant criticism of Hanlon’s leadership and the College’s policies, Hanlon can

emerge as an altruistic and determined leader, helping his students navigate these terrible times.

I have no delusions about the administration’s (un)responsiveness to undergraduate students like myself; I know it takes donors’ money or publicfacing scandals to enact meaningful change. For example, the Dartmouth Student Union’s petition for an expanded NRO in late March — signed by 683 students and 91 professors — went unheeded.

Dean Kathryn Lively emailed the student body on March 5, writing that “the policies cannot be changed this late in the term” with seven days of classes left. However, on May 21, with eleven days of classes left in spring term, Hanlon emailed the student body that “the deadline to elect the non-recording option (NRO)” had been extended for that term. Months after the DSU’s petition, Dartmouth spokesman Justin Anderson

KYLE MULLINS, Editor-in-Chief LAUREN ADLER, News Executive Editor MAX TESZLER, Production Executive Editor

told the Valley News that “[Dean Lively] heard from student leaders that extending the deadline for NROs and incompletes would go a long way to relieve stress.”

Is it possible that the NRO was extended in May, but not in March, due to increased visibility of our poor mental health infrastructure? The decision certainly felt reactionary; in March, it would have been preventative. Rather than waiting for another moment of crisis — rather than letting any more students suffer or die — the College must act.

Hanlon’s salary should be used to fund the salaries of nine or ten new mental health professionals for at least one year. That commitment to mental health on campus might begin to heal the anger and betrayal so many of us feel.

Rachel Florman is a member of the Class of 2021.

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FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2021

Hood Museum acquires 6,000 vintage Hollywood photographs

BY JESSICA LI

The Dartmouth Staff

The Hood Museum of Art has completed a project to acquire over 6,000 Hollywood photographs from the John Kobal Foundation, an organization based in the United Kingdom dedicated to collecting and furthering photography in remembrance of its namesake. The photographs acquired by the Hood feature major stars and scenes from 20th century North American film such as Buster Keaton, Lillian Gish, and Marlon Brando. They offer a glimpse into parts of Hollywood often overlooked — including the photographers themselves.

The John Kobal Foundation continues the work of its founder John Kobal, a photog raphic jour nalist and historian who acquired thousands of Hollywood photographs in his lifetime. Hood Museum director John Stomberg explained that Kobal began his collection at the perfect time, in the mid-20th century — studios placed less and less value on their photographs, so they sold them to Kobal for very cheap.

These prints were often used for publicity purposes at the time of their creation, either for movie promotions or to build an actor’s fanbase. Kobal saw value in these pictures where the studios could not.

According to Stomberg, the John Kobal Foundation recently decided to change its focus, shifting from a photography collection organization to a “grant-giving agency.” With this reorientation, the foundation sought to bring their current collection to a teaching institution where the pictures could serve as an active resource and learning tool. Robert Dance ’77, a former board member of the Hood Museum and a current board member of the John Kobal Foundation, helped bring the

collection to Dartmouth.

“Because this material really is historic, [it] is now being interpreted in an academic way,” Dance explained. “Dartmouth is the most ideal repository for this material because of the great Film Studies department, a long history of connections to the film industry, and the Black [Family] Visual Arts Center now has a big commitment [to film]. It’s ideal that this material is available as research not only to scholars but also to Dartmouth students.”

Talks between the Hood Museum and the John Kobal Foundation began in 2016, according to Stomberg. During this time, Stomberg and Hood Museum curators took multiple trips to London to look at the photographs in person. After agreeing to the terms of acquisition and coming up with a payment plan, the Hood Museum began the more tangible and lengthy part of the acquisition process, moving the 6,000 physical photographs from the United Kingdom to Dartmouth’s campus in Hanover. The process of integrating the photographs into the Hood’s collection is ongoing; Stomberg said that the Hood Museum is continuing to work on transferring all the photographs to a highresolution online database for easier student access.

“This body of work really lends itself well to our goal of creating savvy visual consumers,” Stomberg explained. “We need to be very critical of the images that we see in the same way that we do when we’re reading. Who wrote it? Why did they write it? When was it published? All of those same questions.”

The collection comprises lifetime prints, posthumous prints and vintage prints, which according to Stomberg make up most of the pictures. A print is deemed “vintage” when the negative of the photograph and the print

COURTESY OF ANNA KAYE SCHULTE

were made around the same time, making them more valuable because the print is exactly what the photographer had in mind when the picture was taken. Lifetime prints are made decades after the negative was taken — typically very late in a photographer’s career — and posthumous prints are made even later, after the photographer has passed.

In addition to print type, the photographs can also be sorted into four main categories: glamour shots, photog raphs of movie scenes, behind-the-scenes images and pictures of the photographers themselves. Put together, the images tell a riveting story about how Hollywood was sold to the public and lodged itself firmly in 20th century culture.

For associate professor of Film and Media Studies Mary Desjardins

this collection will play a critical role in her upcoming class on fashion costume in film, which she is set to teach in the spring of 2022.

“Not only do the star portraits provide a documentation of a lot of fashion that inspired costume design in films in the first half of the 20th century, but in many cases the costumes became influential on their own,” Desjardins explained.

“This collection allows us to closely study the aesthetic that was used, including what for female stars in the 1930s and ’40s was considered to be a glamour aesthetic.”

Beyond her class and other classes in the Film and Media Studies department, Desjardins pointed out the various ways in which this archive of photographs benefits the entire Dartmouth academic community. Art history and history classes can use the

photos as a window into 20th century culture and style. Studio art classes can study the techniques of these photographers. Different ethnic studies departments can take advantage of the way in which the images portray the racial politics of Hollywood at the time. Even the engineering department stands to benefit, by examining the intricacies of the ways the cameras were used.

Outside of the classroom, Hood Museum curator of academic programming Amelia Kahltells students that the collection is open for their own personal use and studies as well. Students can make an appointment with the Bernstein Center for Object Study to see different prints for themselves.

The first exhibition of the vintage Hollywood photographs in the Hood Museum of Art will be open during winter and spring 2022.

Q&A:Frank J. Barrett on new book,‘Lost Hanover,New Hampshire’

BY JULIA ROBITAILLE The Dartmouth Staff

Fra n k J. “ Jay ” B a r rett Jr. has always had a passion for architecture and a love for the town of Hanover. As a former Hanover Historical Society president and an architect by profession, Barrett has himself made contributions to chronicling the town’s history, even recommending buildings to the National Register of Historic Places. As a writer he has thoroughly chronicled Hanover’s rich history in the three volumes he has already published on the history of Hanover.

In an interview with T he Dartmouth, Barrett discussed his experiences as an architect and how his interests in historic preservation and restoration have led him to publish his fourth volume on the history of Hanover. The book, titled “Lost Hanover, New Hampshire,” is slated to be published Monday.

the history of the land. That’s what inspired me to want to do a book on the lost buildings that have come and gone and the stories associated with them. It’s actually my fourth pictorial history of Hanover.

text, and it deals with the earliest buildings that came and goes right up to the demolition of the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital about 25 years ago — and includes a lot of stuff in between, telling the stories of the buildings and related institutions. There were just a lot of other buildings that were great buildings that have come and gone.

How is “Lost Hanover” dif ferent from your other three volumes?

FB: The first three were strictly pictorial histories. Hanover and How has your experience in Dartmouth were very fortunate both historic preservation and in that the restoration c o m m u n i t y “I can remember impacted the was very wellbook? p h o t o g r a p h e d watching buildings FB: As an over the years. being moved from the architectural So the first istorian and seat of my bicycle during hpreservationist, Hanover book I did was in 1997. the summer months, I’ve put a number It sort of looks being taken down, new of buildings and at the College structures on the and downtown ones being built.”

National Register from about of Historic 1890 to 1940, Places. That which is when - FRANK J. BARRETT, JR. involves research, the College and and it involves pretty exacting What originally inspired you downtown went to write about the history of through a tremendous amount of language in describing a bridge or change. a building — how it was built, the Hanover?

FB: I was a very young boy growing The second book I did on materials, et cetera. I was also a little up in Hanover, and the son of an Hanover, I did in 1998, which covers bit limited by the fact that the history architect, so I’ve always enjoyed all the rural parts of Hanover. That press willing to publish this did give the history of the buildings. I’m 68 was very interesting because once me a limit of 50,000 words — I would years old now, but I can remember you got beyond the College and have enjoyed writing more words — watching buildings being moved the Village at the College, as it was so I needed to write in a way that from the seat of my bicycle during once known, it really became hard moves along and told the story, so to to find images. speak, without getting overly down the summer But I did. And in the weeds with description. It was months, being then the third about striking a balance. t a k e n d o w n , “The style of buildings one, published new ones being comes and goes, the in 2007, was just What was the most difficult part built — and at a needs for various a whole bunch of the journey to publication of very early age I of stuff that I “Lost Hanover”? knew that I, too, buildings come and go, hadn’t had the FB: Selecting the images. Between wanted to be an and that’s especially chance to use what I’ve collected, and what is in architect like my true in this book.” in the first two the collections at Rauner Library, dad. books. there are just a lot of great images.

I’ve just T h i s Being an architect and being very always been sort - FRANK J. BARRETT, JR. book — “Lost visually-driven, there were some of watching — Hanover, New hard choices that I had to make as to not only the built Hampshire” — what images to use and what images e nv i ro n m e n t s around the College and the I originally wanted to have the title, to unfortunately not use, so that was downtown village, but also the “Lost Hanover, New Hampshire a real hard one. natural environments. I grew up at Dartmouth College” because it on Mink Brook, so I was always just focuses on the campus and the What do you hope readers watching the changes of the land, downtown village. I think it’s got will take away from “Lost and was always very interested in to be 89 images and a 50,000-word Hanover”?

PHOTO COURTESY OF FRANK J. BARRETT, JR.

FB: I think just a general appreciation of architecture and local history.

One of the things that is very apparent in my book is describing how buildings go in and out of style. Former Dartmouth President Earnest Mark Hopkins purged the campus area of a lot of Victorian-era buildings and sort of replaced them with nice Georgian, Colonial-revival buildings.

I can remember the Hopkins Center for the Arts being built as a young boy — I’ve always really enjoyed that building for a variety of reasons, but by the 1980s, 1990s, it was a building that was underappreciated and out of style — people were just sort of turning against [post-war modern architecture]. Thankfully, the College has taken good care of the Hopkins Center, and what changes they’ve made to it over the years have been very sensitive to the original architecture of the building.

But the style of buildings comes and

goes, the needs for various buildings come and go, and that’s especially true in this book.

What are your writing goals for the future? Do you have any other works planned?

FB: I’m doing a lot of architectural work in Claremont, New Hampshire, which is about 25 miles south and was once a really vibrant mill community. It’s got lots of tremendous architecture left — even though for the past 30 or 40 years the community has been on hard times, it’s rebounding. You can just tell at one point how much wealth there was in that community due to manufacturing. I’d like to do a good architectural history of Claremont because you can tie it into so many other stories — manufacturing, transportation, advancements in technology — more so than what occurred in a community like Hanover.

FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2021

THE DARTMOUTH

PAGE 5

Following town, Hanover businesses lift masking requirements

BY GRISELDA CHAVEZ

The Dartmouth Staff

Murray said.

“Certainly anyone is free to wear one if they’re more comfortable, staff and customers included.”

JULIA LEVINE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

“With

“With the majority of our team members being vaccinated, we were very excited to hear the news, so we

MANAGER

Murray said.

In addition,

as a daily health

T h e

T h u r s d a y,

internally — for guests and for team members.”

GRILL GENERAL MANAGER

SPORTS

Midsummer Musings: An Ode to the Phoenix Suns

BY WILL ENNIS

The Dartmouth Staff

The Suns are in the Finals. Phoenix

doesn’t sound real.

This year, the Suns entered the

ALEXANDRA MA/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

those three stars. another steady hand to run the

NBA Finals.

PAGE 6

MIRROR THE DARTMOUTH MIRROR

FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2021

Who Writes These Emails? An Inside Look at Dartmouth’s PR

BY Arielle Feuerstein The Dartmouth Staff

“I’m waking up every morning thinking about how we can tell the story of Dartmouth,” vice president for Communications Justin Anderson of Communications, Anderson helps to facilitate administration messages to the Dartmouth community — from campus-wide emails to the “Community Conversations” livestream. This year more than ever, campus life has been shaped by College communications dispensing infor mation about COVID-19 regulations, quarantine restrictions and more. I spoke to Anderson to explore how the College disseminates essential information to the community, step by step.

Anderson stressed that there is no single way that the College communicates with the multigenerational Dartmouth community. Some information may be relevant to both current students and older alumni, but Anderson said that the two groups “are going to consume kind of way.” In recognition of the diverse ways in which community Communications works to circulate information through multiple channels over the course of a single day.

“We are writing Dartmouth News stories that are on the Dartmouth website, and they also are used to populate a series of e-newsletters that are emailed to students, to faculty, to Upper Valley community,” Anderson said. “There is social media that we are doing every single day. And there are, of course, the community messages.”

Community messages, which include unscheduled emails from the President, the Provost, and the Dean of the College, are generally employed to convey “breaking news that impacts either the entire community or a large majority of the community,” according to Anderson. The process of crafting these messages varies on Communications generally begins by investigating the breaking news.

“We hear something happened, and then we try to gather as much information as we can [...] depending on the nature of the event,” Anderson said. rarely works alone; it will usually

relevant to the news occurrence to gather this information — often the “You want to get the people who have the most information together so that we can share what we know, out if it’s something that merits a communication to the broader community,” Anderson said. job lies in determining the most appropriate time to release a message if there is still unknown information.

“Is it better to wait for more information, or is it better to communicate what we know at the moment and indicate that there will be follow-up information?” Anderson said.

U s u a l l y, t h e O f f i c e o f Communications will opt to release information as quickly as possible for living on campus, such as a campus power outage. There are also times to present breaking news.

“We realize that we don’t have the luxury of a lot of time, particularly when something may have happened and it may cause rumors,” Anderson said. news does not present an immediate obstacle in students’ daily lives, take more time to gather relevant information. release a message, someone from a relevant department — typically either someone in the Office of the President — will be tasked with drafting the message. This message will then be reviewed by whichever group is most knowledgeable about

OLIVER DE JONGHE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

of Communications will deliberate whether the message should be sent by email and which groups should receive it.

“Some messages that [undergraduate students] receive might not be received by the professional schools. [...] Some might not go to all alumni. Generally speaking, we’re communicating about what’s happening on campus, and therefore, the audience is most frequently on campus,” Anderson said.

Following the release of an email to the community, Anderson said that generally reformat the information into a Dartmouth News story and a social media post. all those things will follow to reinforce that initial message and to try to hit audiences that we might not hit with the email, or to reiterate to those same audiences the importance of this message,” Anderson said.

These mediums are not the

only platforms that the College uses to communicate with the greater community. Anderson said that due to the pandemic, there was an “overreliance on digital communication, on social media and email [...] and there was no way to connect with a face or voice.” To combat this, he worked with former Provost Joseph Helble to pioneer the “Community Conversations” livestream, which allowed Dartmouth community members to ask questions about the College’s pandemic decisions in a live broadcast.

“The idea there was that the community could see and hear the provost sharing what he knew, and then see and hear the provost talk to about their response to COVID, about how they are experiencing COVID,” Anderson said.

Although Helble is preparing to leave Dartmouth as the College is shedding its COVID-19 restrictions, Anderson and interim Provost David Kotz intend to continue “Community

Conversations” once per month to communicate general campus news to the wider community.

“I think he found it to be very useful as a viewer when he was away from campus, away from Hanover and then back in Hanover,” Anderson said. “He found ‘Community Conversations’ to be a very helpful connection to what was happening on campus.”

Just as the media landscape changed due to the pandemic, audience is also constantly changing as students graduate and new classes enter. This constant change pushes deliver information.

“It never stays the same, and that’s why there’s a whole suite of things that we try to reach people because people’s consumption habits or the community’s consumption habits are constantly changing, ‘’ Anderson said.

“That sort of dynamism makes it really challenging, but it’s also what makes it fun and and and interesting.”

What’s Behind June’s Logo? Reflecting on Rainbow Capitalism B y Solenne Wolfe The Dartmouth Staff

Growing up in New York City meant that Pride was an expected celebration in June. I remember walking my six-year-old sister to the playground, her eyes level with all sorts of skirts and tutus as New Yorkers packed the streets to and bars and restaurants seeming to pour people out onto the streets — all these sights characterize the weekend surrounding the celebration of Pride Month. The Pride March originated in New York in 1970, the year after the Stonewall riots. The June 1969 riots were a series of spontaneous demonstrations by members of the gay community in response to police raids and arrests that had been threatening queer spaces.

Nowadays, Pride is celebrated by corporations and institutions alike, seeming to signal a broader societal shift. The United States appears to have made great progress in inclusivity for those in the years. The legalization of same-sex marriage, increasing awareness of non-heterosexual relationships and the rising consciousness of pronouns all seem to indicate that there is an acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in most circles, especially in liberal spaces.

As Dartmouth unrolls a rainbow banner on Collis patio, logos of familiar companies — AT&T, Mercedes-Benz, Nestlé — turn rainbow in unison when the calendar marks June 1. Corporations have come to hold personalities in American culture — their familiar ads and jingles living in our cultural over our culture does not stop with Pride.

The Capital One bank that I frequent has been redecorated in rainbow to honor Pride, so my trip to the ATM is much more colorful in

the generation of corporations we see today and the ones of the past century is their ability to reach into the folds of our sociocultural lives. Rather than being faceless entities, they are in our Facebook comments and Twitter replies, creating their own visions for celebrations of difference. Even our legal structure gestures toward corporations as people, which may contribute to the notion that corporations have personalities and political views. Though the premise of corporate support for Pride is potentially liberating, there are meaning of Pride. The consumers that the corporations tend to target during Pride are urban, middle to upper class, white consumers with what companies are selling.

That corporations are so quick to commodify the lives of those who celebrate Pride Month is interesting given the relative lack of support for the LGBTQ+ community outside of rainbow-themed decor. In past years, sponsors for Pride parades have come under fire for using their sponsorship as a statement of their support for the LGBTQ+ community without putting their money where their mouth is. For example, pharmaceutical giant Gilead makes a preventative drug that reduces the risk of contracting HIV; still, the people that the medication would best help often So, when Gilead sponsors a Pride an eyebrow. In less insidious ways, corporate displays of pride often miss the mark. Think back to Chipotle’s uncomfortable attempt at humor during Pride in 2015 — in which they tweeted a picture of a rainbow burrito with the caption “¿hómo estás?”

This year, furniture retailer

KAMILA KOCSIS/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

IKEA launched a line of Pride ablaze with mixed reactions. Some people commented on their favorite designs, while others criticized the campaign. What’s fascinating about the campaign is that the couches themselves aren’t even being sold.

Instead, IKEA is marketing the stories of the designers who designed each couch, designers whose gender identity or sexual orientation align with that of the couch. The couch campaign seems to be vaguely about raising awareness of experiencing Pride through non-normative forms of gender expression or sexual orientation. The general corporate support for Pride follows this pattern: not actually changing any of the usual operations of the company nor its business model, but presenting their Prideful side as a draw for

consumers. The reputation and virtue of the corporation itself are what is sold in this package.

While it may seem benign for corporations to have empty signalling, the messaging around Pride is particularly heinous in that it is incorporated to capitalize on the purchasing power of queer people without changing the material conditions of their lives. When Pride becomes merely Uber turning its routes rainbow or the pride hashtag symbol changing color on Twitter, the radical origins of the celebrations are lost. Remeber that the initial Pride celebrations grew out of a riot against the police raids and homophobic violence of the late twentieth century.

Pride is not about buying t-shirts, stickers or even the origin stories of incredible designers on IKEA’s website. Pride has never been

about buying and selling, because the business of buying and selling identities is an imposition of capitalism’s relentless drive toward monetization. Our social lives can exist outside of material goods, and while clothing is an important way to express ourselves, the idea that our clothing speaks for us — and should be signalling our identity constantly invested in the latest trends and fast fashion.

Pride is not about signalling a l l y s h i p o r c o m m i t m e n t by purchasing articles of sweatshopcreated tees. Pride is not about rainbow app logos or redecorating the lobby art of big banks. The idea that Pride is about signalling and selling sidesteps the dark history of homophobic oppression. As soon as Pride becomes corporate, the radical potential of Pride celebration is lost.