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Dartmouth president apologizes to Native American students
By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff
The president of Dartmouth College has apologized to Native American students for a series of events on the Hanover, N.H. 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, 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.
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.
Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com
