New Report from President Hanlon Reveals Proposed 2018 “Class Size Increase” Was Actually Referring to Plaintiff Class in Sexual Misconduct Lawsuit

In a new report released this week, College president Phil Hanlon clarified that his controversial 2018 decision to form a task force to investigate larger “class sizes” at Dartmouth was not an effort to justify larger first-year cohorts, but rather, an attempt to expand the list of affected parties in the ongoing class action sexual misconduct lawsuit against the college, which has since grown to include more than ninety women in the plaintiff class.

“I greatly regret the miscommunication and subsequent backlash surrounding the 2018 Enrollment Expansion Task Force,” wrote President Hanlon in the foreword of the new report. “The ‘Dartmouth Experience’ is rooted in limited enrollment. We would never compromise our unique circumstance as the smallest university in the Ivy League. We would, however, ignore complaints about sexual misconduct perpetrated by tenured professors for more than a decade, endangering at least ninety Dartmouth women and likely many more who have not yet come forward. Yes. We would be OK with that.”

The class action lawsuit against Dartmouth College was first brought by seven women in 2018, but has since expanded to include ninety women — a figure which seasoned civil rights lawyers have noted is “appallingly large” considering that only three men are listed as defendants in the case.

The report continued with further notes from President Hanlon, stating, “If our task force had received more support from the Dartmouth community in 2018, I believe we could have amassed an even larger set of Dartmouth women making terrifying allegations of what can at best be described as negligence and incompetence, and more likely constitutes a complete and utter disregard for the experiences of women on this campus, all while school administrators turned a blind eye to the matter. Nevertheless, Dartmouth students should rest easy knowing that the College’s comparatively small incoming class sizes were never at risk of being made larger, even during the peak of the task force’s work on campus.

Initial reactions to the report from the Dartmouth student body seem to be mixed, though most are simply relieved to hear that Dartmouth has no plans to enroll more freshmen than usual in the coming years. “Yeah, that professor stuff is pretty yikes,” said Robbie Weston ‘20, “but thank God about that enrollment news. If Dartmouth started building more dorms before fixing the River, I think that would be like, the worst thing this school has ever done.”

– IC ’22