In Defense of Solomon

Dear Hamilton College community,

In May, The Spectator published an unsigned letter by three Hamilton students recounting an exchange they had with David Solomon '84, Chairman of Hamilton College’s Board of Trustees and CEO of Goldman Sachs. The exchange was focused on climate change in the context both of the Hamilton College endowment’s investment policies and more broadly as a global challenge. Excerpts from the letter were quoted in an August 11 New York magazine profile of Solomon, and soon after the letter was referenced by Bloomberg and other national outlets.

None of us took part in the exchange. But we are concerned that this anonymous letter hinges on motives imputed to Mr. Solomon that are not supported by the evidence provided. For example, the authors assert that “we believe [Mr. Solomon] never would have assumed we were all on financial aid if we were the group of white male students in suits talking to him twenty minutes prior,” even though by their own account, Mr. Solomon asserted that 80 percent of the Hamilton student body receives financial aid (New York, 8/14/23). They similarly accuse Mr. Solomon of exhibiting “extremely racist and sexist undertones” without providing clear evidence to support this claim.

This style of reasoning falls short of the standards for rigorous debate and clear communication to which all members of the Hamilton community should aspire.

We applaud students for discussing important matters of public policy with college leaders—be they faculty, administrators, or trustees. But it is crucial that such discussions be grounded in fact, reason, and, above all else, good faith on all sides. The authors argue that “Solomon’s opinions are not just words—his sentiments hold real weight and power” (New York, 8/14/23). We agree completely. We wish that the authors had taken this seriously and engaged with his claims solely on the merits, rather than muddling their argument with subjective interpretations of Mr. Solomon’s thoughts and motives.

All too often, contemporary society rewards political actors who impute imagined motives—whether racist, sexist, or otherwise ugly—onto other people, as well as actors who seek to invalidate others’ viewpoints based on their personal histories. We fear that Hamilton College’s curricula and classroom environment—as well as those of many other similar institutions—often contribute to, rather than mitigate against, these disturbing trends.

The Alexander Hamilton Institute, a non-profit founded by current and former Hamilton College professors, and on whose Board of Directors we all serve, was founded on the simple notion that our community can do better. We are devoted to fostering good-faith dialogue about serious topics. Our mission is rooted in the belief that intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas are essential for a thriving academic community. We aim to offer a forum where all voices can be heard, where debates are conducted with respect and rigor, and where integrity is of the utmost importance.

We invite all members of the Hamilton College community to join us in this endeavor. Our community has the opportunity, and indeed the responsibility, to set an example for robust intellectual engagement. This means not shying away from controversial discussions, which can be a catalyst for growth and progress. It means communicating one’s thoughts clearly and forthrightly. Perhaps most essentially, it means listening, deeply and earnestly, to others, even when you disagree—indeed, especially when you disagree.

These principles are not simply in the air. Our society arrived at them, imperfectly and unevenly, through centuries of struggle. They have undergirded our collective pursuit of knowledge and understanding since the Enlightenment, but they vanish if we do not uphold them. It takes sustained effort on all our parts to keep them alive. We will do our small part. We hope that you will join us.

Preserving Hamilton's Endowment: A Pragmatic Approach to Sustainability

The college recently celebrated the success of its Because Hamilton campaign, a fundraising effort that raised about $411 million from 16,349 donors. These funds have been earmarked for various purposes, including the endowment of new professorships, support for summer internships, and maintenance of the need-blind admissions policy, crucial to Hamilton’s mission since 2010. Over half of our students rely on financial aid, and the college’s commitment to meeting 100 percent of demonstrated need underscores the importance of preserving and maximizing its endowment (see the Hamilton College website).

Hamilton’s overarching mission is to provide students with the highest quality education and prepare them for lives of meaning, purpose, and active citizenship. To serve this mission effectively, it is imperative that the college take a strategic approach to managing its substantial endowment. Divestment from companies that profit from fossil fuels is a recurring issue on college campuses and Hamilton College is no different. The Student Assembly proposed that the Hamilton Board of Trustees divest in 2013 and 2021; both requests were rejected. It is not the most effective or practical means of addressing sustainability concerns.

Divestment presents challenges in terms of financial impact. There must be willing buyers for the shares that are sold. This is a complex process and will not necessarily cause significant financial consequences for the targeted companies. Hamilton can make a stronger impact by contributing directly to the green energy transition. A solution to sustainability could be the college investing more in renewable energy sources, such as solar panels, on campus. We have ample land resources – the most acres per student among NESCAC colleges – and are therefore well-suited to solar. This would be a proactive step in reducing our carbon footprint.

The argument about divestment also contains a moral quandary. While addressing climate change is crucial, focusing solely on the fossil fuel industry oversimplifies a complex issue. The root problem lies with consumers driving the huge demand for affordable energy. Addressing this requires a broader societal effort and lifestyle changes. Scrutinizing the moral and environmental significance of all the investments in Hamilton’s endowment raises the issue of where to draw the line. Managing investments responsibly is vital, but attempting to achieve absolute moral purity is not practical.

Other prestigious institutions like Swarthmore, which also highlight their duties to prioritize educational leadership, financial accessibility, and facilities that support students and faculty, have refrained from divesting in fossil fuels (Swarthmore website).

Hamilton should adopt a pragmatic approach to managing its endowment while advancing its sustainability goals. Rather than divestment, it can explore renewable energy projects, which are more tangible and have a more significant direct impact on sustainability. Divestment is merely a moral action which fails to effectively address climate change, delivering nothing but short-term emotional gratification. In contrast, Hamilton has the opportunity to become a green model for other institutions.

Experience at AHI's WAPONS

This summer, I had the pleasure to participate in the Alexander Hamilton Institute’s Washington Program on National Security (WAPONS), led by AHI Senior Fellow Dr. Juliana Pilon. During our week and a half in D.C., the fourteen of us met with experts in various fields. We focused on a wide range of topics at the forefront of national security discussions, including digital infrastructure for the financial sectors and its implications for national security, technology and security in a geopolitical context, the Senate and defense funding, and North Korea’s use of hybrid warfare against the United States, to name a few. Yet despite these practical, comprehensive offerings, what I took away from WAPONS was more profound and personal than our fascinating lessons about national security.

One example came early in the week, during the question-and- answer part of our meeting with Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. During the Q&A, a student asked Mr. Gonzalez what advice he had, given the tumultuous times we live in. He suggested that when you encounter something you feel passionate about, or that is especially compelling to you, think of it as God whispering in your ear that you should do it. Initially I didn’t think much of this advice, but I found it meant a lot more later in the week.

A few days after our session with Mr. Gonzalez, we met with Yang Jianli, a Chinese dissident and human rights activist. Dr. Yang described his participation in the famous protest at Tiananmen Square in 1989, fleeing to the United States immediately afterward, then returning in 2002, when he was arrested and imprisoned until 2007. He also recounted a very recent story. On the Tiananmen anniversary just a few days before we met, a woman in Beijing climbed a skyscraper, waved an American flag, and dropped pamphlets with the Declaration of Independence. The story further captivated us. In every other presentation, students were fidgeting, looking at their hands, or taking notes. When Dr. Yang spoke, all of us were mesmerized for the entire 40-minute talk.

I felt a reawakened passion, last experienced in my childhood enthusiasm for fighter jets after watching the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds fly over my neighborhood. Now, with the Chinese dissident’s emotionally powerful history, I felt a new, passionate draw to serve the country whose values many others can only dream of being able to live under in their homelands. If others without America’s freedoms are (as Yang showed us) prepared to die to obtain them, I feel the least I can do is work to maintain those principles so they remain not just an aspiration for others, but a vibrant reality, as they are or should be for us. After speaking together, a few of my fellow students shared that feeling. One has just become a newly commissioned Army intelligence officer.

After hearing Mike Gonzalez’s advice and Yang Jianli’s moving stories thanks to the unrivaled opportunities to encounter such perspectives that Dr. Robert Paquette’s AHI and Dr. Pilon’s WAPONS offered us, I have come to believe it’s my calling, as cheesy as it may sound, to serve my country and fly for the military. I’ll take that as a whisper.

Utilitarianism is too Cold and Calculating

In the second chapter of Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill fails to defend his moral system against the suspicion that it is too cold and calculating. According to Mill, those who make this criticism charge utilitarians with being too impersonal in their moral evaluations, and too exacting in their principles. Holding this objection myself, I must clarify that the words “cold and calculating'' do not refer to a lack of sympathy in utilitarian applications. They rather explain a kind of diffused, managerial calculus where a colorful moral compass should be. Consequentialism does not rob its advocates of their sympathy; instead, it muddies the concept of intrinsic human value, and robs individuals of unified moral feeling altogether. 

Mill begins his defense against the “cold and calculating” objection by stating that it cannot be applied to utilitarianism’s treatment of action. He assumes that his system is offensive to critics only because it measures right and wrong against an objective principle, rather than a set of personal qualities. In light of his response, it seems necessary to say that I do not reject theories of universal justice when I criticize utilitarianism. Actions must be weighed against objective standards: an action is not inherently “right” if it is done by a benevolent man, or “wrong” if it is done by an abhorrent one. This is not a point of contention – to frame it as such would misrepresent the objection.  

The “cold and calculating” criticism deals with the problem of moral action quite directly when it indicts utilitarianism for ignoring the “qualities from which [...] actions emanate.” In other words, the fundamental flaw in utilitarianism lies not in its tendency to judge actions objectively, but in its inability to measure anything except for action. This is a serious issue for any theory of virtue, since moral standards necessarily apply to human agents, not to isolated events. For example, if a tornado inflicts an immense amount of pain on a community, it would not be called an immoral tornado. It would be absurd to pass moral judgments on events that bear no relation to a human will. Thus, to isolate an action from its human component is, by definition, to strip it of its moral qualities.  

Utilitarianism unfortunately violates actions in this way. According to Mill, “he who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty or the hope of being paid for his trouble.” In other words, under utilitarianism, moral events must be judged as if they happened upon the world spontaneously. Thus, to deem an action “morally right” under this line of thought is no different than to call a natural disaster “morally wrong.” To give a practical example of this absurdity: if a man commits murder without meaning to, it seems intuitively true that his action is not morally equivalent to a premeditated murder. Utilitarianism does not make room for these simple considerations, so it renders itself incapable of identifying moral action altogether.  

Far from Mill’s accusation that the “cold and calculating” objection comes from a distaste for universal moral standards, it rather comes from an avid defense of them. Fundamentally, to exclude the human agent from any moral maxim is to make that maxim incompatible with morality. If Mill were to give the fairer version of the claim that his philosophy is cold and calculating, he would say not that it charges utilitarians with being hollow, but that it charges utilitarianism itself with being so. 

Whether or not their interpersonal conduct differs outwardly, utilitarians fundamentally operate with a moral compass that does not measure who they are, or how they treat others. In other words, strict utilitarians are not robbed of feeling, but of moral feeling. Moral value, in this system, is not granted to those with true inner virtue or beauty of character, but rather to those who are maximally effective in their utility (or whose behavior is the most productive). The vast and colorful human conscience is reduced to a calculus. Morality should not focus on calculating positive outcomes; it should cultivate human beings. What could be more cold and calculating than to ascribe virtue not to human agents, but to the circumstances their actions yield? In a system of this nature, it is hard to imagine that inner goodness will not be reduced to a mere accessory, and that respect for intrinsic human value will not be chilled or hollowed. 

Hamilton’s Suppression of the Rosary Club

On March 4th, the Burke Library hosted an event by student activists who launched  a smear campaign against the Alexander Hamilton Institute and its student publication, Enquiry. Also attacked in the pages of The Monitor, a Hamilton College-sponsored publication, was a recently formed student organization called the Rosary Club. According to The Monitor, some students believe that the Rosary Club operates with a “self-victimizing nature.” The truth is that it has been a constant uphill battle for the Rosary Club to operate at all. Its head, Devin Mendelson, sheds light on the reality of the situation.

“Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake.” Matthew 5:11

After praying what is known to Catholics as a “54-day novena” from last August to October, I felt inspired to begin a new club at Hamilton, one dedicated to Catholic prayer. I was given the green light to begin the Rosary Club in November. Father Peter El Hachem, the Catholic chaplain at the college, and Jeff McArn, the head of the chaplaincy, explained to me that the Rosary Club would be categorized as an offshoot of the Newman Council, the established Catholic organization on campus. While the Newman Council focuses on social events, the Rosary Club would be focused on prayer.

The Rosary Club received its own email address to send out campus-wide emails. I figured that although it wasn’t ideal that we would be unable to reserve rooms like every other club, we could at least send out emails and at least follow the teachings of the Church. In no way was it implied that being under, or an offshoot of, the Newman Council meant being controlled by its leadership. This supposed condition of the Rosary Club’s official recognition is retroactively being used as an excuse to crack down on our right to our own meaningful identity.

After just our second campus-wide email in December, which stated that the Rosary Club is 100 percent unapologetically pro-life, I received an email from Jeff McArn that said: “you should share all communications and events with the Newman exec board so there is agreement on how the Catholic community is being portrayed.”

Compromising Catholic values out of fear of what the world may think is not how Catholics are instructed to act. Jeff's email essentially translates to the Rosary Club being restricted from professing the teachings of the Faith at the behest of the Newman Council leaders, who apparently don't believe in certain Church teachings or are afraid to profess them since they are unpopular positions at Hamilton. (Keep in mind, the Church has taught the “sanctity of life” since the 1st century.)

For our final Sunday prayer session before spring break, the Rosary Club decided that the main purpose for that day’s Rosary would be “the restoration of authentic love between men and women.” We said so, in exactly those words, in a campus-wide email that included this quotation from Pope Francis: “We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment.” With the quote from the Holy Father, we made clear that our intent was to pray for men and women to return to chastity and monogamy. Many students took issue with it for not including relationships that go against the Church’s teachings.

Shortly after that email, a hit piece appeared in The Monitor. The next day, I received a message from the director of student activities, Noelle Juliano. In it, she said “when [the Rosary Club] was approved by the organization review board it was approved so long as it was a branch of Newman Council. It’s come to my attention that Rosary may be acting as a separate group rather than a branch of a parent organization so Jeff McArn and I would like to meet with you to share what the expectations are since they may not have been clear originally.”

Before I had a chance to reply to her email, the following morning, she disabled the Rosary Club email account, justifying her action in a follow-up email: “Rosary is not a separate club” from the Newman Council, and “[f]uture events and communication will have to go through cooperation with Newman … Rosary was approved with the understanding that the group would work through Newman as its parent organization however Rosary has differentiated itself as a separate entity which was not approved by the club review board back in the fall. To that end, we had to freeze the email account and ask for a meeting to discuss how best to move forward.”

In other words, according to these messages, our club was approved with the expectation that its emails would have to be agreed to by the heads of the Newman Council. This is not accurate, and my response to Ms. Juliano’s first email, conceding that “[the expectations] may not have been clear originally,” is: Of course they hadn’t been made clear. Father Peter had me under the impression that it was standard operating procedure for any Catholic club at a college to be categorically placed under that school’s Newman Council. I was led to believe the decision to place us under the Newman Council was due to one of the Catholic Church’s organizing principles. It was only because I thought this subordinate relationship was a policy of the Church that I agreed to the club’s being placed under the Newman Council.

In essence, should the director of student activities and the Newman Council leaders have their way, Rosary Club emails that mention prayer intentions for certain authentic but often-unpopular Catholic beliefs, such as praying for the unborn victims or potential victims of abortion, would never see the light of day. This is a form of discrimination against our faith.

A week into spring break, I sent President Wippman a detailed message seeking help against such discrimination after the disabling of our email account. He replied by saying he would pass it along to the Dean of Students office. A week later, I received another email from Ms. Juliano:

“Though we don't typically give non-clubs email accounts, after a pause and reassessment we've decided to reinstate the rosary@hamilton.edu email address for the remainder of the semester barring no listserv violations. Since Rosary has differentiated itself from Newman Council we will need your group to reapply through the new organization process next fall if you wish to continue and receive the privileges of being a recognized organization.”

But if we were truly understood to be a “non-club,” we would not have been given an entire table at the most recent Clubs Fair. And according to the message, we must reapply as a new club next semester, after I have graduated, in order to be considered for formal recognition. Calling the Rosary Club a “non-club” sets up a potential pretext for giving my successor difficulty in getting it properly recognized next fall.

 I suspect that someone will again try to shut down the club next semester by rejecting it outright during the new organization application process, likely by saying the needs of Catholic students are sufficiently fulfilled by the Newman Council. If this happens, my successor will have to fight that battle on campus, although I will be happy to help as an alum.

No other club has to go through such hoops and hurdles simply to exist, and I think this is intolerable. I find it even more intolerable than the fact that the college and the Media Board apparently turned a blind eye and allowed a story in The Duel Observer to spread a lie about me on every table in Commons and McEwen: the hint that I am “desperate … to get a crumb of that Holiest of Grails … [and am] convert[ing] from Judaism solely to get engaged in [my] senior year of college so [I] can taste that ever-forbidden fruit.” The suggestion that I’m converting in order to experience the pleasures of the flesh with my fiancée upon marriage is false. I began my conversion process months before meeting her. The hint that I “only [attend] mass (virtually)” is based on the fact that I no longer attend Mass on campus. Instead, I go to a Traditional Latin Mass off-campus. The other claims made here aren’t worth addressing.

I can handle the petty emails and Instagram posts, tagging the Rosary Club account, boasting about how we inspired someone to donate to Planned Parenthood. I can likewise tolerate anonymous students signing up the Rosary Club’s email account to the mailing lists of Adam & Eve (a sex shop), loversstores.com, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the Communist Party USA (just to name a few). I will gladly deal with all of that, as my cross to bear.

Hamilton’s devout Catholics, however, shouldn’t have to put up with attacks against the Faith, such as the The Daily Bull’s sacrilege of photoshopping George W. Bush’s face onto a picture of Our Blessed Mother (and see the other side of that item here), or a blasphemous student publication headline: “Friday Five: Things That Are More Powerful than the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” Such things go against Hamilton’s anti-discrimination policies, but nonetheless seem to be permitted – like the personal attacks against me and the perverse objectification of my fiancée.

At the same time that these things are allowed or not addressed, the Rosary Club must fight a tedious bureaucratic battle simply to exist. Our last event before spring break, dedicated to praying for the restoration of authentic love between men and women, received backlash from the mob merely for not including relationships that the Church teaches are sinful and a certain view of the “gender spectrum.” This is part of what prompted the director of student activities to disable the Rosary Club email account a couple of days later (it was only recently reinstated). 

In essence, the Rosary Club account was shut down at least partly to appease the mob.

Meanwhile, students of traditional faith are subjected to not one or two, (three, four) but five emails pertaining to a “Bob the Drag Queen” event – just one of many examples of events offensive to their religious beliefs that pious students are subjected to by officially authorized campus emails. Not to mention the posters for such events across campus. If students of faith ever dared to speak out against any of it, we all know they would be faced with a “hate crime” investigation and probably be punished for it.

Why do we tolerate such a double standard?

It’s as if Hamilton, like so much else in America, has been taken over by anarcho-tyranny.

While “anarcho-tyranny” has generally been used to describe governmental policies, it can also be applied to the policies of a college. In Hamilton’s case, I think the term fits the administration’s unjust suppression of the Rosary Club while it simultaneously allows attacks against me and grotesque mockery of the Catholic faith.

Anarcho-tyranny is why some professors and students are comfortable blaspheming God in their everyday language, but students of faith would never dare to profess the teaching of our churches that homosexual acts are sinful. Anarcho-tyranny is why chastity is the only sexual identity student newspapers can make fun of without a hate crime investigation (see here and here). Anarcho-tyranny is why professors and students can make racist and hateful statements about white people but the slightest, most well-meaning critique of something in the black community could land you in serious trouble. Anarcho-tyranny is why a hockey team can advertise a game in Commons by defiling Sacred Scripture unscathed while the Rosary Club account gets disabled for nearly three weeks after the authentic love email. Anarcho-tyranny is why the Rosary Club, the only active club that goes against the worldly, sex-crazed cultural tide, can’t be on the same plane of existence as every other club on campus.

It is because of the anarcho-tyranny at Hamilton College, the tendency to selectively repress based on left-wing standards, that the Rosary Club, which had its own booth at the Clubs Fair, has been classified as a “non-club” by the director of student activities.