Correspondence
Correspondence I AM COMPELLED TO WRITE to protest the statements made by Hillsdale College's Ron Trowbridge in Tucker Carlson and Andrew Ferguson's recent article on the George Roche scandal ("Sex,...
...over time, these examples have shown me that Hillsdale's administrators were so intent on creating a clean-cut public image that they were afraid to admit having faults of their own...
...None of us should be surprised by the Roche scandal...
...Now it transpires, as an individual, that George Roche was just surfing the trend, and we feel betrayed...
...I currently have three children in school, two who are not at Hillsdale and one who graduated from Hillsdale in 1999 and is now in law school...
...He simply championed a policy he thought made more sense for the college...
...There is virtue at Hillsdale...
...This certainly is the case when Trowbridge, vice president of Hillsdale, speaks of young George in such disparaging words, e.g., "He kind of walks around maybe a little not focused...
...Basically, an administration trying— rather awkwardly—to honestly balance personal privacy, fundamental decency, employment law, and the integrity of this 155-year-old enterprise...
...one thing I have learned from Hills-dale (and Ludwig von Mises) is that all action is human action, and all human action is individual action...
...As Casey Stengel would say, you can look it up...
...I would say that it is beyond reasonable doubt that George Roche III had an affair with Lissa Roche, whatever he says...
...There is a wonderful dictum that you learn more about Peter when he speaks about Paul than you do about Paul...
...I'm a 1982 graduate who happens to live in Hillsdale...
...The man who was the architect of that policy was J. Donald Phillips, who served a 20-year term as president preceding Roche...
...Then there are the gratuitous references to a "'Gestapo police state' and 'Stalinist kind of environment,'" quoting the Chronicle of Higher Education, of all things...
...one is George Roche's conduct...
...He had studied at NYU under von Mises and taught at Grove City and Pepperdine...
...This latest setback notwithstanding, life will go on...
...I love this place...
...It was Correspondence Phillips who rescued a nearly bankrupt school and launched it on the present path...
...Anybody who does not like that is free to leave...
...Chevy Chase, MD TUCKER CARLSON and Andrew Ferguson missed an important part of the Hillsdale story in their article...
...A skinny, pimple-faced sophomore suggests to the academic dean where the college might look for professors...
...Quite simply, President Roche is gone, but Hillsdale's students, alumni, friends, faculty, and yes, its ideals, are still here...
...It just refused to take notice, because George III raised millions with his warm handshake...
...More important, it was Phillips who first articulated the philosophy of independence...
...Does this give you an idea of what a great place Hillsdale was long before Roche...
...No amount of spin can remove the repulsion that a responsible person feels towards this father's sin...
...In my second year at Hillsdale, I expressed my disappointment to the academic dean about the lack of free-market-oriented professors...
...The two papers were yanked from their respective campus newsstands early on the morning the article was published...
...After reading Carlson and Ferguson's article and the delight with which they attacked Hillsdale, I question whether there is "good" left at The Weekly Standard...
...just one year ago, a history professor was fired after allegedly having an extramarital affair with a freshman student (among others...
...Leftists are almost always opposed to new ideas these days...
...And they don't patronize him—they actually listen...
...This is the part of the George Roche scandal that cannot be documented...
...Yes, Roche III did deny his affair, as Clinton denied his own...
...The chorus, the orchestra, the student addresses, the main speaker, even the bagpipes stated that there is "good" left in America and that Hillsdale champions its preservation...
...It is time for Donald Mossey, the current chair of the board of trustees, to also resign...
...On the other hand, I think THE WEEKLY STANDARD has missed a few rays of light coming through the clouds in reporting on Hillsdale's troubles...
...Notice, however, some of the contrasts one can find between this scandal and the scandal of Bill Clinton, the liar serving as our nation's president...
...This justified a tabloid headline trashing the reputation of the entire institution...
...Phillips was not a political animal...
...He did not see things in the context of the struggle between free and command systems...
...Clinton's lies were equally feeble, but he and his staff ruthlessly defended them, wasting dollars and stubbornly refusing to resign...
...SAMUEL SHEPARD JONES JR...
...If I have learned one thing, it is that the only permanent concrete thing in this life is the next one...
...His individual action does not represent, nor will it ever, the actions, beliefs, and character of the professors and students at this college...
...No matter what Carlson and Ferguson think they know, their article contains no support for these pejoratives...
...It needs a very good airing in order for Hillsdale to survive...
...Attending my son's graduation last May, I was struck by the virtue I observed among the students and professors at Hillsdale...
...For legal purposes, it is understandable for Hillsdale administrators not to discuss Roche's alleged 19-year affair with his daughter-in-law, but I find it repulsively laughable for the college to suggest, in light of George Roche Iv's statements, that the former college president may be a "condemned innocent man...
...I am totally satisfied with the education he received, and impressed by the "good" to which his fellow graduates are already devoting their lives...
...It read like something the New Yorker might publish, and seems to be based entirely on inference and hearsay...
...What president Roche did—whatever it may be and it may be nothing—does not dictate the values to which this college is beholden...
...Thank you for attempting to tell this most difficult tale...
...Notice, however, that Roche III also quit while he was ahead...
...In both instances, Hillsdale students and their respective organizations were not allowed to investigate...
...The Hills-dale graduate was valedictorian of his class, and passed up several other scholarship offers to attend Hillsdale because of its values and the quality of the education provided...
...Williamsburg, VA AS A STUDENT OF HILLSDALE, I would like to offer a few thoughts on the recent scandal plaguing the school...
...Trowbridge's attack on young George Roche IV, whose father has already done the greatest harm to him, is unconscionable...
...The president has submitted his resignation, and the board of trustees is looking for a new president...
...And we are angry...
...Where is the proof of sex or of lies...
...What is truly shocking is the cruelty of a father toward his son: To have a long affair with his son's wife is so appalling, it is incomprehensible...
...The punishment was fitted to the crime: Roche III was sent home to live with himself...
...The only thing that remains is for the Hillsdale staff to give up any remaining pretense and get on with running the school...
...And this from a former English professor...
...It's not the end of the world, but our tiny bubble of conservatism has been marred and that hurts those of us who are here because of the conservative values of this college...
...As long as the professors remain at the college, so will I and many other students...
...Before writing a wholesale condemnation of Hillsdale, I suggest journalistic integrity would have dictated investigating whether there is "proof in the pudding...
...In 1965, when campuses throughout the nation were beginning to experience the upheavals of the '60s, Hillsdale got a taste of the same...
...students learn how to identify truth and how to think—not common commodities in today's politically correct institutions...
...The board of the college stands mute...
...Hillsdale is still a great school, warts and all, and I'm still glad to be part of it...
...ERIC LEUTHEUSER Hillsdale, MI LAST WEEK, I WAS SICKENED by the scandal surrounding George Roche at Hillsdale College...
...I run the college and you go to classes...
...Has the Bill Clinton standard of airing every lurid detail of a scandal become virtuous in their eyes...
...This, to me, is the real (and sad) meaning of your hatchet job on Hillsdale...
...The professors who invested their lives in my son's life have not changed...
...I often commented to his good mother, June, that young George should not attend Hillsdale, but go away to college, to get out of the shadow of his father...
...Six years after Professor Anderson started teaching at Hillsdale, George Roche was made president, and it did not take long for his ego to push the memory of J. Donald Phillips out of the picture...
...But President Roche insisted his son attend Hillsdale College...
...SCOTT HOUSER Atlanta, GA I WAS TAKEN ABACK by Tucker Carlson and Andrew Ferguson's article on the Hillsdale events...
...The president is no concern of ours...
...SHARON WILLIAMS Hillsdale, MI YOUR ARTICLE ON Hillsdale College says more about the cannibalistic nature of "conservative" journalism than about my school...
...However, where in the college trustees' handbook does it cover how to deal with these terrible events...
...The donors know this and the students know this...
...This is precisely why, whenever a controversy erupted, it usually wound up getting dragged out for a longer period of time than it should have...
...My suggestion was for him to call Leonard Read at the Foundation for Economic Education...
...I prefer the term "leftists" to "liberals...
...This was the atmosphere under the leadership of J. Donald Phillips...
...And most of all, Hillsdale needs an honest, diligent, capable man as its next president...
...William Bennett resigned from the new presidential search committee for reasons that Hillsdale students and recent alumni knew long ago: Hillsdale's administration consistently engages in tactics of cover-up, denial, and censorship to preserve a holier-than-thou image, even when all the dirt is out in the open for everyone to see...
...You owed your readers a better story, and now owe the Hillsdale College community an apology...
...Roche, on the other hand, understood the struggle, and was able to position Hillsdale so it rode the wave...
...Now we had someone on campus who really understood the rational basis for free-market ideas...
...Clinton's refusal to leave office, however, has been harming our nation's credibility ever since...
...This was your "scoop...
...But he was responsible for new dorms, a new science building, a new student union, and the Leadership Center...
...Hillsdale delivered on both counts...
...This is really all we have been told...
...For all of its self-proclaimed weariness with the Clinton scandal, the leftist press continued to delve into every minute detail of it, which is why we all know about Clinton's alternative use for cigars...
...until these allegations are proven, if ever, what is the point of flogging the board...
...As you mentioned, there was very little judgment passed on him...
...Personally, this scandal hits close to home...
...MARIUS PAULIKAS Downers Grove, IL IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS events on this campus have turned us (the Hillsdale students and faculty) from our studies and teaching, to issues of rumor and scandal...
...Liberal" means open to new ideas...
...First, I should mention that George Roche IV was my American history teacher last year...
...Ty Gillespie, the former chairman, would never have put up with this corruption...
...There were many good educators who went to Hillsdale College—went there because they thought it was an opportunity to be among those who believed in the founding principles of this country, believed in what our forefathers fought and died trying to attain...
...Phillips called everyone together and said, "Here is the deal...
...The article is further evidence (following the drumbeat for war in Kosovo and the love affair with the liberal media's favorite candidate, John McCain) that The Weekly Standard no longer chooses to speak for conservatism...
...Also in 1996, a scathing article about Hillsdale's censorship tactics appeared in the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News...
...Isn't this a good thing...
...EDGAR B. ROESCH JR...
...I left Hillsdale the day after my son Todd graduated from the college...
...In the days surrounding President Roche's resignation, your reporter enjoyed great access on campus, and could have eventually written a piece putting this tragic moment in perspective...
...A lot of what we students felt was a concrete and firm foundation has been rocked in the wake of allegations concerning President Roche...
...How about that for a concept...
...This is a complex issue and certainly a black mark in Hillsdale's history...
...To the best of my knowledge, I would say Roche IV, as The Weekly Standard rightly declares, is not crazy or deluded...
...He said he didn't know where to find them...
...The administration's denial of students' search for the truth of this matter is nothing new...
...Professors at Hillsdale teach a core curriculum that educates the total person...
...LOREN MEYER Hillsdale, MI...
...The second issue is, "Does Hillsdale College live up to its promises in educating its students and holding to conservative values...
...since its values correspond to those promoted in The Weekly Standard, perhaps you might want to help it do so...
...I knew George IV as a teenager—he was quiet, reserved, and handsome...
...I submit that their article confused two issues...
...I was at Hillsdale from 1973 to 1975 as an associate professor of political philosophy and assistant to President Roche...
...Correspondence I AM COMPELLED TO WRITE to protest the statements made by Hillsdale College's Ron Trowbridge in Tucker Carlson and Andrew Ferguson's recent article on the George Roche scandal ("Sex, Lies, and Conservatism," Nov...
...You may get much information about Hillsdale in the next few weeks, but the story you will not hear, or the one that gets lost amid everything else, is the story about a college where you can learn the truth about economics and the world and not be fed liberal jargon...
...I'm resting comfortably in that thought, knowing that the Lord will bring this college, its students, and its professors through the storm...
...Instead, you rushed to put out a schizoid story: half recent history, half personal observations of—what, exactly...
...one man's sin did and will not destroy this institution...
...We, on the other hand, feel free to let Roche III leave office quietly without discussing the sordid details of the affair...
...After watching college administrations from Columbia to Berkeley fold before the onslaught of the unwashed, it was a tonic for the nation to see a college president take a stand...
...Roche is gone and the search is on for a successor...
...He was not able to build up the endowment because there were too many critical needs...
...Then they acted, and got a heavyweight in the person of Bob Anderson as professor of economics...
...EMMA BROSSARD Palm Beach Gardens, FL HAVING GRADUATED FROM Hillsdale College last May, I can say that the administration's damage-control tactics over the George Roche fiasco are yesterday's news for me, though I had always hoped that Hillsdale's administrators would someday become smarter in dealing with these kinds of matters...
...His lies were feeble enough that one could see they were merely his way of saving face...
...Today, I was disgusted to read "Sex, Lies, and Conservatism," in which Tucker Carlson and Andrew Ferguson reported on the Roche scandal but then broadened their scope to attack the entire institution...
...Without question, you should report on this issue...
...And perhaps soon, President J. Donald Phillips will be restored to his rightful place in the institutional memory of the college...
...Three years ago, controversy stirred when a forensics teacher was fired after being questioned about her allegedly improper teaching methods...
...In short, Hillsdale is proving that the Right handles scandals much better than the Left does...
...More than 10 years before George Roche showed up at Hillsdale, the college was famous for its independence and for refusing government aid...
...It still does...
...I would point out that leftists often attack religious opponents for being "judgmental," even as the same leftists pass judgment on others...
...It has been painful to watch...
...Thanks to Roche III's wise decision, our college can move on, and will only suffer a minor setback...
...Unless you've worked at Hillsdale, you cannot fully understand how corrosive it was to be associated with this shameless man, George Roche III...
...If he is taking any pills for depression, it is undoubtedly because he has suffered immensely...
...his daughter-in-law committed suicide without an explanation...
...In light of Carlson and Ferguson's article on the scandal, several points should be addressed...
...It will survive...
...It was reprehensible...
...Notice that we have set ourselves apart from the leftists in several other respects...
...The title, "sex, Lies, and Conservatism," which I suppose was intended to be cute, is really just mean...
...President Roche has apparently made no comment...
...What would Hillsdale be like today if these people had remained...
...This board was not ignorant...
...But then they got to know George Roche III and left...
Vol. 5 • December 1999 • No. 12
