On Sunday, March 2 at 3 pm Eastern Time, Thomas H. Cox and Gregory R. Witkowski will be our guests for a Casual Conversation about the Dartmouth College Case, Dartmouth College v. Woodward. The two men co-authored “Heart of Dartmouth: Charity, Corporations, and the Supreme Court” which appeared in the Journal of Supreme Court History, 2024 Vo. 49, No. 2 (published for the Supreme Court Historical Society by Johns Hopkins University Press) at 138 et seq. Thomas H. Cox is an Associate Professor of History at Sam Houston State University, https://www.shsu.edu/academics/history/faculty/thomas-h-cox-phd , and Gregory R. Witkowski is Senior Lecturer, Nonprofit Management Programs at Columbia University, https://sps.columbia.edu/person/greg-witkowski-phd .
No excuses this time. If you went to Dartmouth COLLEGE, or is or was a partner of someone who attended Dartmouth COLLEGE, you really must be part of this conversation. It is likely that you already know something about the Dartmouth College Case. You probably know that the loser in the case were the trustees appointed by the New Hampshire legislature and that they called the institution Dartmouth university. You probably take suitable, and loud, umbrage whenever the idiots in print or on cable or the internet call the school we attended Dartmouth university. And certainly, you are aware of the 1870 biography of Daniel Webster that quoted the famous advocate as telling the U.S. Supreme Court: “It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it . . .” “[H]azily remember[ed] thirty-six years later,” whether or not true, it sure as heck makes for a rousing call to arms, if not tears.
What more is there? A lot, as Messrs. Cox & Witkowski relate. Did you know that President James Monroe received honorary degrees in 1817 from both Dartmouth College and Dartmouth university? And there is more, from the origins of the dispute that ultimately wound its way to the highest court of the land, to the decision-making process of the Court (including the legal context of Dartmouth College v. Woodward), to its reception when rendered and its later life in the law of this country. As our guests write: “In the two centuries since the Dartmouth College decision, historians have produced a small library of books and articles on the ‘College cause.’”
That quoted phrase comes from Daniel Webster himself who wrote: “Our College cause will be known to our children’s children.”
We are far beyond the time when Webster’s grandchildren would have been alive, or the grandchildren of anyone living in this country when the “College cause” was decided, but we still know that something consequential happened a little over 200 years ago.
To know more about what that was, join us on Sunday, March 2 at 3 pm Eastern on Zoom. Usual rules apply. Let me know whether you want to participate by sending me an email at arthur.fergenson@ansalaw.com by close of business the prior Friday, February 28.
Arthur Fergenson