HANOVER, N.H.
Dartmouth students apologized for writing a tongue-in-cheek news report full of racial slurs directed at the school’s next president, who will be the first Asian-American to lead an Ivy League school.
The e-mail was sent Tuesday, a day after the college announced that Dr. Jim Yong Kim would become its president in July. It referred to Kim as a “Chinaman” and warned the campus to prepare for “Asianification.”
Kim, who heads the Global Health and Social Medicine Department at Harvard Medical School, was born in South Korea and grew up in Iowa.
“On July 1, yet another hard-working American’s job will be taken by an immigrant willing to work in substandard conditions at near-subsistent wage, saving half his money and sending the rest home to his village in the form of traveler’s checks,” the e-mail said. “Unless ‘Jim Young Kim’ means ‘I love Freedom’ in Chinese, I don’t want anything to do with him. Dartmouth is America, not Panda Garden Rice Village Restaurant.”
The e-mail was sent to about 1,000 students and alumni from the Generic Good Morning Message, a daily news report. It is not an official college organization and receives no support from the school.
Kim responded with an e-mail to all Dartmouth students.
