Dartmouth College has a new general counsel and senior vice president. But there’s a problem. Matt Raymer is not qualified for his role.

His experience in higher education is limited to being a fellow and guest lecturer. He has never led, or even been part of, an office charged with protecting the rights of non-citizens, transgender persons, or any student, faculty or community member who has been endangered because they have stated their support for divestment from companies that have profited from military actions in Palestine.

He has never led, or even been part of, an office charged with navigating questions of compliance with federal regulations in higher education. He didn’t occupy a relevant role in the wake of 2023’s Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard, or 2013’s Fisher v. University of Texas, Supreme Court decisions. He didn’t occupy a relevant role when President Obama issued guidance regarding campus sexual assault in 2011 or 2014 under Title IX. He didn’t even occupy a relevant role when President Trump rescinded that guidance in 2017.

So if Raymer is not qualified, then why is he general counsel and SVP?

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Dartmouth’s Political Union student leader, Malcolm Mahoney is right, and in order to be a “brave space,” Dartmouth needs to embrace “viewpoint diversity” — because students are not involved in “robust exchanges,” and this problem “plagues administrators.”

The question then arises: What are Raymer’s views?

In January of this year, Raymer published a piece titled “Trump Is Right About Birthright Citizenship,” in which he wrote, “through English common law, citizens entitled to ‘protection’ at birth, included aliens lawfully ‘domiciled’ there with the king’s consent. This did not extend to the children of aliens in ‘hostile occupation of part of our territory.’ Children born to illegal immigrants are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States, and therefore are not entitled to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment.”

Putting Raymer’s desire to overturn 127 years of Supreme Court precedent aside, the language he uses is deliberate.

The Associated Press Stylebook and The New York Times Stylebook no longer use Raymer’s language. In fact, thanks to the founding members of the Dartmouth Coalition for Immigration Reform, Equality and DREAMers (CoFIRED), the American Library Association and Library of Congress don’t either.

Are Raymer’s views that the college (and the country) should turn back the clock to a time before Daniela Pelaez ’16, Melissa Padilla ’16, Oscar Cornejo Casares ’17 felt entitled to ask others to stop using a racial slur to refer to undocumented Dartmouth community members?

The Dartmouth Review thinks so.

On behalf of the notorious off-campus right-wing publication, Daniel Davidsen, wrote, “In the past few years, Dartmouth not only spearheaded a campaign to eliminate the term ‘illegal alien’ from the Library of Congress subject headings; it produced and funded a self-congratulatory documentary about it called ‘Change the Subject.’ Perhaps Raymer’s employment is a symbolic means of demonstrating a course-correction to the alumni.”

So it turns out Dartmouth’s daily student newspaper conservative columnist Elan Kluger got it all wrong. Matt Raymer was not hired despite being a Republican. He was hired precisely because he is a MAGAist with relationships in Donald Trump’s White House. The college and President Sian Beilock admitted as much in writing. “Matt will play a critical role in helping us navigate the legal landscape,” Beilock said. “Raymer has hands-on experience on the way Washington works,” said Jason Barabas, director of Dartmouth’s Rockefeller Center for Public Policy.

The question then becomes: How did Raymer rise in the MAGA ranks?

Does Raymer share Trump’s desire to deport 4% of the US population?

Does Raymer share Trump’s desire to exclude trans people from public life?

Does Raymer share Trump’s desire to stop protecting Black Americans from disparate impact?

If these are not Raymer’s views — if he’s not a true MAGAist waving a “Mass Deportation Now” sign at the RNC and railing against DEI — if he’s just someone who said whatever it took to get ahead in the Republican National Committee, then he’s neither principled nor trustworthy.

The claim that Beilock was protecting Dartmouth by bringing Raymer to the College is undone by what it means to hire a perceived MAGAist. Trump demands unending proof of loyalty. Raymer cannot control Trump. If Trump cannot control Raymer, then Trump will see Raymer as an enemy. That’s why Raymer will never advise Beilock to do anything that might displease Trump.

Former President Phil Hanlon might be urging Dartmouth to stand with Harvard in Fortune and Time. But since Raymer arrived, Beilock has decided she would rather be the only Ivy League president not to sign a solidarity letter, despite the fact that she joined the heads of several colleges in a letter published in The New York Times regarding abortion rights in 2022.

The journalist Finley Peter Dunne asserted that “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

We know who the afflicted are — Kilmar Abrego Garcia who rots in a Salvadoran prison because Trump is defying a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court to return him to his family in Maryland, is one of them.

The comfortable is Matt Raymer.

While it has been mentioned in student, faculty and alumni discussion channels, no one has yet called for his resignation in writing, so please allow me to be the first to do so.

For the sake of individual and academic freedoms, the Big Green needs a seasoned lawyer with the right experience, not a greenhorn who benefited from cronyism.

For the good of Dartmouth College and the Dartmouth community, Raymer must go.

Unai Montes-Irueste is a member of the Dartmouth College Class of 1998, Dartmouth Association of Latino Alumni, and Dartmouth College Alumni Council. He lives in Southern California with his wife and three children.