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The Chronicle of Higher Education

By Lindsay Ellis

September 27, 2018

The anonymous letter from 1973 wasn’t shoved under Jean Passanante’s door, but she has saved it, since then, all the same. It began with a vile, four-letter word, demeaning the first women to seek a degree from Dartmouth College. “Your mere presence at this institution is a direct confrontation to the goals we consider sacred,” it read.

She had transferred to Dartmouth mere months before, in the early days of coeducation. Her peers showed her the letter after someone slipped copies of it under their doors, she said.

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