As the Trump administration intensifies its battle with elite universities, one Ivy League school is lawyering up with a Trump ally.
Dartmouth College announced this week that it has tapped Matt Raymer, the former chief counsel at the Republican National Committee, to serve as the college’s top lawyer and senior vice president. Raymer will not only run the general counsel’s office, but also serve on Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock’s leadership team and advise the college on “legal and strategic matters.” Raymer, who in January publicly backed President Donald Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship, will also oversee the school’s Office of Visa and Immigration Services.
The Political Climate at Dartmouth and Ivy League Colleges
Raymer’s selection comes as Republicans dramatically escalate their attacks on higher education — training their ire on Ivy League institutions they’ve long accused of fostering liberalism and censoring conservatives. It’s left university leaders balancing a series of competing demands: preserving their relationships with an administration on which most rely for funding, defending free speech on campus and protecting non-citizen student activists Trump campaigned on deporting.
“There is a need to be able to communicate across the political spectrum. I think every university is trying to find people from the moderate to right — and even more right — in the political spectrum to help deliver messages and help protect them from unfair and problematic attacks,” said Lee Bollinger, the former president of Columbia University. “I’m seeing it more and more.”
Challenges Faced by Ivy League Institutions
Columbia is at the center of the fight, facing a $400 million funding freeze as federal immigration agents moved to deport a former student with a green card and are combing campus looking for other non-citizen students who, the White House claims, supported Hamas during last spring’s pro-Palestinian student protests. Beilock, Dartmouth’s president, previously served as president of Barnard College, a Columbia affiliate institution and the current center of continuing protest activity at the university.
The Trump administration on Wednesday froze $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its transgender athlete policies. Cornell and Yale are under investigation for allegedly prioritizing doctoral applicants from underrepresented backgrounds. And the administration has launched probes into alleged antisemitism at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.
Dartmouth’s Unique Position
Dartmouth — the smallest Ivy League college, tucked away in rural New Hampshire and known for being less progressive than many of its peers — is the only school in the conference that appears to so far have escaped the administration’s wrath.
“We’ve done a good job in the past of permitting free expression and respecting others’ voices,” said Phil Hanlon, who served as Dartmouth’s president before Beilock. “We’ve worked hard at that over many decades.”
The Impact of Raymer’s Appointment
Raymer’s history on immigration could be where he faces the greatest opposition on campus, as his hiring appears to prioritize the political realities over universities’ long-held values. Universities have faced increasing pressure from students and advocates to answer questions about how they will protect students amid the president’s immigration crackdown, as Trump has changed policy to allow immigration enforcement at schools and fears percolate about data protection for undocumented students, as well those who have parents living in the country illegally.
“This general counsel and his views on birthright citizenship are horrifying … and just seeing that advertised at their university, it might make students more fearful,” said Elaine Maimon, an adviser on the American Council on Education. “If I was sitting there making the decision, I’d have to weigh whether the strategic use of his advice to protect the student was worth upsetting them.”
Dartmouth’s Response and Policy Review
Dartmouth said last month it is not changing any of its immigration policies in response to the Trump administration’s actions, but that a group of university leaders is meeting every week to review policy and how it might affect campus, according to New Hampshire Public Radio. The college has encouraged students to reach out to their “dean or supervisor” with questions, or to seek additional support in the Office of Visa and Immigration Services (which has long been overseen by the college’s top lawyer). Dartmouth has also recently encouraged immigrant and international students to ensure they’re carrying proper documentation while traveling given increased enforcement and anticipated travel restrictions, as even some people with legal status have been deported or detained in recent weeks.
Raymer’s Expertise and Dartmouth’s Assurance
Dartmouth spokesperson Jana Barnello said Raymer brings “extensive legal expertise, sound judgement” and a “deep personal commitment to his alma mater.” She added that he is eager to “strengthen relationships” across the college and ensure Dartmouth remains a place of “academic excellence, ideological diversity, and exploration.” As general counsel, she said he will provide guidance and support Dartmouth’s legal strategy under the direction of the president, but that he “does not set policy.”
“Dartmouth’s approach to legal matters has always been consistent, reflecting the institution’s commitment to its academic mission and its responsibilities under the law,” the spokesperson said.
Raymer’s hire appears to be part of an effort to keep Dartmouth out of the path of destruction.
Holden Thorp, a former chancellor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said it doesn’t surprise him that someone “sharp” like Beilock would have made this hire, adding that public universities have long played this game at the state level, bringing in Republican operatives to work at a university to help navigate changing political leadership.
“It makes perfect sense: every university is clearly going to have to work things out with the administration on a variety of matters — whether it’s funding or immigration matters with their students, or the Dear Colleague letter,” Thorp said. “All of this stuff is getting litigated in the courts, and then it’s playing out in Congress in terms of them writing the budget.”
