Full disclosure: All things being equal, I usually vote for friends when they are on a ballot. And Paul Mirengoff of Powerline is my friend.

But that’s not the reason I am voting for him in the current Dartmouth Board of Trustees election. Paul is smart, conscientious, fair-minded, thoughtful — everything a college or university could want in such a position. He would easily get my vote just from reading him on Powerline, even though occasionally his views are more conservative than mine (to use the conventional terminology).

Now to the second part of my headline: Normally the election of university board of trustees is about as interesting a contest as dog catcher. But the Dartmouth Trustees in the last few years have become a focal point of the struggle for freedom of thought on our campuses where a form of rigid liberalism (it’s hard even to call it liberal, perhaps “reified post-modernism” would be more accurate, although pretentious) holds sway to a degree that verges on the Soviet (although in a gentrified form). Peter Robinson and Todd Zywicki broke through this unilateralism of thought by winning positions on the Board through a citizen’s campaign. Now the Empire is Striking Back. Robinson wrote today of the struggles Mirengoff is having. Let’s get Paul’s back.

UPDATE: Paul is running for the Association of Alumni, not Board of Trustees. My bad. (Perhaps I’ve been a bit over-extended. In any case, the big battle over the composition of the Trustees continues and is significant.)