Purveyor of Iniquities

In the fall of 1999, former ‘00 class president Peter Cataldo was evicted from his dorm room and placed on involuntary medical leave. The College alleged that Cataldo had scrawled anti-Semitic slurs on a neighbors student’s dry-erase board including “Kill Kosher Kykes”.

Whether Cataldo, at the time (and perhaps still) a devout Christian, was responsible for the slurs has never, to my knowledge, been determined. He was never criminally charged with harrassment, though he was arrested for trespassing after the College banned him from its grounds.

The last word on the case came from then Associate Dean of the College Dan Nelson: “All I can say is that a student who may have been responsible for a variety of behaviors that are in violation of the College’s Standards of Conduct is no longer on campus and is not allowed on campus without permission” (emphasis added).

I regret that, at the time, The Dartmouth Review didn’t look into the case more closely. For what it’s worth, neither did the Daily Dartmouth, which only went so far as to print the error-strewn article above linked which did little to delve into the details of the case. The incident was a difficult one because the speech was charged and threatening, and no one wanted to be seen supporting a possible racist. Moreover, Cataldo was, to many, a disagreeable figure, whether or not he was responsible for the threats attributed to him. He refused to kowtow to the College’s expectations or bend over backwards to express remorse. Cataldo simply denied that he’d written the slurs. And finally, Cataldo’s last term at Dartmouth had clearly been a difficult one for him; even friends felt that his recent behavior has been erratic.

The last time I spoke with Cataldo, in the winter of 2000, he was living at home. Over the telephone, he was warm and precise, answering each of my questions in good detail and without evasion. Dartmouth was still very much on his mind, as was the way he’d been treated by the College. He didn’t know whether he would return to campus or not but was feeling out his legal options. Cataldo felt scorned. He may well have been justified in that; we still don’t know.

What follows is an edited narrative excerpted from that conversation.

It was my intention at the time to take a close look at the case because I was skeptical that the College’s own investigation served any purpose other than to diffuse the issue. But the Review’s editor, initially enthused, quickly became skittish and feared what it would do to the Review’s reputation for it to be (seemingly) defending a suspected racist. I should have pushed harder for the investigation and the article, but I didn’t. And soon we had a new editor, anyway, and there were other things to cover.

I regret to day I don’t know if Cataldo returned to campus or not. I can’t find any mention of him after 2000.

Still, Peter Cataldo never got his day in court. So here’s what happened, in his own words:

I just wanted to clear it up that things pretty much started up this term. About the first week of the term, when I moved into first floor Topliff, the room I got through the lottery, room 111. My UGA was Charles Gussow; he’s a ‘01.

As far as I know, you’re allowed to smoke cigarettes in your room, so I did that. One day I smoked an American Spirit tobacco, it’s a cigarette rolled with tobacco which smells like marijuana. So Gussow called the College, Safety and Security, to tell them that he smelled marijuana smoke from my room. S&S came by, and I talked to them later that night. I was told by one of the officers that this would be reported as an “unconfirmed smell of marijuana.î He agreed that the smoke could have been tobacco that smells like marijuana. I met with Jeffrey DeWitt of ORL about that and another offence: I had a dog, my dog from home, in the dorm with me. I talked to him about that and the alleged marijuana. He told me the dog was a problem, but said that he would let it go if I promised that the dog was gone and that I wouldn’t do it again. He made it clear. I brought him my American Spirit tobacco and got a letter from him telling me that it smelled something like marijuana. He could understand the confusion. He asked me not to smoke cigarettes in my room again.

The way I understand it is that you’re allowed to smoke in your room unless somebody on your hall complains. Then I’m not sure if you’re not allowed to period, or only with your door closed ñ I don’t know. I received complaints; Gussow received complaints from people on the hall who didn’t like the cigarette smoke coming from my room. So at the beginning of a complaint, he asked me if it was marijuana. It wasn’t marijuana. I wasn’t sure whether, if a friend came over and had a cigarette or wanted one, he could smoke it. That may have happened ñ there still was cigarette smoke and complaints and that hasn’t helped.

Recently, things started to get serious. Four things happened allegedly, three times this term, one in the past ñ I don’t even know. One in the last week maybe. The first one said “Jews suck.” Gussow thought was me, and it can’t be proved it was me ñ it wasn’t. The second one said, “Hitler was a great man,” I think. It was the same deal with me, but, again, you can’t prove it was me. The third one was the most recent: “Kill Kosher Kikes.” The police came by my room; maybe because Gussow complained to them directly, maybe multiple complaints to S&S would get the police involved. Two detectives, Moran and Bates, came by and talked with me. I told them it wasn’t me ñ you can’t prove it was me because it wasn’t. One asked if I had ever written on Charles’ board. I had, once or twice. I remember when he went for a weekend to New York City, I remember writing to him, “Welcome back from New York City. I hope you had a good time.” One officer said something about a writing sample. I told him that I’d give them one right now, but they didnít want it. “No. Maybe at a later time.”

That night, the College served me with a notice: “you’re not allowed in any Dartmouth residence hall. You can go back to your room twice every eight hours, and you need to call Safety and Security and you have to be escorted by an S&S officer.” The first night, they had an S&S officer stationed at my dorm. I don’t know who said it, but I was told that if I had showed up that night and asked to go to my room I would have been arrested. I don’t know if that was true or not, but that was in the D.

So then, after they kicked me out of my room, the school provided me with lodging at the Hanover Inn. I stayed there for two nights; on the second night, Jeffrey DeWitt from ORL blitzed me and said that, “you must be out of the Hanover Inn by tomorrow at noon. You must meet me and Dean Gomez. I’ll have those blitzes confirmed to you tomorrow.” I didn’t check that night because there’s no blitz at the Hanover Inn, so I checked the next morning. I woke up at 11 or 11:30. I had a blitz saying “You have to get out or be kicked out of the Hanover Inn at noon.” So I had to get everything out of the room by noon.

The next day, Friday the 12th, I went to the S&S office at Dick’s House to ask them when they could escort me to my room ñ so I could get my things. There was a Hanover Police Officer there who said, “It’s not possible. You’re not allowed to go back there. Weíre searching your room. It will be a few hours.” That was pretty much it.

I got a lawyer, a good lawyer, I’ve had him most of this term; I’ve kept him in touch with everything that’s happened. The one thing that’s really my savior is that I have an email from Dean Gomez in my blitz account saying if I didnít sign a medical release form so that my Dick’s House therapist could talk to him, I would be placed on involuntary medical withdrawal. I printed that out, copied it, and gave it to my lawyer. He said, “We have a very good case here. Regardless of whether the therapists are part of a private institution, the private institution does not have the right to threaten you to forfeit your therapist/client privilege. They kicked me out of the Hanover Inn with little notice; they kicked me out of Topliff even though there was no proof whatsoever of any of the allegations.

Recently, after they searched my room, I went home that Friday night. First, though, I went to a party at SAE; within 20 minutes, S&S officers showed up and asked to speak to me outside. I went outside; there were S&S officers and two Hanover Police officers. They handed me another trespassing letter that said “You’re not allowed on any College property.” I asked them what was town property ñ what wasn’t college property. Some sidewalks the College owns, some sidewalks the town owns, some roads the same situation. I asked for a map of the town that says which property is College-owned and which property is town-owned. They couldn’t do that. I started to walk on a road that I had seen Hanover Police vehicles on ñ I ended up being arrested and handcuffed.

I had to go through the whole arrest thing ñ mugshot and fingerprints. They told me it was a violation and gave me a court date. They had somebody come and take me out. They let me out on PR of $500. Personal Recognizance. If I don’t show up in court, I have to pay the $500. This time I was really going home, because of everything that was happening. I went home, and I thought about everything a little bit. I called my therapist at Dick’s House. I called Dean Gomez and talked to him. He told me if I took a couple of terms off, voluntary medical leave, the school would drop everything and I could still graduate ñ no problem.” I agreed. That’s the position I’m in now.