How much money does it take for an elite private institution of higher learning — one with an $8 billion endowment — to keep in the good graces of the Trump administration?

In Dartmouth’s case, I’m guessing about $700,000 a year.

The college recently named Matt Raymer, a Trump ally, as its general counsel and senior vice president, awarding him a key position in President Sian Leah Beilock’s inner circle.

At a time when the Trump administration has declared war against higher education, Raymer gives Dartmouth a direct line to the White House. He previously served as chief counsel for the Republican National Committee, which has been under Trump’s thumb for nearly a decade.

How did I come up with the $700,000 figure? (Likely a conservative estimate.)

Raymer’s predecessor, Sandhya Iyer, received $685,948 in total compensation during the fiscal year ending, June 30, 2023, according to Dartmouth’s most recent publicly available filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

I can’t imagine Dartmouth paying a white male (and an alum) anything less. Iyer (wisely) bolted for the same job at Brown University last fall just before Beilock began her crackdown on pro-Palestinian student activists.

Raymer’s hiring might have fallen under the radar, if not for his public support of Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship, guaranteed under the 14th Amendment to almost everyone born in the U.S. since the Civil War.

In a Jan. 24 op-ed that appeared in The Federalist, Raymer wrote that Trump was right about the 14th Amendment not applying to birthright citizenship. On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order that children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S. are not citizens. It makes them fair game for deportation if, for instance, they participate in an anti-government rally or write anything the Trump regime doesn’t approve of. (The order is currently on hold while it’s litigated in several federal courts, including in New Hampshire.)

Raymer, a 2003 Dartmouth graduate and who later earned his law degree from the University of Michigan, argues that “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, for the simple reason that the United States has not permitted them to be here.”

From what I gather, Raymer seems to be of the opinion that anyone who can’t trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower is unAmerican. (Unless they’re wealthy immigrants.)

After Politico wrote recently about Raymer’s peddling of Trumpism in The Federalist, an ultra conservative online site, Dartmouth has been trying to put an it’s-really-not-so-bad spin on his views.

A college spokeswoman told the student newspaper The Dartmouth that Raymer’s op-ed “presented a scholarly legal argument contributing to the broader conversation on a widely discussed topic.”

Hogwash.

This week, I reached out to Brett Stokes, a professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School and director of the school’s Center for Justice Reform Clinic. Before he joined the law school’s faculty in 2022, Stokes specialized in immigration law at a Denver firm.

He’s familiar with the argument that the 14th amendment doesn’t apply to birthright citizenship as Raymer maintains.

“You have to do some real serious mental gymnastics to come to that conclusion,” Stokes told me.

Dating back to the 1898 Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, the courts have “all made it clear that the 14th Amendment should be interpreted” as almost anyone born in the U.S., regardless of their race, religion or political party affiliation, is a citizen of this country, Stokes said.

Raymer’s radical views are even more disturbing when considering that he oversees Dartmouth’s Office of Visa and Immigration Services, which has long been in the purview of the college’s top lawyer.

“That would certainly give me pause,” Stokes said.

It’s not a stretch to think Raymer’s new domain goes beyond people studying in Hanover on student visas. What’s stopping him from going after so-called Dreamers — children who were born in this country to undocumented immigrants? In other words, birthright citizens.

Under Dartmouth policy, anyone who comes into contact with federal immigration agents (i.e. ICE) on campus, must notify the safety and security department which will then report the encounter to the general counsel’s office. About 20% of the school’s students are international.

Will Raymer give federal agents carte blanche to roam the campus? Will he tip off ICE about pro-Palestinian activists here on student visas?

“It doesn’t mean that he’ll necessarily be sharing information with the feds, but it does raise the question of where his allegiances lie,” Stokes said.

On Wednesday, I stopped at the college’s main administration building in hopes of running into Raymer. As luck would have it, we crossed paths outside his office. He said that he didn’t have time to talk, but would be in touch with the college’s “communications team” about potentially setting up an interview.

I didn’t hear back from him.

Maybe he’s just busy trying to make sure that Dartmouth doesn’t end up in the Trump administration’s crosshairs. As Politico pointed out, Dartmouth is “known for being less progressive than many of its peers” and seems to be the only Ivy League school that so far has “escaped the (Trump) administration’s wrath.”

It’s Raymer’s job to keep it that way. Even if it’s at the expense of Dartmouth’s own students’ welfare.

Jim Kenyon can be reached at jkenyon@ vnews.com.