Happier days: Duke lacrosse team defeats Butler University early in the season, later canceled

Chuck Liddy/The News & Observer

All of the attention arising from the lacrosse episode has brought to the surface "the great divide within our community around privilege," says the Reverend Carl Kenney M.Div. '93, founding minister of Compassion Ministries of Durham and a local newspaper columnist. "I don't think it would be fair to paint the picture that Duke is an institution of a bunch of spoiled brats who come from a background of privilege. But that is a perception that Duke often has to fight within this community."

He says many residents of Durham believe that "those who attend Duke are isolated from the community," that out-of-control students "are not being disciplined for their behavior," and, with respect to this particular case, that "justice is not being served because of privilege."

"When I was a student at Duke, the campus was referred to as a plantation," he says. "If you walk around campus and if you go to the eateries, what you discover is the majority of people who serve are black. And you often see students condescend toward those who are servers. Many of the students who come to Duke from Northern privilege have gone through the educational system without having seen a person of color. You have kids from New Jersey, New York, Connecticut who go to prep schools; they get the best education that money can buy, and they may never, ever meet an African-American student."

March 27 Rally on campus protests team's silence and university's response. DNA samples delivered to N.C. Bureau of Investigation. Search warrant issued for a dorm room on campus.

Megan Morr

One prominent African-American student at Duke, Nick Shungu, a senior, says he has had constant conversations around the issues prompted by the lacrosse incident. In his view, the administration was too slow in responding. "I had a few [African-American] friends who were here over spring break who were extremely upset and felt extremely vulnerable after learning that this had happened," he says.

"With an issue of this magnitude, I think we should know about it immediately, but there was nothing like prompt notification. I really wanted to see from the start not necessarily a formal apology, but an acknowledgement of sympathy for the alleged victim--an acknowledgement that, sure, it's still up in the air legally, but there was something not right about what was going on. I'm very happy that the administration is now taking this seriously. But I was disappointed with the amount of time it took."

Shungu is a Reginald Howard Scholar (the merit-scholarship program is named for the first African-American president of the student government), as well as a facilitator for Duke's Center for Race Relations; a co-instructor for a house course on leadership in the black community; a member of the President's Council on Black Affairs; and a volunteer for a mentoring program for African-American boys.

From his own observations and experiences, he says that Duke has some distance to travel in race relations. As a freshman, he was visiting a friend (another black student) when the friend's roommate said what was meant to be a joke: "How do you stop black people from hanging out in your backyard? Hang one in the front." In the wake of the lacrosse troubles, another friend was trying to get into a dorm after having lost her DukeCard. A student confronted her at the dorm door and, according to Shungu, told her, "I'm white, I'm rich, and I don't want to be charged with rape." He then slammed the door shut in her face.

Troubled by such accounts, Shungu would like to see the creation of a bias-response team to address specific cases of racial discrimination, along with a required program in diversity and inclusion. Both, he argues, are as vital to the ultimate success of students as the mandated writing-skills course.

Other voices have been even louder on the theme of racism. In late March, English professor Houston Baker wrote a blistering "Letter to the Duke University Administration." Baker, who is African American, mentioned a period of "silent protectionism" that "left all of us vulnerably ignorant of the facts." He added that "we have been deeply embarrassed by the silence that seems to surround this white, male athletic team's racist assaults (by words, certainly--deeds, possibly) in our community." And he asked, "How soon will confidence be restored to our university as a place where minds, souls, and bodies can feel safe from agents, perpetrators, and abettors of white privilege, irresponsibility, debauchery, and violence?"

Some weeks later, his anger had hardly subsided: "Many of us are afraid," he said, "a great many of us are feeling helpless at this point. Traumatized is not really too strong a word. I think the reputation of the university has been injured forever by this event. And I think that didn't have to be."

Provost Peter Lange, the university's chief academic officer, responded to Baker with his own strong-minded message. The university "will not rush to judgment nor will we take precipitous actions which, symbolically satisfying as they may be, assuage passions but do little to remedy the deeper problems," he wrote in an open letter. "These problems will certainly be easier, but not easy, to understand than they will be to repair. The latter will take less rhetoric and more hard work, less quick judgment and more reasoned intervention, less playing to the crowd, than entering the hearts and lives of those whose education we are charged to promote and who we must treat as an integral part of the community we wish to restore and heal."

As Baker's letter was circulating, several academic departments bought a full-page advertisement in The Chronicle calling attention to "a social disaster" illuminated by the events of March 13. The text referred to "anger and fear" on campus. "We're turning up the volume," it said, "in a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait."

Though he says he would have wanted a committee focused specially on race issues, Shungu is more upbeat about the process and the eventual outcome. This is "a period of empowerment," in his words. "This is really the first time I can remember that students are mobilized around an issue. We've had rallies in the past that were, like, an hour, and then we would all go back to class. But with this issue, there are professors still holding forums on it, and different groups are still meeting about it. If you want to be at a university that is dealing with issues and has a core of people who are trying to produce positive social change, this is a great place to be."