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Late one afternoon at the end of March, just
in front of the Allen Building, a Duke University Transit bus caught
fire. In the midst of the smoky spectacle, a student bystander,
junior Florence Noel, told The Chronicle: "I'm not too concerned.
With the climate around here, it's not the first thing on my mind."
At Duke this spring, one-day setbacks weren't the first thing on
anyone's mind--not since members of the men's lacrosse team were
accused of sexually assaulting a woman hired to perform as an exotic
dancer at a March 13 off-campus party. Witnesses alleged hearing
players yell racial slurs at the woman, who is black and a student
at Durham's historically black North Carolina Central University.
Protests were sparked on campus and in front of 610 North Buchanan
Boulevard, the site of the party. By early April, the university
had cancelled the men's lacrosse season--reacting, university officials
were quick to point out, not to a prejudgment of guilt but rather
to the inappropriateness of taking to the field in the midst of
an unfolding criminal investigation; accepted the resignation of
the team's coach, Mike Pressler; and suspended a team member after
learning of an e-mail message--sent just after the party ended--that
mentioned killing strippers. (Some press accounts noted that the
offending language came from a movie, American
Psycho.)
Then, two players, sophomores Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty,
were charged with first-degree rape, sexual offense, and kidnapping.
They were released on $400,000 bond each.
In an April 5 letter to the Duke community, Duke president Richard
H. Brodhead wrote, "It is clear that the acts the police are
investigating are only part of the problem. This episode has touched
off angers, fears, resentments, and suspicions that range far beyond
this immediate case. It has done so because the episode has brought
to glaring visibility underlying issues that have been of concern
on this campus and in this town for some time--issues that are
not unique to Duke or Durham but that have been brought to the
fore in our midst. They include concerns of women about sexual
coercion and assault. They include concerns about the culture of
certain groups that regularly abuse alcohol and the attitudes these
groups promote. They include concerns about the survival of the
legacy of racism, the most hateful feature American history has
produced."
The lacrosse episode, he added, also put into high relief "the
deep structures of inequality in our society--inequalities of wealth,
privilege, and opportunity (including educational opportunity),
and the attitudes of superiority those inequalities breed." Whether
they intend to or not, universities like Duke might be seen as
participating in this inequality and supplying "a home for
a culture of privilege."
The culture of the campus, in all of its aspects, was among Brodhead's
immediate concerns. He announced the formation of committees to
focus on the men's lacrosse team, with the aim of assessing reports
of a pattern of objectionable behavior; the response of the administration
to the allegations; student judicial process and practices, including
how Duke deals with problems of student behavior and the applicability
of its Community Standard to social life; and campus culture, a
longer-term effort fueled by a commitment to "take the ethical
dimension of education much more seriously than heretofore." Brodhead
also revealed plans to create a Presidential Council, an advisory
group of "wise figures from within the university community,
from the larger Duke family, from the national higher-education
community, and from the city of Durham."
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