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If one never wants their children to be exposed to anything that is not perfect, then they had better keep them locked up.... forever. In life, you take the bad with the good - and there is plenty of good at Duke. As with anything, it's a learning situation. To be honest, I sincerely doubt most of the students are aware of or could care less about this (the non-voter registration incident). They are too busy getting an education. And quite frankly, they are smart enough to know that this is a blip in their history. Somebody doesn't let you register to vote in one place, you go to another. Simple. Any student who wants to vote in Durham will. Someone who is only registering because the booth is at the stadium and it's easy will likely not make it to the polling place anyway. (JMHO) Now, does it seem outrageous that this happened. Yes. But it's not the end of the world. Take a lesson. Move on. My student will come out of Duke earning 6 figures with a 3 billion $/year company. That's why we go to Duke, honestly; not to vote.

I agree the primary reason someone goes to Duke is for the education. That's why we all go to college. What's going on with the lacrosse situation is in the background for most students but I don't think that means they shouldn't care at all. One of the reasons Nifong seems to be going forward with this prosecution is because the defendants are Duke students - with "rich daddies". That's pretty disturbing. If this were happening at my school I'd be interested.

Beyond that, the DPD seems to have a departmental policy in effect to treat Duke students differently and more harshly than others. That wouldn't sit well with me either.

The good v. the bad. At Duke good second choice non-Ivy academics, good mens and womens basketball, oops. Wait a second the real issue should be balancing the good and the bad UNIQUE to the Duke Durham situation. Since their are hundreds of colleges and universities in the US, some with a better academic reputation than Duke and others with a worse academic reputation than Duke, the academics are NOT unique. [Well they are unique in counting 3 hour courses as 4 hours so you don't take as many courses and learn as much at Duke, but since parents don't get a discount for fewer contact hours that does not matter.]

Still what do we have that is unique?

1. Academics? Nope, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Berkley, Michigan etc are better. Vandy, Wash U., Chicago, UCLA, Emory etc are about the same. The list of places as good or better than Duke runs to 50 or so.

2. Location? Certainly every location is unique. I lived there for a while 20+ years ago and it did not seem special. Durham does not sound any more like a unique plus now to me based on what I have read on this board. Certainly someone going to Duke might go to Johns Hopkins, UVa, Georgetown, and various other private and public schools, if midAtlanta is important to one.

3. Sports? Duke is good in mens and womens basketball, terrible in football and from this list I know pretty good in lacrosse. There are 100s of schools with that profile in sports. Combining sports and academics, Duke does not match up with UND, Stanford, Michigan etc.

4. Prestige? Again, Duke is a second choice school. Duke is NOT Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford etc. And can you imagine the Cambridge DA prosecuting three MIT students on trumped up charges like this? How about Princeton NJ DA?

Nope what makes Duke UNIQUE right now is that you might send your child there and if you child fits the DAs reelection needs you will have spent 10s of thousands of dollar to put them in danger of a long prison sentence that will essentially void the market value of that education. And where is Duke on this? Does Duke have the prestige even in Durham to bring some sanity to this. Apparently not. Does Duke have the leadership to do anything about this? Apparently not. This is part of why Harvard is Harvard and Duke is Duke. And of course Duke has no reason to perform if everyone send their children back into this abusive situation.

I do agree with you the voter registration thing is a symptom the problems at Duke not a cause. BTW, the time to publicly try to bring sanity to this is before the election. After the election is the time to be quietly working behind the scene.

Dukie07:
My student will come out of Duke earning 6 figures with a 3 billion $/year company. That's why we go to Duke, honestly; not to vote.

JLS:
Nope what makes Duke UNIQUE right now is that you might send your child there and if you child fits the DAs reelection needs you will have spent 10s of thousands of dollar to put them in danger of a long prison sentence that will essentially void the market value of that education.

I wonder what Dave Evans' advise would be to those on the DUKE campus who are unconcerned about voting and the affect it may or may not have on their 6 figure salaries at billion dollar companies.

My student will come out of Duke earning 6 figures with a 3 billion $/year company.

Then obviously its in your interest to talk the place up.

OTOH, my son's played lacrosse in Md for one of those schools that sends their best kids to Duke fairly regularly, and Duke has been crossed off of most of his friend's lists (anecdotal..but still..) If I was a student athlete male, I'd jump over that particular "name" school, unless the scholarship was too good to ignore. As a matter of fact, if I was a male student I'd think twice. Durham is no great shakes of a place, which is only acceptable if the locals and the cops arent too,too hostile (Yale and UPenn come to mind as similar in that way. And many a good student has avoided the latter because of it)

One last comment..Many of my friends in academia that I have talked to think DUKE's appeal is going to sour, even if its only a relative decline. And that aint gonna make the alumni happy, for sure.