Your entire statement is subjective. There are other places better than Duke "to you." Your Duke hate is no secret to anyone here. I do have to wonder why you go on and on so, though? It's weird to me. Whatever.
I don't think one can make a blanket statement that one university is better than another. It depends on the individual and what is being studied. The perfect fit for one student may not be the perfect fit for another. Believe it or not, someone who cares a little less about "prestige" and a little more about being in the right school could actually pick Duke over Harvard. And, yes, I do still think Duke can be the right school for many reasons.
So, prestige aside, what should one consider? Yale may have a department that is better than Harvard in a particular discipline. Cornell may have a school that's better than Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Duke and just about anyone else. Certainly, what you plan to major in and how a particular school ranks in that discipline is key in making your choice. My student applied to schools with a great reputation in the discipline being pursued. Student was accepted at 12 very fine universities - some of them even on your "good list."
Living conditions plays a part. On campus or off? Cold winters or mild? Near the ocean or near the mountains?
Student body plays a part. My student did not want to go to a school where the students were competitive to the point of being cut-throat.
I totally disagree with your statement that Stanford academics outshine Duke academics. I went to Stanford, I did not want my student to go there as an undergrad. Heavy on prestige; light on learning. (Sorry fellow Cards.) As I've noted before, and as the parent of a current Stanford student has acknowledged - lots of TA's, some of whom can barely speak English. You know how they say that Cornell is "Easy to get into, hard to get out of?" With Stanford, it's the opposite.
Sports was not a factor for my student in making a choice.
Money? Costs me less to send my student to Duke than it would have to send my student to Cal. (But, gee, William Hung would have been a classmate at Cal!) Schools with great endowments can be a plus.
And whether you like it or not, Duke does have prestige. Again, maybe not to you, but to enough so that your opinion does not matter.
I am not going to comment on voter registration at Duke because I have no idea how many students will or will not register to vote in Durham. I will say that I don't think it's right to expect the student body to do the work that the citizens of Durham should be doing. Can we and they do what we can to help educate Durham voters? As long as it's not done in an "in your face" or "how stupid can you be?" manner, absolutely. And I will concede that your statement that the time to work behind the scenes is after the election is idealistically appropriate - although I believe most political maneuvers take place behind the scenes period.
You can't possibly be serious, fifty schools better than Duke!! Of couse, I went to Duke so I am biased, but I also attended two other top schools, know tons of Duke alums and alums from other schools and know the prestige factor as well. By any measure, Duke is one of the top twenty universities and almost certainly one of the top ten including academic excellence.
One thing that has always bugged the Duke haters (including the Duke students who have a chip on their shoulder because they are not walking around Cambridge), the same thing that makes the current Duke president such an anomaly, is its origin. Duke grew around the idea of producing talented professionals and not egghead academics. As such, from the start, it lacked (which I always liked) the egghead mentality that so deformed other schools. It is true, for many years that the focus on doing hurt the schools image and Duke has aped its northeastern competitors in a succesful effort to boost its image and actual studies.
But, despite these changes, it is the same Duke, a school and university different from other schools.
You have everything backwards. The media jumped all over this scandal precisely because Duke is special, both in image and in practice. Do you really think that an alleged rape at Wash U or Emory would be on the cover of Newsweek? Of course not.