Posted on 01/20/2020 5:48:43 AM PST by karpov
As director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Campus Free Expression Project, I am always eager to get beyond the DC beltway to learn how students understand free expression on their particular campus. So, to return to Duke University, my alma mater, was particularly welcome.
Duke has a legacy of defending the expression of controversial views. In 1903, the school set a new standard in defending faculty academic freedom when the trustees voted to reject history professor John Bassett’s offer to resign after his praise of Booker T. Washington sparked controversy for the school—this only three years after Leland Stanford’s widow was able to have Edward Ross dismissed from the faculty of Stanford for arguments contrary to Mrs. Stanford’s business interests.
It was Duke political scientist John H. Hallowell who arranged to have Martin Luther King, Jr. address the 1964 annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association when it was held in Durham, at a time when not all in attendance were keen on King’s Civil Rights message.
But that is Duke’s past—what about today?
Just before my visit last fall, the Duke Student Government refused to recognize a Christian group, Young Life, that would not allow LBGTQ+ leaders. (A federal judge twice this year ruled that the University of Iowa violated the free speech, free association, and free exercise of religion rights with refusals to recognize Christian groups for parallel reasons). Also, Duke declined to renew the contract of an instructor who had taught at Duke for two decades apparently because, as he described at this site, he encouraged classroom discussions of polarizing and controversial topics.
Is support among Duke students for free expression and the First Amendment eroding?
Back in October, I had my chance to find out. Sixty freshmen students came for a conversation on those topics.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Funny to watch the Florida Seminoles basketball game a few days ago. All the kids were doing the “politically incorrect” tomahawk chop. I’d be willing to bet that 90% of them would condemn anyone else doing something similar.
Duke was a passive spectator during “Scottsboro II”, the attempted railroading of three of its students for a crime that never happened, back in 2006.
It has a famed law school, divinity school, etc., but nobody spoke up — or when they did, they were signing letters condemning the accused.
Duke has a lot to live down.
Since this is MLK Day, I will quote him:
“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Duke will always be the LYNCH Mob who ruined the lives of several WHITE students based on the absurd lie of a murderous Black whore.
Wait, what? You watched a Florida State basketball game?
Wow. That's a mouthful!
I take solace in Duke losing to Louisville in b-ball Saturday.
Amen.
Duke has a lot of students and faculty that are educated beyond their common sense.
I’ve been on the Duke Campus pretty much weekly for over 10 years. Lived in Duke Forest on the edge of Campus.
The biggest change I observed was in meetings with students where the radical feminist gender identity wokes would get angry and try to Greta Thunberg everyone.
I used to work for Duke. As a former insider, let me tell you that the culture is such that as long as you have the right skin color & political leanings, you’ll do just fine.
Step out of that, “diversity” means you must accept any/all those who don’t share your similar ideology and come to terms with the fact that those who aren’t in this “diverse” culture are fundamentally flawed. I called it “Being Duked”.
The internal segregation of the races made me realize that the Civil War is still being fought - but in reverse and I got out of there just as fast as I possibly could. My mother did NOT raise me to be prejudiced!
A Laughable Double Standard: The Duke University-Rape Case Nobody Knows About
I want to vomit. Worked at DUKE for 10 years. SHOULD have been National Story.
A number of people on FR tried to make it so. And those links didn't go into Frank Lombard's (pervdad's) side gig of teaching children's Sunday School there in Durham at an Episcopal Church, IIRC.
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