[JLS]

I can certainly understand the view of those that have a hopefully 07 grad saying that we would like to get our child out of that cesspool but we feel locked in. What I don't understand is the view that Duke is so wonderful and so faultless.

What has become clear in this is that if your child is a white male a significant portion of the Duke faculty hate them and the administration is indifferent to them. In addition, the Durham Police/DA consider ALL Duke students pests that from time to time bother there real constituents, the rest of the citizens of Durham, and as a result these pests need to be slapped down harder than others from time to time.

Why anyone would think it would be good to send their child into that is beyond me. If Duke is the "ideal" school that matches your child's academic preparation for college, then send them to Vandy or Wash U. or Tulane or Chicago or Johns Hopkins or Amherst or Emory or Rice or etc. Each of those institutions are good private institutions in the same basic academic league as Duke. Some have D1A sports and some don't. If your child was going to slum it and go to Duke even though they got into Harvard or Princeton or Yale or Stanford or etc., tell them they either go to the Ivy or slum it at one another Duke level school.

Personally, I think anyone at the FreeRepublic website should really eliminate all PC institutions from their list of where to send their kid. That would eliminate most on the lists I have mentioned except maybe UND. But there are some conservative private schools. They are new. They don't have the reputation, but they do exist.

[Dukie07]

I cannot extrapolate from what has happened that "a significant portion of the Duke faculty" hate white males. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the majority of Duke faculty are, in fact, white males. That statement does not make sense and needs to be supported if it is to be made. Also, please define "signifcant portion." It is rather vague as stated.

My student made the choice of what schools to apply to, and which school to attend. I would not have tried to pigeon-hole those choices. I had the choice to pay for it or not.

You do seem to be caught up in labels. I prefer Ferragamo shoes, but I don't feel I'm "slumming it" if I happen to wear a pair of Burberry's, or even Old Navy flip-flops. I thought you were an academic? I can't imagine any academic denigrating a university in that manner. (Your hatred is showing again and serves only to negate everything you say.) As far as your obvious disdain for my student (slumming indeed), get over yourself.

The education one receives in college is felt on many different levels. For many, it's the first taste of true independence. There are the "life lessons." For most, it's the first time they have ever had to live with and either get along with or tolerate (depending upon whether or not you got the roommate from hell) someone from outside their family. It may be the most culturally diverse environment they have experienced. For someone from a conservative community and/or background, it may be the first time they've been exposed to all that is blatant liberalism. I can't help but think that all this is good. It gives us a real, working point-of-reference by which we can make future decisions. I think that by this point in time a person's basic political belief structure is probably not going to be radically changed. In some cases, it may even be intensified. To push a young adult into a strictly conservative environment smacks of distrust of that person's ability to make the right choices. If the student wants to go to a conservative school, that's a whole different story.