In Duke's Shadow, a Poor Cousin Struggles to Rise

DURHAM, N.C., April 30 — North Carolina Central University does not have a lacrosse team. Students often cannot check out books from the main library, which is being renovated after a mold infestation. The business school is fighting to regain accreditation. Sixty percent of the students receive need-based financial aid. Eighty-one percent are black. Only 28 percent graduate after four years.

Just three miles from Duke University and its master-planned marriage of Gothic elegance and academic excellence, North Carolina Central, a rambling red-brick, historically black institution, is across the tracks, across the highway, across an immeasurable cultural divide. Or so goes the armchair anthropology.

Yet North Carolina Central is also engaged in an ambitious push to enhance its academics and its campus, to remake its image and its mission. At least $121 million in state spending in the last six years has brought new law and science buildings and dormitories, and more projects are planned.

The university is aggressively recruiting top minority students — sometimes competing for them against Duke — and pursuing a niche in biotechnology, hoping to take advantage of its location here next to Research Triangle Park. Enrollment is up to about 8,200, compared with about 5,400 just five years ago. Aspirations have risen, too.

Now, with the universities uncomfortably linked by a North Carolina Central student's accusations that she was raped by members of Duke's lacrosse team, which had hired her as an exotic dancer for a party, some officials, alumni and students at North Carolina Central say perceptions that their school is a struggling academic afterthought in Durham may be the hardest thing to change.

I can't argue that it is worth it, but 28% graduate, which is better than them NOT graduating. Maybe the other 72% learn SOMETHING while they are there. I do favor offering the ability to better onself to as many people as are willing and able, because it ultimately benefits not only those who graduate, but also the rest of us who benefit from the abilities gained while they are in school, hopefully translated into actual economic betterment.

-----My point is that those colleges don't exist just because of a separatist whim, but because they were necessary prior to integration if a black person wanted to go to college in the South. Today they are anachronisms, but it's not like whites can't apply to and attend a HBCU if they so choose.-----

Okay. I do understand that whites can attend. However, the racial designation "historically BLACK" does imply that whites are less welcome than blacks, and the school even boasts that it "is aggressively recruiting top minority students".

Ya think anyone would get riled if Duke boasted that it aggressively recruits top white students?

Do you suppose anyone would be upset if we called Duke a Historically White University (which, BTW, IT IS)?

Gee, call me crazy, but...I have a strange feeling there would be accusations that the title HWU (Hist. White Univ.)is RACIST because it implies that non-whites are less welcome than whites...

But keep in mind that the so-called victim's father spoke against the NBPP getting involved with this (per FNC).

I wonder how much the 'race pimps' or 'black leaders' owe their 'positions' to grassroots black support and how much to liberal media quick to put them on TV. I don't think the black community necessarily 'chose' them. I think the media chose them.

I don't think the black community necessarily 'chose' them. I think the media chose them.

Exactly. I'll say it again: I thought we on the Right were distrustful of the MSM and what it says. Not all of us, apparently.

Oak I live in NJ. Ive had the blacks here accuse me of my granparents being slave owners. Im second generation. My grandparents had it tough when they came over legally. The Irish side had it rough and the Slavic side were farmers and miners. However my family is still blamed for slavery. Go figure. Ive always thought if you wanted to go to college you saved, got scholarships or were lucky enough to have parents who could pay for you. People whine too much and expect free rides. And the outcry from the blacks over this rape amazes me somewhat. They have condemned these guys before a trial. On MTV they glorify thug life and being pimps. If they want to go to decent colleges then dont buy the brand new cars and expensive clothes, and go to school. I am amazed at the brand new expensive cars you can see parked in the projects. I wish theyd get over the slavery BS, their own tribes sold many of them.I told one guy, you could still be in Africa and not driving your lexus and living your thug life. I think we need to dig up some cases where blacks raped white girls and compare them. This whole thing reeks.

Pandoraou812..

HUGE double standard, I'll say that. How many white people struggled through school at some point? It's a myth, an urban legend that white people go to expensive schools and don't work, etc, etc.

Many times, the white people that did go to good schools and never had to work are the ones that believe and perpetuate the idea that blacks are being held back by sub-standard schools or have too difficult a money situation to succeed in college.

I think they may not have been exposed to enough of life to realize people of all stripes have struggled when they were young - or at some point.

As to the way some blacks treat you, no one talks about black racism, bigotry, or bias. It's not an acceptable subject even here - sometimes.

The student objected complaining that was not fair because of all the effort that was put into the project

This reminds me of the many hours spent studying every day in high school by the typical student admitted to Duke. This may not be the case with the typical student admitted to the other school. With the same tremendous pre-college effort, perhaps they would have been at Duke too. It is highly endowed and has much scholarship money.

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