Every single one of these people should have been fired.
An Open Letter to the Duke Community In the spring of 2006, the Duke community was rocked by terrible news. We heard that a woman hired to perform at a party thrown by our lacrosse team had accused members of the team of raping her. Neighbors, we were told, heard racial epithets called out at the woman as she departed the party. The criminal proceedings and the media frenzy which followed are perhaps beginning to wind down. For us at Duke, the issues raised by the incident, and by our community's responses to it, are not. In April, a group of Duke faculty members published an advertisement in The Chronicle. The ad, titled "What does a Social Disaster Sound Like?" was mostly a compilation of statements made by Duke students in response to the incident and its immediate aftermath. This ad has figured in many discussions of the event and of the University's response. It has been broadly, and often intentionally, misread. We urge everyone to read the original ad, available at http://listening.nfshost.com/listening.htm. We have. Some of us were among the ad's signers. The ad has been read as a comment on the alleged rape, the team party, or the specific students accused. Worse, it has been read as rendering a judgment in the case. We understand the ad instead as a call to action on important, longstanding issues on and around our campus, an attempt to channel the attention generated by the incident to addressing these. We reject all attempts to try the case outside the courts, and stand firmly by the principle of the presumption of innocence. As a statement about campus culture, the ad deplores a "Social Disaster," as described in the student statements, which feature racism, segregation, isolation, and sexism as ongoing problems before the scandal broke, exacerbated by the heightened tensions in its immediate aftermath. The disaster is the atmosphere that allows sexism, racism, and sexual violence to be so prevalent on campus. The ad's statement that the problem "won't end with what the police say or the court decides" is as clearly true now as it was then. Whatever its conclusions, the legal process will not resolve these problems. The ad thanked "the students speaking individually and...the protesters making collective noise." We do not endorse every demonstration that took place at the time. We appreciate the efforts of those who used the attention the incident generated to raise issues of discrimination and violence. There have been public calls to the authors to retract the ad or apologize for it, as well as calls for action against them and attacks on their character. We reject all of these. We think the ad's authors were right to give voice to the students quoted, whose suffering is real. We also acknowledge the pain that has been generated by what we believe is a misperception that the authors of the ad prejudged the rape case. We stand by the claim that issues of race and sexual violence on campus are real, and we join the ad's call to all of us at Duke to do something about this. We hope that the Duke community will emerge from this tragedy as a better place for all of us to live, study, and work.
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1. Stan Abe - Art, Art History, and Visual Studies 2. Benjamin Albers - University Writing Program 3. Anne Allison - Cultural Anthropology 4. Srinivas Aravamudan - English 5. Houston Baker - English and African & African-American Studies 6. Lee Baker - Cultural Anthropology 7. Christine Beaule - University Writing Program 8. Sarah Beckwith - English 9. Paul Berliner - Music 10. Connie Blackmore - African & African-American Studies 11. Jessica Boa - Religion & University Writing Program 12. Mary T. Boatwright - Classical Studies 13. Silvia Boero - Romance Studies 14. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva - Sociology 15. Matthew Brim - University Writing Program 16. William Chafe - History 17. Leo Ching - Asian & African Languages 18. Rom Coles - Political Science 19. Miriam Cooke - Asian & African Languages 20. Michaeline Crichlow - African & African-American Studies 21. Kim Curtis - Political Science 22. Leslie Damasceno - Romance Studies 23. Cathy Davidson - English 24. Sarah Deutsch - History 25. Ariel Dorfman - Literature & Latin American Studies 26. Laura Edwards - History 27. Grant Farred - Literature 28. Luciana Fellini - Romance Studies 29. Mary McClintock Fulkerson - Divinity School 30. Esther Gabara - Romance Studies 31. Raymond Gavins - History 32. Meg Greer - Romance Studies 33. Thavolia Glymph - History 34. Michael Hardt - Literature 35. Joseph Harris - University Writing Program 36. Karla Holloway - English 37. Bayo Holsey - African & African-American Studies 38. Mary Hovsepian - Sociology 39. Sherman James - Public Policy 40. Alice Kaplan - Literature 41. Keval Kaur Khalsa - Dance Program 42. Ranjana Khanna - English 43. Ashley King - Romance Studies 44. Claudia Koonz - History 45. Peter Lasch - Art, Art History 46. Dan A. Lee - Math 47. Pat Leighten - Art, Art History, and Visual Studies 48. Frank Lentricchia - Literature 49. Caroline Light - Institute for Critical U.S. Studies 50. Marcy Litle - Comparative Area Studies 51. Ralph Litzinger - Cultural Anthropology 52. Michele Longino - Romance Studies 53. Wahneema Lubiano-African & African-American Studies and Lit 54. Kenneth Maffitt - History 55. Jason Mahn - University Writing Program 56. Anne-Maria Makhulu - African & African-American Studies 57. Lisa Mason - Surgical Unit-2100 58. Paula McClain - Political Science 59. Louise Meintjes - Music 60. Walter Mignolo - Literature and Romance Studies 61. Alberto Moreiras - Romance Studies 62. Mark Anthony Neal - African & African-American Studies 63. Diane Nelson - Cultural Anthropology 64. Jolie Olcott - History 65. Liliana Parades - Romance Studies 66. Charles Payne - African & African-American Studies and History 67. Charlotte Pierce-Baker - Women's Studies 68. Wilma Pebles-Wilkins 69. Arlie Petters - Math 70. Ronen Plesser - Physics 71. Jan Radway - Literature 72. Tom Rankin - Center for Documentary Studies 73. Marcia Rego - University Writing Program 74. Deborah S. Reisinger - Romance Studies 75. Alex Rosenberg - Philosophy 76. Kathy Rudy - Women's Studies 77. Marc Schachter - English 78. Laurie Shannon - English 79. Pete Sigal - History 80. Irene Silverblatt - Cultural Anthropology 81. Fiona Somerset - English 82. Rebecca Stein - Cultural Anthropology 83. Susan Thorne - History 84. Antonio Viego - Literature 85. Teresa Vilaros - Romance Studies 86. Priscilla Wald - English 87. Maurice Wallace - English and African & African-American Studies 88. David Wong - Philosophy
