Posted on 08/25/2015 4:50:29 PM PDT by markomalley
Some members of the Duke University freshman class have refused to read “Fun Home,” a graphic novel depicting a young girl’s emergence as a lesbian accompanied by several sexually explicit drawings. School officials selected the book as required freshman summer reading.
Some Duke students don’t agree with the moral position advanced by the graphic novel’s author, Allison Bechdel.
“Duke did not seem to have people like me in mind,” incoming Duke freshman Brian Grasso told The Chronicle, the school’s student newspaper. “It was like Duke didn’t know I existed, which surprises me.”
Grasso is credited with starting the movement against the required book by utilizing the Duke Class of 2019 Facebook group.
The freshman objected to the book’s support and depiction of homosexual behavior, saying in his Facebook post that he felt he “would have to compromise [his] personal Christian moral beliefs to read it.”
Although he’s been the subject of a social media firestorm and many attacks via private messages on his Facebook page, Grasso told The Daily Caller in an email that he doesn’t regret his refusal, and has since published an opinion article in The Washington Post explaining in detail why he will not read the book.
After his post, other students quickly began showing support for Grasso. They posted similar moral objections to the summer reading requirement.
“I thought to myself, ‘what kind of school am I going to?'” student Elizabeth Snyder-Mounts said in a comment on the Facebook post.
“The nature of ‘Fun Home’ means that content that I might have consented to read in print now violates my conscience due to its pornographic nature,” Jeffrey Wubbenhorst, another freshman at Duke, added in an email to The Chronicle.
Bechdel’s graphic novel is focused on her family’s dysfunction. The adult comic book underscores the protagonist’s suicidal father and her own struggle with lesbianism.
“Fun Home” has been popular with college administrators in recent years and has been the center of controversy on campuses previously. At the College of Charleston, for example, officials spent around $39,000 buying up copies of the book to assign to 4,000 or so incoming 2013 freshmen students for required summer reading.
Some students at the taxpayer-funded South Carolina school refused to read the novel on moral grounds, citing pornographic scenes throughout the book. A group associated with the Family Research Council called for its removal from the summer reading list. The South Carolina House of Representatives later cut College of Charleston’s funding by $52,000, the cost of the book’s selection for summer reading.
Michael Schoenfeld, vice president of public affairs and governmental regulations at Duke, told CNN that school officials chose “Fun Home” because “it is a unique and moving book that transcends genres and explores issues that students are likely to confront.”
Sherry Zhang, a member of the book selection committee and co-chair of the first-year advisory counselor board, told The Chronicle that students are not required to read the summer reading assignment.
Since Monday morning, the Duke “Fun Home” rebellion has been trending on Facebook. More than 110,000 users have discussed the kerfuffle.
Jordan Hale, head of the book selection committee at Duke, did not return The Daily Caller’s request for comment.
Why does the South Carolina State Legislature put up with this?
They control the funding.
They control the funding for Duke?
I thought it was a private school.
Maybe because Duke is in N.C.
Graphic novel. Comic book
America is getting its voice. We never had reading homework for the summer. How did we ever make it?
Being forced to read porn is sexual abuse.
Sorry, you are of course correct.
Was thinking of the end of the article, where the SC legislature cut the budget at the College of Charleston but without being specific to the course.
Google 'Duke lacrosse'. That should answer your question.
Is this also Trump anti PC inspired maybe?
You should have been asking that before you applied.
Seems to be some disagreement over whether it is required or not required. Which is it?
Required reading is a comic book? Regardless the subject, that is pathetic.
Not Carolina, but tar heels...
So one of the admission standards for Duke is being able to read a comic book? And folks pay big bucks (yes, I know ‘bucks’ is politically incorrect, and I don’t care) for a Duke so-called ‘education’?
Duke is a private university. It was founded by Methodists and Quakers in 1838. In 1924 James Buchanan Duke, an industrialist with tobacco (American Tobacco Co) and electric power interests (Duke Power Company) gave the money to establish Duke University from Trinity College. Today it is the 8th largest research institution in the US. Richard Nixon obtained his law degree from Duke. Duke’s endowment in 2014 had a value of $7 billion.
Isn't "thinking to ones self", the only way to think? Thinking aloud is "talking".
This is the sort of stuff that has replaced traditional western literature and classics.
Its a slow process, but once we destroy our base in Western/Christian civilization, chaos will ensue and will be permanent.
They’ll probably get sued by a student for that sexual abuse.
This is what a college education has come to? Reading porn?
No wonder college grad can not find jobs. Who would want to hire them!
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