This year marks the 30th anniversary of African-American students at Duke. The University has plans in the making for celebrations--honorary dinners, commemorative plays and tens of thousands of dollars at the disposal of the provost's office for 30th anniversary events. With all this celebration, it seems appropriate to take a look at these past 30 years and assess the progress Duke has yet to achieve.
As early as the 1950s, the Divinity School began petitioning the Board of Trustees and the administration for permission to admit African-American students. Finally, in 1963, the University's Board of Trustees voted to allow African-American students into this institution. By 1967 these students were fed up with being mistreated, misjudged, discriminated against and ignored. They took over the Allen Building in an effort to claim their rights of recognition and equal treatment.
Two decades later, in 1988, African-American students, along with students of all races, were once again forced into activism. They mobilized to protest the gross under-representation of African-American faculty at Duke. As a result, the Academic Council graciously proposed the document now referred to as the Black Faculty Initiative.
In 1993, the assessment of departmental and university efforts to comply with the BFI showed that in most departments virtually nothing had been done. The BFI, the document that seemed to be a leap in the true direction of the Duke Vision, has shown itself to be full of loopholes, ambiguities and empty promises. As this semester commences, one thing is certain --Duke can most definitely play the game, but at this rate we won't win.
When I was a little girl, I remember laughing at the cartoon villains with the shifty coal black eyes who looked sweet and innocent one minute, sinister and ungodly the next. I'm not laughing now. The evil villain in the kingdom has been replaced by the University administration in the Gothic Wonderland. Shifty eyes have been replaced with empty documents. The only things sweet and innocent in this kingdom are the unsuspecting freshmen Duke reels in with tales of academic excellence, institutional grandeur and cultural diversity.
What? Hypocrisy at Duke?
Fellow students, I call your attention to Duke's threats to boycott a college fair at Westminster School in Atlanta, Georgia. Duke University, on the eve of the BFI deadline, dares to slight another institution because of its discriminatory faculty hiring practices!
What about our flailing Afro-American studies program? Duke claims to be the "Ivy League" school of the South; supposedly we compete for students and recognition with schools like Harvard and Stanford. In reality, we can't compete with half the average colleges in this country because they have African-American Studies Departments and we don't.
If Duke is so wonderful, why is our retention rate of minority faculty so low? Shouldn't a university that loses 14 of 19 faculty of one particular ethnicity in less than five years take a good hard look at its practices and support systems? Duke administrators say no; the rest of the academic world disagrees and competing universities gain from our losses. The University hands us multi-culturalism by the barrelful, yet what attempts does it make to diversify itself?
After 30 years, it is evident that African-American students are present here, are flourishing here, and plan to stay here--but that is no cause for complacency. Duke is one of the best schools in this country, but it is foolish to believe that we will remain so if we can't attract and retain the top students and faculty of every ethnicity to our institution.
This year the University will have the opportunity and resources to look back on its history of ethnic diversity, decide what did and did not work and what should never have been considered at all. To deny that there are still racial problems, prejudices and barriers on this campus is to commit institutional suicide--Duke not only kills itself, but also those members of its community whom it fails to serve.
True enough, African-Americans have been on this campus for 30 years and we have a lot to show for it. True enough, the University has made strides in the direction of ethnic diversity. But it is also true that African-Americans students should have a lot more to show for our 30 years and that the University should have made much bigger strides. No person--or institution--is perfect. I accept that as a fact, but not as an excuse.
Duke University, as one of the leading educational institutions in the country, needs to set itself up as an example to all. This anniversary should commemorate the realization that though we have come far, we still have far to go. We as students need to take this opportunity to grow and realize our own shortcomings in the quest for multi-culturalism as well because ultimately Duke will supply only if we demand.
Happy Anniversary.
Tonya Matthews is an Engineering sophomore.
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