I remember submitting a column during the second semester of my freshman year to then-editorial page editor of The Chronicle Amy Reed. The column took a typical freshman perspective of the University in asking why we never protest anything. I had just witnessed my first "Take Back the Night" and meanwhile, producers of "The Program" were ravaging the quad, essentially taking it for themselves. I remember calling on my peers to forget about taking back the night--let's take back our campus.
Amy, with whom I later became close friends, never spoke to me about the column. I assume she either hated it or felt it was too critical--it was never published.
I am now managing editor of the newspaper and obtaining space on The Chronicle's editorial pages is, in a word, easier. The issue that concerns me, however, has not become any easier. That is, protests are still very rare, but my take on the problem is now somewhat different. The perhaps jaded, perhaps racially laden idea I now bring to the editorial pages is this: Whites protest nothing.
Well, maybe that's too harsh. Maybe I should say that straight, white males protest nothing. But even still, if I were to limit my purview to Duke's campus, I could probably say all straight whites protest nothing, save a few institutionalized causes such as "Take Back the Night." I remove the homosexual population from the equation because I have seen the Duke Gay Bisexual and Lesbian Association make great strides, with limited resources, in changing University policy.
That aside, can you think of the last time the majority group on campus banded together to fight for a cause? I can't. I can think of numerous times minority groups did so, the most recent one being President Nan Keohane's dissolution of the highest ranking minority post at the University. Other examples, such as Spectrum's "We want a real education" push or the minority-dominated protest of the University's failure to meet its stated goal of one black faculty member for each department, clearly come to mind.
What comes to mind when the issue is thrust into a majority context? The too-little, too-late signature compilation concerning the Timothy Lomperis tenure battle; and, lest I forget, that little signature-gathering ordeal last summer asking Coach K to stay at Duke.
The only real organized effort I can remember was done by a group calling themselves Students with an Alternative Vision for East, who last year made headlines asking administrators to retain upperclassmen on East Campus--and, in the end, we all know how fruitful that protest became.
Housing is actually the perfect issue to illustrate my contention. Walking around campus, one constantly hears complaints about the future of residential life: The administration hates selective housing, North Campus is a fate worse than hell, the University cannot force us to live on campus for three years--and the list goes on. But has anyone done anything about it? Go back even further, did students do anything organized throughout the entire debate?
Of course, many students sent e-mail to Keohane and a few of the more active undergraduates did a little lobbying, but nothing organized. If so many students are disappointed, why not protest?
Several arguments surface as to why the majority fails to counter effectively a policy it deems wrong or disappointing. Perhaps the most obvious one uses the phrase "typical Duke apathy" as its core. Given the fact that some groups have organized in the past, this argument ceases to hold much water. What I also fail to comprehend is how one could write off a student's ability to protest based on a so-called institutionalized attitude. Is it possible that as Duke students, the white majority has become so conditioned to be complacent, that they fail to care enough about any issue to act on it? I would doubt it.
A second argument that might be raised would focus on students' hectic schedules, which do not allow for time to organize a protest. If the issue is important enough, however, you can make time. The recent sit-in responding to Keohane's decision to dissolve the post of University vice president and vice provost had students, primarily black, stationing themselves in the President's Office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily until a vice-presidential post was restored. Organized time management solves the problem of hectic schedules.
The third, and perhaps most intellectual, argument says that straight, white men need not concern themselves with protesting because, as the majority nothing can ever threaten us. The logic most consistently focuses on WASPs and centers on the fact that any minority can say anything they want about a WASP, and in the end, the comment can be rendered meaningless, for the WASP has power and the minority does not. Similarly, the logic can be extended to say that because the WASP has long-term power, an institutional policy will never have enough of an effect to engender a protest.
The argument remains insufficient, however, in that it neglects a WASP's (or any other hegemonic group's) ability to care about an issue enough to do something about it. Power may corrupt, but I fail to see how it can create spineless, apathetic, complacent beings who never learn to be activists in any capacity. Maybe that's my naive freshman perspective resurfacing, but I'd like to think that some group of people, beside minorities, care enough about their well-being to collectively take issue with something. Then again, maybe Amy Reed decided not publish my ideas for a reason. I hope not.
Russ Freyman is a Trinity junior and managing editor of The Chronicle.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.