K-ville tenters unfairly left out in cold

We are writing this at half time of the Duke-Carolina basketball game-when we should be sitting in Cameron Indoor Stadium with our friends. We are members of Tent 189 and have been camping out for this game since Thursday morning. We realize that the members of our tent have not been camping out as long as many other students, but we put our lives on hold for four days because of our dedication to Duke basketball. DSG officials guaranteed that we would get into the game by allowing us to set up our tent while turning away other prospective campers on Thursday. We would have much rather heard that we may not be able to get into the game when we began camping Thursday morning, but instead, our group and about 60 other campers were informed that Cameron was filled to capacity when we got up to the door at around 3:00 today.

As we were told that we would not get into the game, DSG representatives turned their back on us as they went into the game themselves. We feel that what has happened to us is very wrong! When it comes down to it, all of the campaign slogans about caring for and wanting to help the students are lies. The representatives really did not care that we did not get into the game today and that we have displaced our lives for the past four days. They turned their backs on us and gave up. They did not even offer us an explanation for their mistake. They were more concerned about getting into the game themselves and all they could say to us was "Sorry."

DSG has been very irresponsible with its tent policy. They failed to communicate properly with the fire marshal and tried to place the blame on him when the problem occurred. The problem was clearly their fault because they did not limit the number of tents correctly. DSG needs to review their policies on tenting in order to avoid this situation in the future.

The behavior of DSG is unacceptable and they need to remedy the situation. No student deserves to go through the disappointment and inconvenience that we have gone through. DSG owed something to the students who have suffered from this situation and they need to take preventative measures to make sure that it never happens again.

David Hoffman

Trinity '97

Amani Redd

Trinity '99