Racial uproar continues to boil

Ignited by the mistaken arrest of a black undergraduate student by two white Duke University Police Department officers in early April, and sustained by a chain of incidents and protests, the issue of race relations on campus has seized the attention of the University and compelled President Nan Keohane to devote "first-order attention" to the problem.

Three successive events in particular brought the race relations issue on campus to a head:

¥ the April 7 false arrest of Trinity freshman Calvin Harding at the Fuqua School of Business, where he was a work-study student;

¥ the latest issue of The Duke Review titled "The Gala Employee Bashing Issue," which characterized categories of predominantly black employees as lazy and incompetent;

¥ the April 16 article "Some Girls" in the Currents magazine insert of The Chronicle, a fictitious piece that portrayed a student's sex life in graphic terms.

On April 30, members of the black community responded to the trio of incidents with a silent march, protesting what they consider a lack of respect accorded to black members of the University community.

Then, last week, 20 black faculty members submitted to Keohane an emotionally charged, four-and-a-half-page letter expressing their outrage at DUPD's treatment of Harding and demanding the public revelation of the punishment handed down to the two officers.

"A tremendous error in judgment cannot be ameliorated merely by saying: 'We're sorry the police made a mistake,'" the letter read. "Neither is some vague reference to an unspecified punishment of the officers sufficient.... The cavalier dismissal of the incident by some, and the call for more tolerance with an implied plea for greater understanding will not solve the problem."

The meeting marks the first official step in the effort to stem the tide of racial unrest-initially triggered by the Harding episode-that has engulfed the campus during the past two months.

The Harding incident's aftermath

The mistaken arrest and handcuffing of Harding by two white officers provoked an immediate uproar over the racial components of the incident. Harding was unlawfully detained for a half-hour by the officers after another employee at the school falsely identified him as a suspect in a rash of robberies that had struck the school during the year. Harding filed a complaint with DUPD, which then conducted an internal investigation and concluded that although the officers had committed numerous procedural errors, their actions were not racially motivated. DUPD announced that the two officers received stiff punishments, but employee privacy protection laws prevent the public disclosure of the degree of the discipline.

"Those who are familiar with the case and sanctions will say categorically that they were appropriate to the severity of the violation, which in itself was a serious violation," said John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs.

Yet the incident and its aftermath still leave a bitter taste in the mouth of many who contest the findings of DUPD's investigation.

"Clearly, had Mr. Harding been white, he would not have been handcuffed, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out," said Kenny Williams, professor of English and a co-signer of the letter. "He was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing."

The authors of the letter to Keohane echo the sentiments of many who demand to know just how the officers were punished for such egregious behavior. Following the meeting with Keohane, Karla Holloway, director of the African and Afro-American Studies department and another co-signer of the letter, said that she expects some form of a public announcement soon regarding the disciplinary response of DUPD.

Trinity senior and Duke Student Government president Lino Marrero said the public deserves to learn the exact punishment doled out to the officers.

"I just want to tell Chief [Alana] Ennis and President Keohane straight out, you need to know how something is punished," he said. "We as students get kicked out of school if we violate the honor code; we know that's the punishment. We need to know what the punishment is for the officers' actions."

Burness cautioned, however, that although he understands the calls for public disclosure of the punishment, the confidentiality rules' importance must not be ignored. These same rules, he emphasized, also protect students, faculty and other University employees in various situations-including the tenure process.

"Privacy rules often put the University in a difficult position because it is bound by the confidentiality rule-it makes it difficult for the University to respond," he said. "Sometimes there is an enormous temptation to reveal the punishment, but the principle of privacy protection is what must govern, or else it's not much of a principle."

Ben Reese, cross-cultural relations officer in the Office of Institutional Equity, has been working for the past year to institute an "education and training initiative" for DUPD focused on "the issue of dealing with difference, primarily racial difference." He hopes to have the training initiative in place by early summer, noting that "the [Harding] incident has clearly impacted the timetable for the initiative."

Reese emphasized that the retraining program predated the Harding incident. Nevertheless, the timing of the entire situation-that DUPD is undergoing sensitivity training even as it discounted race as a factor in the Harding incident-still raises the eyebrows and the ire of many in the University community who dispute the police department's conclusions.

For Shavar Jeffries, Trinity '96 and a voting member of the Board of Trustees as a young trustee, the Harding episode points to the larger issue of stereotypes on campus and their role in creating very real and dangerous repercussions for those who are stereotyped. During his time as an undergraduate, Jeffries said, he reported to DUPD at least three incidents in which he felt white officers mistreated him because of his skin color.

"Duke needs to deal with the fact that these are not little isolated incidents-they happen all the time," said Jeffries, who is completing his first year at Columbia University School of Law. "I think if the University really cares about racial problems, they have to deconstruct the racialized thinking that people develop growing up in America. The stereotypes-like, I should not be on the basketball court because I do not look like a Duke student, or, Calvin Harding does not look like he belongs where he was-need to be deconstructed."

Campus publications

The matter of such perceived stereotypes concerning black members of the University community played a central role in two occurrences that immediately followed the mistaken arrest of Harding-The Duke Review's "Gala Employee Bashing Issue" and Currents' "Some Girls" piece.

The article on employee wages in the April issue of the Review, although it made no direct mention of race, contained strong racial undertones both in its cartoons and photographs as well as in its mocking tone of employees-such as housekeepers, food workers and bus drivers-of which blacks constitute the majority. Keohane denounced the Review's article as "tasteless" in her written report to the Board of Trustees last Friday.

"Some Girls" allegorically detailed the sexual activities of a female University student and her friend. As a result of the piece, Keohane noted in her written report, the two students left the University.

Keohane devoted the first two-and-a-half pages of her report to addressing the issue of race relations on campus.

"I cannot stress strongly enough the degree of pain these incidents have caused many at Duke," she wrote, "and particularly our African-American students and employees."

Burness said the three events, though individually unconnected, became bound by the similar ways in which the campus' black community responded to them.

"These are three distinct and separate incidents but are seen together," he said. "The question is, 'How do we put our heads together and shape a culture that makes this a more welcome atmosphere for the community?'"

Indeed, discovering an answer to that question has become-by virtue of the force of these most recent events and their aftermath-the University's foremost priority.

"It ranks right at the top," Burness said. "I think that clearly these three incidents have catalyzed a set of issues. They have drawn everybody's attention to issues that are more fundamental than the specific incidents at hand-in my judgment, that's very healthy."

The protest and the letter

The black community expressed its outrage over the recent string of events by conducting an hour-long silent protest on April 30, the last day of classes. Nearly 200 people gathered in silence on the Chapel steps and marched to the Allen Building and through its halls. The message, indicated by the badges worn by protesters, comprised only two words: "Respect Me."

"Respect has to be all the time," said Danielle Turnipseed, Trinity '97 and a co-organizer of the protest. "We want respect from the administration on any and all concerns, be it residential life, the curriculum or whatever.... We've had our space taken away by the administration slowly but surely-space to gather and be comfortable, space to be seen and be respected by the University."

Chinikqua Maddox, Trinity '97 and another co-organizer of the protest, cited the University's continuing failure to appoint a full-time director of the Mary Lou Williams Center following Ed Hill's death in October 1995 as a "little thing, [but] something the University could do to help improve the atmosphere on campus."

Takcus Nesbit, Trinity '97 and immediate-past president of DSG, echoed Maddox's call for the appointment of a director in his final address to the Board of Trustees, as did Trinity junior Tobie Wilder, Black Student Alliance president, in a letter he submitted to the board.

"We see this time period as a major crossroads to address the issues that really have not been addressed-issues that have been evaded since the 60 Minutes piece [in 1993]," Wilder said.

Early last week, following the silent protest, the 20 black professors sent their letter to President Keohane conveying the solidarity of the campus' black community, which was poignantly illustrated by the letter's concluding line: "Indeed, the handcuffing of Calvin Harding handcuffed us all."

Solving the problem

Dedicating a considerable portion of her trustees reports to articulating the need for substantial improvement in race relations, Keohane said, reveals her "first-order attention to the issue." The Student Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees unanimously endorsed Keohane's call for achieving "cultural harmony" on campus. And the Monday meeting with the concerned black faculty members, she said, was a significant step toward ameliorating the status of race relations.

"We will be developing strategic plans this summer and also continuing to 'raise our own consciousness' in this area," she said.

The move from discussion to constructive action, however, remains a primary and looming challenge for the University.

"You have to do more than just say, 'We have racial problems'-there has been a lot of talk for a lot of time," Jeffries said. "If the University doesn't act, they're saying to African-American students that 'We really don't give a damn.' Talk is cheap. If we care about these issues, then we have to act-talk is rhetoric, and rhetoric only goes so far."