In a throwback to the Vietnam War era, when anti-war protests and political debate were ever-present, the intensifying war in Iraq has become the major topic of discussion and activity on campus.
From tight campus security and panel discussions to demonstrations and graffiti, administrators, students, faculty members and other community members are voicing their opinions on and dealing with the United States' military action in a variety of manners.
Over the weekend, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask announced a scaling back of campus security restrictions announced last Wednesday--which at the time included limited vehicular access to the core of the campus, locked doors on buildings earlier in the evening and the requirement of Duke community members to carry their DukeCards.
"We are now eliminating the vehicle checkposts except in a few critical locations," Trask said in a statement. "However, we continue to ask members of the Duke community to raise their own level of awareness and report anything suspicious to the Duke police."
Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta sent an e-mail of his own to all students Sunday, detailing measures the University will take if the government escalates the nation's security status from Code Orange to Code Red. Those efforts include:
-- Access controls to the core of campus, like those late last week, will be instituted.
-- Student Affairs will open a communications center that can be accessed through 681-3200, where staff will respond to questions from students and their families about events on campus and subsequent plans for any campus actions.
-- Television viewing sites will be established in the following locations that will be opened and staffed for at least the first 48 hours following a Code Red designation: Griffith Film Theater, The Great Hall, the Marketplace, the Fox Student Center at the Fuqua School of Business and the Love Auditorium in the Levine Science Research Center.
Moneta asked that students share the e-mail with their families by forwarding or reading it to them.
Amidst the security measures, a number of debates, forums and lectures have been scheduled for the next several weeks to discuss the war in Iraq.
Tonight, some of Duke's biggest names in foreign policy, civil-military relations and political philosophy will take on the issue in an 8 p.m. forum in Room 111 of the Biological Sciences Building.
Provost Peter Lange will serve as moderator for the panel that features Romand Coles, associate professor of political science, who teaches political philosophy and specializes in civil society and social movements; Peter Feaver, professor of political science who between 1993 and 1994 served as director for defense policy and arms control on the National Security Council at the White House; Bruce Jentleson, director of the Sanford Institute of Public Policy who served as a senior outside foreign policy adviser to former vice president Al Gore; and Robert Keohane, James B. Duke professor of political science and a leading international relations scholar who is an expert on international institutions and state policies toward such institutions.
At the Washington Duke Inn April 10 and 11, Duke's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security will co-sponsor a conference on "Confronting Iraq: Legal and Policy Considerations." The event will explore issues related to the potential hostilities and aftermath, including weapons inspections; the Arab-Israeli conflict and overall stability in the region; whether it is essential that any new regime established following military action be a democracy; and whether the United States or the United Nations should pursue war crimes.
The conference participants include Dean McGrath, deputy chief of staff to the vice president of the United States; Kenneth Pollack, senior fellow and deputy directory for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations; Terence Taylor, president and executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies; Scott Carpenter, deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor at the U.S. State Department; and Tim Trevan, a former UNSCOM weapons inspector.
Other events this week include:
-- Author and progressive political analyst Michael Parenti, author of "The Terrorism Trap," will give a lecture titled "Global Empire, War & Democracy," as part of the International Association and International House's "Around the World in Seven Days" event. The lecture will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Physics Building room 114.
-- History professor Kristen Neuschel will deliver the lecture, "The Surprising History of Women at War," at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 26 in the White Lecture Hall.
In a follow-up to Thursday's walkout--in which several hundred demonstrators converged in front of the Chapel to hold an anti-war protest--about 40 students will continue arguing their cause with a "dying-in" at the West Campus bus stop today from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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