The patriarch Washington Duke gave us the title for this column: Pro Bono Publico.
Conscripted by the Confederacy, captured soon after by the Union and held as a POW until the Civil War ended, Duke headed back to North Carolina to pick up pieces of his life. Twice prematurely widowed, he gathered his four young children from relatives and trudged to his old homestead.
Legend maintains he had 50 cents in his pocket, possessed two blind mules and found a bale of tobacco to process for smoke, snuff and chaw. His daughter sewed cloth pouches and printed the motto "Pro Bono Publico" on each. The Duke brand got established quickly; the Surgeon General's report on health hazards was still a century away.
The column Pro Bono Publico will appear each Monday with a joint byline. We promise to be fair and principled, probative and informative, analytical and critical. Our focus will be university policy and governance, and readers can count on us to hold administrators' feet to the fire. That starts right now.
We regret that at the outset President Richard Brodhead has refused to grant us an interview. We explained in summertime e-mails we would be writing more about him and his administration than any other journalists, on campus or off.
John Burness, who recently retired as senior vice president for government affairs and public relations, replied that although Duke "has been more willing than other universities to engage with reporters," it is paradoxically not "in the University's interest" to speak with us, writers from the Duke community newspaper.
Burness's replacement, Michael Schoenfeld, quickly agreed-so quickly in fact that he did not bother to take office first nor exchange a single word with us.
As unsound as we often found Burness's judgment-remember a judge questioned, "Why would anybody be dumb enough to say what (Burness) did" about former lacrosse coach Mike Pressler-we are appalled by Schoenfeld's demonstrated lack of independent thought, not to mention his lack of respect for this newspaper.
Indeed, by signaling that he'll deal only with certain (read: ideologically friendly) Chronicle writers and not others, Schoenfeld has moved toward a brave new world on campus where access seems governed by how lavishly one praises Brodhead.
We've watched administrators building toward this Orwellian strain of thought-crime for several years. Step one has been the recurring release of misleading information.
A good example came when Burness challenged our column pointing out Duke's lack of dutiful observance on Memorial Day.
Burness maintained much was happening. He cited a hospital chapel that would remain open 24 hours per day-but whoops, we discovered it's open 24 hours every day. Burness also pointed to a ceremony in a Duke Hospital courtyard-but whoops, his own staff assigned this event no importance, no news release nor photograph, no listing in the online calendar. Asked to name the five highest University officials in attendance, Burness was not embarrassed at all to move silently to the next question.
More often than releasing mis-information, the Brodhead administration has simply clammed up, dismantling effective involvement in the affairs of the University.
-In his most important speech-a partial apology for disgraceful mishandling of the lacrosse hoax-Brodhead promised to convene a conference of universities to learn how Duke might be fairer and more honest with students facing criminal charges. Did this ever occur? Burness curtly replied no comment.
What a spectacle: The president of this university makes a public promise and columnists for the campus newspaper are unable to find out if he kept it!
-We've written Brodhead and his staff for more than two years about donors who specified that their endowments could only be used to benefit white people. Understand, please, that these donors had malice in their hearts and are unlike those of good will who restrict contributions so minorities can advance. Finally Duke took action, suing two donors to change the terms.
We should be proud of the Brodhead administration for this, but we cannot find the lawsuits and Burness would not tell us what court or even what state to search. He refused to furnish us with public documents from the litigation. Nor would he reveal if these two bigots are the full extent of the problem.
-The veterans' memorial wall, designed to pay tribute to students who gave their lives for our country, has not been updated in more than half a century. We've asked for ten months how many sons of Duke who fell in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq are not honored.
What a spectacle: We can't find out how many of our classmates paid the supreme sacrifice-because administrators know we will impale them with this documentation of their neglect.
In a larger sense, Brodhead did not deny us an interview. He denied it to you, our readers.
We believe you need a spectrum of information if you are to fulfill your responsibility as engaged students, faculty and alumni caring about and caring for Duke. We believe a university should be studied and scrutinized like any other institution in society. We believe in openness for its own sake. And we concur with the Supreme Court justice who wrote that sunlight disinfects.
Mr. Brodhead, be assured we'll knock on your door again, with dwindling hopes that in your fifth year we will see you burst from your cocoon, finally the colorful, consistent, courageous, accountable leader we expected.
Kristin Butler, Trinity '08, and Ed Rickards, Trinity '63 and Law '66, are both Duke alumni. Their column runs every Monday.
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