The University made a huge misstep by reversing its decision to allow students to recite the adhan from the Chapel Tower before Friday prayers. Allowing the call to prayer was wise, empathetic and progressive. Granted, it subjected us all to hysterical insensitivity from the likes of Franklin Graham and Fox News, but if the University had stopped there, the good would have ultimately outweighed the bad. As it happened, in the face of this opposition, the University almost immediately decided to cancel the call to prayer, wiping out all gains and capitulating to intolerance and Islamophobia and thereby undermining the University's claim to be, in the worlds of Michael Schoenfeld vice president for public affairs and government relations, "an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus."
There may be some wisdom for the school and its students in avoiding a protracted fight with the forces of hatred, since they are more numerous, more obstreperous, and more powerful than Duke's Muslim community. Yet I would assume that anyone with some small degree of foresight could have seen that any high profile effort to recognize—much less accommodate—Islam at Duke would awaken the lightly slumbering giant of intolerance, as has been the case so many other times at other institutions over the past decade and a half. Reversing your position in light of such a response isn't just cutting your losses, it's digging into your pockets and handing over your inheritance.
The conclusion I drew from my years at the University is that the best version of Duke is one in which its students are welcomed, feel safe and can freely express their ideals, personalities, beliefs and faith without undue obloquy. I think this decision will prevent Duke from achieving that goal, while emboldening those who oppose it.
Frank Holleman
T'09
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