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(10/28/15 5:42am)
In recent weeks, thousands of South African college students protested across the country against the since-frozen tuition hikes of up to 10 percent in the country's university system. The protests were the largest organization of student activists since the 1976 Soweto uprisings against the imposition of Afrikaans as the local school language. Today, students rally against institutionalized exclusionary practices of their country’s higher education system. The hikes exacerbated the racial and income inequality that have persisted since theend of formal apartheid in 1994 by pricing many lower-class individuals out of the education widely considered key to economic mobility. Students continue to protest because it remains to be seen whether the resolution will lead to a long-term solution in which costs actually fall to more accessible levels. While South African students protest, the international community and other college students look on with varying levels of support and concern.
(10/27/15 5:49am)
As reluctant as Duke students may be to admit it, the visceral act of hate last Friday is simply the most recent in a string of aggravating episodes. In yesterday’s editorial, we discussed Duke’s racial history and the responsibility the University has to create a campus that not only includes but also values people of color. Today we evaluate the University’s response to this incident and provide steps forward.
(10/26/15 5:41am)
On Friday, our campus was again thrust into turmoil when a poster advertising the upcoming visit of #BlackLivesMatter founder Patrisse Cullors was defaced with a racial slur. This troubling event occurred on the heels of another racially charged display at Duke when a noose was hung in April. Following the noose incident, administrators and student leaders spoke about the need to overcome these acts, and students debated for weeks the implications, guilt and rage engendered across campus. Responses to last Friday’s event have repeated the same language, but have left us confused about what effective steps have been taken to improve race relations at Duke.
(10/23/15 4:02am)
Last week, Countdown to Craziness showcased our men’s basketball team with the same bright lights and hype music used every year to get fans ready for the upcoming season. This year, besides highlighting our team and its new first-year members, we believe it also gave us a glimpse into the exact character of our student body’s enthusiasm for sports. Namely, our spirit is hardly school spirit and we suffer huge deficiencies in supporting women’s sports and sports that are not basketball and, occasionally, football.
(10/22/15 4:30am)
Two weeks ago, the European Court of Justice ruled on the case Maximilian Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner. The case dealt with safe harbor treaties that allowed companies like Facebook and Google to easily transfer users’ digital information across the Atlantic despite legal frameworks differing between the US and European countries. The decision gave Facebook and other American companies an ultimatum: adhere to privacy laws in individual European countries or stop operating in the European Union. Europe has long taken a different approach to privacy than the US with several constitutions including a right to be forgotten with laws defending the real and digital privacy rights of citizens. In light of this decision, Americans ought to take a look at our own views on privacy and how they have become complacent or indifferent at best.
(10/21/15 5:37am)
For University of Missouri’s student association president, Payton Head, or USC’s student body president, Rini Sampath, being heads of prestigious associations did not stop them from facing racism. A few weeks ago, both their stories went viral. Head shared his harassment by the n-word and racial slurs. For Sampath, ‘liberal’ SoCal’s image proved itself wrong when a fellow student leaned out of a fraternity house window and shouted an expletive remark about her and her Indian race before hurling a drink at her.
(10/20/15 5:35am)
Last month California passed a law requiring universities to use affirmative consent standards in cases of sexual assault. Under a standard of affirmative consent, better known as “yes means yes,” both parties must clearly, knowingly and voluntarily agree to engage in sexual activity. The law is a departure from the previous norm of “no means no,” the complement of this policy. More than 1,400 universities have incorporated affirmative consent into their policies, and Duke’s own sexual misconduct policy defines consent as “an affirmative decision to engage in mutually acceptable sexual activity given by clear actions or words.” While many find this definition intuitive, some students find it awkward and serious critics point to issues it creates with quasi-legal burdens of proof.
(10/19/15 4:04am)
This semester, Northwestern University introduced a new online course on reproductive and sexual health to provide students with accurate and accessible information they may be lacking. First-year students across the country have varying degrees of knowledge on sex, reproduction and pleasure when they enter college because of variation in middle and high school sexual education components. Janie Long, former director of the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, has noted that Duke students are not an exception to this knowledge gap. When youths between 15 and 24 years account for almost half of all STDs reported in the United States, the importance of sexual health education cannot be understated.We hope to see Duke institute a similar health course or program in the style of AlcoholEDU and Haven.
(10/16/15 4:27pm)
At some point during the countless hours we spend in the depths of Perkins during the midterm season, our wandering minds contemplate in one way or another the purpose of our university education. The time we work on classes, research, extracurricular interests and the like all cohere to become an increasingly in-focus and anxiety-inducing picture of what we want our futures to be. Today we turn to an interpretation of Duke’s mission for students and the realities those students face in post-graduation plans.
(10/15/15 4:50am)
Today, there is no shortage of American pundits who love to denounce the PC culture and discuss the death of free speech on college campuses. While a debate is to be had, what many campus-free-speech crusaders fail to acknowledge is how such measures are often selective, resisting speaking truth to power such as criticisms of college race relations or of Israel and Palestine.
(10/14/15 4:45am)
Yesterday’s first Democratic primary debate provided a stark contrast to the previous two Republican debates. In the former, we saw a largely coherent stage of candidates. Helped by the fact that only five politicians were featured in CNN’s debate, the expectation for the first Democratic debate was that it would be more about substantive platform nuances and track records as candidates tried to distinguish themselves. On the other hand, the first Republican debate saw a packed stage of 17 candidates split across two time slots, a huge field that only narrowed by two in the month and a half leading up to the second debate last month. Confusion in the GOP over who their eventual nominee will be and more pressingly over what the party stands for will be catastrophic for the party, costing them elections, donors and their long-term voter base.
(10/09/15 4:05am)
Trigger warnings have come under fire this year. In the Atlantic’s article, The Coddling of the American Mind, which takes on collegiate political correctness and “vindictive protectiveness,” trigger warnings are said to catastrophize educationally valuable content. Others describe a negative chilling effect on students who begin to censor themselves unduly in a college environment where safe spaces are being pushed. Today we look to clarify the motivations and effects of trigger warnings in order to resolve the concerns for students who have had traumatizing experiences and those for preserving educational discourse.
(10/08/15 4:01am)
In mid-September, Duke United Students Against Sweatshops presented a petition to President Brodhead’s office asking that administration remain neutral as contingent faculty unionize for better salaries and job security. Contingent faculty members are those professors hired for non-tenure track positions, often on year-to-year contracts. At Duke, a contingent faculty member earns about $57,000 a year, many thousands of dollars more than the national median of $31,000 according to PayScale Human Capital. While we grant that these professors have lower salaries and job security than tenured and tenure track professors, we nonetheless believe the campaign has much more groundwork to lay before it can begin to make demands about the status quo.
(10/07/15 4:01am)
North Carolina will hold its municipal elections on November 3 in which residents will elect governing officials for the cities, villages and towns of the state. Today, we encourage Duke students to register to vote to be able to participate in this and future North Carolina elections. In the run up to the election and next year’s national elections, students should find North Carolina polls to be an avenue for change in local politics and the state’s swing electoral college. Especially given the influence of Duke in Durham, our student body should feel a consequent need to acquaint and involve themselves in local affairs.
(10/06/15 4:39am)
Last Friday, hours after a man inflicted tragedy on an Oregon community college, County Sheriff John Hanlin used this statement to start a conversation on how the media should respond to mass shootings."I will not name the shooter. I will not give him the credit he probably sought prior to this horrific and cowardly act." Hanlin’s desire to not individually elevate the shooter was quickly thwarted. After this shooting, the media released the shooter’s name and began to try and construct the same narrative profile it did after Aurora, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston.
(10/05/15 4:05am)
Our hearts bend, but are they broken? We are saddened, but are we now also hopeless? On Friday, another American community, this time an Oregon community college, was terrorized by senseless violence as a man shot and killed nine people. This terror of guns and cultural violence now seems normalized. As the Washington Post notes, not a single calendar week has gone by in President Obama’s second term without a mass shooting in which four or more people are shot. We need to pick up the pieces and start a conversation that compels us to do better even as we feel resigned to the political status quo.
(10/02/15 6:18am)
Major news sources have been buzzing for years with updates on the military conflict in Syria and how it has been affecting the region since it began in 2011. More specifically, the Syrian refugee crisis has commanded the attention of leaders across the world, particularly in Europe, with estimates exceeding four million registered refugees. Doing our part, President Obama ordered this month that the ceiling for the number of refugees admitted to the United States be raised to 85,000. A problem of this size, shattering the worlds of millions of people and their families, deserves attention and aid as best can be offered.
(10/01/15 5:51am)
Earlier this month, Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield announced the forced resignation of current Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez. Reactions to Lopez’s tenure have been mixed. Positive responses mention the decrease in violent crime early in his career as well as outreach efforts like the Mental Health Outreach Unit and those towards the Hispanic community. Lopez, however, was often criticized for overseeing a department guilty of racial profiling, a number of high profile officer-involved shootings and deaths and an alarming spike in violent crime in the two years after the initial decrease.
(09/30/15 4:02am)
Duke Conversations is taking campus by storm. The program is a series of student-organized dinner discussions between groups of about 20 students and a faculty member host. Thus far in the semester 800 students signed up for the listserv. As reported earlier this month, faculty interest in hosting the dinners was also high with replies across the board, indicating faculty very much want to break bread with students.
(09/29/15 5:12am)
Yesterday, the Editorial Board discussed The Tab—a new campus publication—and the strong, visceral backlash it produced immediately after its launch. The publication and response reveal something similar; there exists an unsatisfied demand for a different type of social and political discourse at Duke, one that transcends the deep cleavages between communities on campus. Today, we tackle how discussions of social justice, intersectionality and related issues succeed and fail on campus and how we and the University are responsible for making conversations more accessible and productive.
