The independent news organization of Duke University
It is not my responsibility to identify accessibility issues, the thinking goes, because unlike disabled students I am independent, capable, and ultimately complete— illusions that we so desperately cling to within the culture of thriving and overachieving.
We can start by considering whether the term “borderline” has any sociocultural basis beyond a pejorative.
It saddens me to see that, although new administrators have come to Duke with new sets of promises, they have reverted to the same words, defenses, and strategies against recurrent student grievances.
The Duke Today article is a quintessential example of the institution’s infantilization of students, antagonism towards advocates, dismissal of constructive criticism, and to be frank, perpetuation of patriarchal defenses.
But in order for students to take consent to heart, they must first understand what makes wrongful sex wrong and undesirable sex undesirable, not the other way around.
We leave mentally ill students dealing with these awkward, confusing and intolerable feelings 24/7 on their own, without the peer support they so desperately need.