Duke students call for open dialogue on campus

Eight miles down Tobacco Road, a group of students hope to diversify campus dialogue about societal injustices — joining similar movements at schools like Princeton University.

Ian Chang, a founding member of the coalition, said the Duke student body’s unwillingness to hear dissenting voices is a cause for frustration. Chang said he has even seen students dispose of issues of The Chronicle — the school’s student newspaper — that they disagree with.

“We all felt that when we stepped on campus there was a climate that focused too much on identity politics and those issues, more than reasoned arguments and logic,” Chang said.

The group penned an open letter to Duke President Richard Brodhead in The Chronicle, in which they allege students with minority opinions on campus have been ostracized for lacking “political correct(ness).”

The coalition takes issue with the conflation of distinct events but does not aim to minimize the importance of social injustices, according to the group’s letter.

“When the n-word is sprayed across a Black Lives Matter poster, we think that is a horrible thing that should not exist in any academic climate,” Chang said.

He said he hopes the movement will spread to other university campuses.

Frank Pray, chairperson of the UNC College Republicans, said a liberal ideology prevails at UNC. Pray cited a study by the Carolina Review, which concluded four-fifths of UNC professors surveyed through 9 departments are Democratic voters.

A lack of competing ideologies at UNC prevents exposure to other political views and can work to silence dissenting opinions, he said.

“Activists will say that ‘if you hold a viewpoint other than my own, then you are a bad person,’ and that is very dangerous,” Pray said. “It’s anti-free speech.”

Jay Schalin, director of policy analysis at the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, said academia as a whole is rooted in liberalism.

“There is a very serious generational shift towards a one-sided view of the world,” he said.

Schalin said radical activism is defining universities’ definitions of political correctness.

“I think it comes from a lifetime of being told (that) shouting loud will get you what you want,” he said.

Historical minorities, which are often the loudest demonstrators on UNC and Duke’s campuses, are not actually marginalized, Schalin said. They are among the most dominant influences of university policy.

“The activists have been encouraged to be a certain way by the world — and that is to shout, demand and in some cases commit small acts of violence like defacing statues,” Schalin said.

“I see this emotion not based in fact but based in political reality and individual failings.”

The coalition hopes to confront these issues with the activists, Chang said.

“Injustice is a thing that happens,” he said. “And we will be able to combat it in a more effective manner by involving everyone in the community and having everyone at the table.”

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