The perfect storm has formed at UNC, Duke

TO THE EDITOR:

All the elements of a perfect storm have formed in the 2009-10 academic year at Duke.

The problems with Duke student government and Graduate and Professional Student Council elections to various offices, inflammatory remarks by many student leaders hurled at one another, and problems in administration on campus.

On Monday, we may have seen the storm start to hit us: The Chronicle and The Daily Tar Heel ran stories about Duke junior Justin Robinette.

This story mixes together discussions about sexual orientation, it traverses the eight-mile stretch from Durham to Chapel Hill, it links to a large political discussion happening nationally, the facts are still fuzzy and everyone is already talking.

A flurry of media outlets picked up the story during the day including The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Huffington Post. It drew nearly 50 comments by 5 p.m.

Please, I beg you, allow the evidence, whatever it may be, to come forward. Embody the virtues of your institution.

Look for the truth, confront misrepresentation and slander, hold back your judgment of anyone until the facts are in. Do not allow your positions to harden, or lines to be drawn dividing anyone.

As George Washington remarked more than 200 years ago: “Give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

I recognize that this quiet plea may go unheard as it gets drowned out by the outraged, the angered, and the reactive.

The perfect storm is here and I hope that all of us — students, faculty, staff, administrators, alums — in our respective communities are prepared to delicately and with all due diligence endeavor to unravel the many elements of this story in a manner that allows us all to enrich ourselves and those around us while minimizing any additional damage a story like this may cause.

Now is the time to step up and act honorably.



Jeremy N. Block Ph.D., M.P.P.

Duke graduate student