At an open meeting held Sunday night to discuss the "Viva Mexico" party hosted by Sigma Chi fraternity Sept. 13, several students demanded an official apology from Sigma Chi and judicial action from the administration.
In response to the party, which outraged many members of Duke's Latino community, a draft of a list of demands was also presented at the meeting.
Many students at the meeting expressed anger over the party--which featured invitations designed to look like expired green cards and a "border control" station at the door--believing this warranted administrative action.
Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta, one of several administrators at the meeting, rejected this notion early on in the meeting.
"I understand this party was extremely hurtful," Moneta said. "But is it a violation of our policy? It is not. This issue is about speech and expression, and we do not want to use judicial action to solve it."
When a student in the audience argued that actions of Sigma Chi violated Duke's new Community Standard, Moneta pointed out that the Community Standard is a statement of principles, not policy, and that Duke does not punish individuals for violating it. Moneta also said he hopes to prevent similar situations in the future by improving the advising of student groups.
A list of demands was circulated at the meeting by Mi Gente co-president Sara Hudson, who organized the meeting independent of Mi Gente, and said that a group of students had asked her to pass it out. The demands, which remain a work in progress, call for Sigma Chi to apologize to the Duke community with full-page ads in The Chronicle and The Daily Dialogue by Friday, Sept. 26.
Sigma Chi president Marc Mattioli, one of several members of the fraternity at the meeting, said that his organization would consider the proposal.
"I'm more than willing to pay the money for an ad," Mattioli said at the meeting. "But I think it'd be better spent on programming."
Mattioli also said that he had already written a letter to the editor in The Chronicle apologizing for the party, and that he hoped that his fraternity's future actions would demonstrate the sincerity of his apology.
However, other students at the meeting questioned what good an apology would do, and instead called for broader measures to address minority issues in general. Hudson echoed these sentiments by saying Duke needs more than just a dialogue.
"We had short-term solutions ten years ago, now we need something written down," Hudson said, referring to a request made in October 1994 by Mi Gente that the name of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and Pi Beta Phi sorority's annual "South of the Border" mixer be changed.
Some of the other written demands were discussed, including the formation of an Ethnic Studies program at Duke as well as an increase in both the hiring of minority faculty and the recruitment of minority students. Several students at the meeting also called for more educational programs related to diversity, which could be included in freshmen orientation.
While no clear solutions were reached at the meeting, Hudson asked everyone in attendance to write their name and e-mail down on a piece of paper so that they could continue the dialogue through an e-mail list serv. Hudson said she would also use the e-mail list to form a subcommittee that would revise the list of demands and formally present them to the administration. There is also a demonstration tomorrow planned for 11:30 a.m.
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