APhiA suspension deeply saddening

As a 1978 graduate of Duke and an Alpha who pledged in 1976, I think I speak for all of the alumni Brothers of Kappa Omicron Chapter, when I express deep regret and sadness at the suspension of APhiA on Duke's campus and a painful interruption of its 30-year heritage there.

When I arrived at Duke in 1974, there was a huge divide between the University and both the black community in Durham and the students at North Carolina Central University. The bus drivers wouldn't even speak to the black students and not for any reason other than mistakenly assuming we felt we were elite. We never understand nor accepted this because many of us came to Duke from inner cities across the country (myself from D.C.) and were concerned that hostility might come from other places; but certainly not from within our own.

During the course of my four years, and with the black fraternities and sororities acting as the bridge, that divide seemed to be significantly narrowed. We initiated tutoring programs for Durham public school students and had some pretty amazing parties with the students from NCCU on Duke's campus. Unfortunately, with the most recent allegations around the men's lacrosse team, that divide seems to be re-surfacing.

What a shame, and I can only believe the loss of this great fraternity will do nothing to help that situation. Alpha Phi Alpha has some very distinguished alumni; Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall, to name just two. Manly deeds, scholarship and love for all mankind are the ideals of the fraternity, which was founded in 1906 not on a black campus but at Cornell University.

All Alphas strive to live to these principles. Dialogue between several of the alumni Brothers after seeing the article in the Chronicle on the suspension centered around how we recover; not who do we blame. As I often tell disgruntled employees at my company, don't quit the company when sometimes you can just quit the boss. Make sure you always separate the two.

So, we ask the undergraduate Alphas at Duke to not quit the fraternity and the ideals it represents. Distance yourself, if you must, from those you believe may have been unfair but do keep a pathway open for the return of this great fraternity to Duke's campus. It is needed not just for Alpha's sake but for Duke's as well.

George Neale

Trinity '78