A year ago this week, I offered my first annual "Notorious Alums" column. Timed in honor of Alumni Weekend, it featured some of the oddest, craziest and naughtiest ex-students to have ever donned Duke blue: A rogues' gallery of staircase murderers, attempted firebombers, conniving Mexicans, gonorrhea-infected playboys and even the 20th annual International Mr. Leather.
With those telltale white tents cropping up on West again, I decided it would be fun to have a second go-round. So here follow the stories of seven Dukies (three of whom are... wait for it... TRUSTEES) who have done remarkable (and not in a good way) things with their lives.
First up we have former Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias, who served as a Trustee from 1986 to 2000 and chaired the Board from 1997 to 2000. As the George W. Bush administration's AIDS czar, Tobias was known for his wildly unrealistic support of abstinence-only HIV-prevention programs, saying "statistics show that condoms really have not been very effective." A vigorous opponent of prostitution, Tobias also instituted rules requiring all recipients of U.S. foreign aid to denounce the world's oldest profession-or else.
That's why it was such a surprise when Tobias' name turned up on the infamous D.C. madam's client list last year. Randy (as he's known among friends) initially stood firm, insisting that he'd only had "gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." But as evidence mounted that those "gals" specialized in a very different sort of good vibrations, Tobias resigned last April in disgrace.
Although he's the only non-alumnus on this list, Tobias' sheer hypocrisy (not to mention his 13-year association with Duke's Board) was enough to propel him to this year's top spot.
Next up we have 1941 graduate G. Harrold Carswell, the "Larry Craig of the 1970s." Derisively remembered for his failed nomination to the Supreme Court in 1970-the best argument supporter Sen. Roman Hruska could offer was, "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?"-Carswell gained notoriety of an entirely different sort in 1976, when he became the first (though hardly the last) right-wing bigot to be convicted of attempting to do "unnatural and lascivious" things to a male police officer in a Florida men's room.
Third on our list we have a veritable campus celebrity: Angier Buchanan Duke, a 1905 graduate, Trustee (1914-1923) and namesake of the A.B. Duke Scholarship. I always imagined Angier as a severe old man, one of those early-to-rise types who writes 5,000 words before breakfast and continued pumping iron until age 87.
But in reality, Angier was little more than an accident-prone playboy who died young and drunk. He shot a hand off in a hunting accident, and he later crushed a woman against a wall with his car in the Bronx (Angier's first cousin, Doris, had a similar accident that killed her landscape architect). And most pathetic of all, Angier died at age 39 after falling off his yacht, which at 86 feet long had to be docked far offshore. His oblivious (read: drunk) guests continued to party as his body floated on by.
Fourth, we have a sobering example of where my ass will be if I don't figure out what I'm doing next year pretty soon: Austen Heinz is a former Duke student who according to police records has been living as a homeless person in CIEMAS.
Despite being banned from Duke's campus, Heinz reportedly hangs out in Bostock, Twinnie's and McDonald's, and his file includes a note that he may need to be decontaminated from exposure to ethidium bromide (thought to be a highly toxic carcinogen) before he can be transported to the psych ward.
Surprisingly enough, Heinz is far from the only wayward alum still living on campus. Former student Jayanth Magar went a similar route after being dismissed from the University for academic problems. Today, he is occasionally seen wandering the halls of the Divinity School (and sometimes stealing stuff, police think) wearing a long beige trench coat and a beige ball cap. Yet another former student, Ross Prinzo, has been living in Duke buildings to avoid being served with a warrant by Durham police.
Last but not least we have William Lane, a 1944 graduate who-at least as far as I can tell-remains the only Trustee ever convicted of a felony during his term. Indicted in December 1992 for his part in an alleged bank fraud that swindled U.S. taxpayers out of $404 million, Lane was convicted in early 1994.
Faced with widespread calls for Lane's resignation-indeed, The Chronicle editorialized, "At an institution of higher learning, it is appalling to have a convicted felon serving on the Board of Trustees"-Board member and later chair Harold Yoh nonetheless refused to suspend Lane, reasoning that he was "a super guy."
Now to be fair to Lane, that conviction was later overturned when an appellate court threw out most of the government's evidence on a technicality. But what a disgrace that students-who are routinely suspended following similar allegations-are held to a blatant double standard. It's clear that Duke becomes sensitive to due-process issues only when Trustees are involved.
Given the hundreds of thousands of alumni in Duke's ranks, I suppose it's only natural that there should be an oddball here or there. But now that my class is preparing to graduate, I really hope none of us will go quite this far "on life's broad sea."
Kristin Butler is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every Tuesday.
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