The Center for Race Relations sponsored a discussion on minority recruitment weekends at Duke Monday night, promoting conversation that proved the issue is anything but clear-cut.
The Gothic Reading Room was packed with attendees, a majority of whom were minority students. Junior Ying-Ying Lu, co-director of dialogues programming for CRR, said the event drew the largest crowd she had seen at a dialogue.
The event was scheduled as a result of discussions among students regarding One Duke United, a campaign calling for an end to race-based admissions weekends at Duke. Juniors Natalie Figuereo, Anthony Lee and Vikram Srinivasan started the campaign and wrote a guest column in The Chronicle March 20 that sparked sometimes heated student response from those defending minority recruitment weekends.
"Tension was definitely not resolved, but I think this discussion took a positive step in the direction of resolving those tensions," senior Menelik Tefera, co-director of dialogues programming for CRR, said in an interview following the event.
Figuereo opened the discussion noting that the leaders of One Duke United had spoken with parents, students and professors supporting their position and wanted to bring that idea to campus and get feedback.
"We didn't mean to be attacking or confrontational," she said. "Our vision is to have a better Duke. For us, that was a different approach to minority weekends."
Srinivasan said that although One Duke United recognizes minority students may come from communities different from Duke, they should be welcomed by "the Duke community at large."
When dialogue moderators posed questions to the crowd, Black Student Alliance President Brandon Roane, a senior, said minority recruitment weekends are important to portraying Duke as a place for all students, especially black students because they make up only 10 percent of the student body. He said the Black Student Alliance Invitational is an important way for black students to identify with their culture on campus and to see that there are people from a variety of different races and cultures at Duke who can help them succeed.
Roane noted that BSA has attempted to draw students from all cultural backgrounds to their recruitment events but have had a difficult time getting them to attend.
Mi Gente Co-President Luciano Romero, a sophomore, said Latino Students Recruitment Weekend also tries to attract people from all different races and also has had trouble doing so.
Romero pointed out that LSRW and BSAI are overseen by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, adding that Mi Gente wants to learn how it can communicate ways to improve LSRW to administrators.
When the crowd broke up for small group discussions, freshman Sergio Simental responded to one student's argument that race should not be a divider and that even conservative students should be considered a minority group on campus.
"You look around the room, you don't know he's a conservative. You look at me, you know I'm a Latino," he said, noting that he did not see Latino communities well-represented when he attended recruitment weekends at Stanford, Northwestern and Columbia universities. He said he feels there are socioeconomic ties to culture, adding that when he came to LSRW, he saw that he could find a community of people who understand him and who were raised similarly.
Kevin Tolson, a junior, said seeing a united black voice on campus at BSAI made his transition from the all-black community in which he grew up to Duke much easier. He said the argument that minority recruitment weekends promote self-segregation takes accountability away from individuals.
"Once you get into any type of school, it's your decision whether you are going to associate with people," Tolson said. "It's not like there's a BSA in every class."
When senior Sarah Stephan, president of Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority, Inc., said that as a white person attending BSA events she realized how intimidating it is to be a cultural minority, the crowd erupted with applause. She said although she is sure minority students feel welcome on campus, minority recruitment weekends lessen the initial intimidation they might experience.
Karla Holloway, James B. Duke Professor of English and professor of law, has written multiple op-eds supporting an end to minority recruitment, but said she thinks any change to the weekends should come from students.
"I think that any time you have a conversation it's an improvement over the situation that existed before," Holloway told The Chronicle after the dialogue. "Any time an issue draws a response with enthusiasm and passion like this, it is important to pay close attention to it."
In response to the creation of the "One Duke United" Facebook group, junior Victoria Bright and BSAI Chair Shantel Buggs, a senior, created a counter Facebook group titled "Educate 'One Duke, United.'"
Junior Aileen Joa and freshman Andy Smith said they would have liked to hear more from the side opposing minority recruitment weekends at the discussion, noting that supporters of the weekends were far more represented. Smith added that he has never felt more tension over race on campus.
Lu said the event went very well, noting that when the crowd was asked to rise if the dialogue was thought-provoking and useful, almost everyone stood.
"Even though the event is technically over, people are still sitting around and talking to each other," she said. "Whenever you have a conversation that caries outside of this space, it's successful."
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