Editorial's conclusion on DCR culture shortsighted

The Chronicle’s recent editorial that argues for the disbanding of the Duke College Republicans comes to a strong conclusion without a strong argument to back it up. The editorial notes that the DCR was cleared by the DSG Judiciary last year regarding the impeachment of former club President Justin Robinette, yet feels that a set of distasteful and discriminatory emails compiled by Robinette compels the DSG Senate to disband the organization altogether.

The editorial proclaims that “[the] DSG Senate should take action by punishing the group and not its individual members,” but fails to detail why, exactly, a blind and blanket punishment is superior to a just and targeted one. It suggests that the DCR has fostered a culture­—and I had hoped that we had finished with that word!—of discrimination for “too long.” How long, exactly?

This “culture” was not evident for the years I subscribed to the listserv. Maintaining a “culture” of any kind in a college club is almost impossible. The current CR club is barely recognizable as the one I first joined in 2005. In two or three years, it will be unrecognizable again as new students replace the old and the Robinette saga, now so Earth-shattering, fades from the transient memory of a four-year institution.

To be sure, the emails prove that certain members of the DCR listserv are pretty terrible people. Fine. Let the consequences of their reprehensible words fall upon their reprehensible heads. But to punish the many for the transgressions of the few, based solely on a vaguely-sensed “culture,” is pure silliness, born of a yearning for high drama. That the club so targeted is an unpopular political group in the midst of an election season only makes the overreach more troubling­—though how gracious of the Board to allow its return, a year later!

When emails sent through the Duke Chinese Students and Scholars Association’s listserv in 2008 caused actual, physical danger to a pro-Tibet student and her family in China, was the organization disbanded? No—DCSSA was allowed to learn from its mistakes and move on, for the greater good of the student body. Such common sense should prevail again.

Oliver Sherouse

Trinity '09