Stay transparent, Duke

Last week, administrators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill upheld a Christian a cappella group’s dismissal of a gay member for his views about homosexuality. The dispute began in August when the group, Psalm 100, removed the student, purportedly for his belief in the permissibility of homosexuality. The UNC administration’s subsequent investigation found that Psalm 100 did not violate the university’s non-discrimination policy because it removed the student on the basis of his beliefs and not his sexual orientation.

We find about as much wrong with this student’s expulsion as with the policy that justified it. The policy—which contains a special clause for organizations that select members based on political or religious beliefs—states that these groups can exclude persons who do not share the beliefs of the organization, so long as they do not limit membership based on personal traits, including sexual orientation. In this case, these categories cannot but overlap, and we commend the UNC administration’s willingness to review this overtly problematic rule.

Nevertheless, UNC’s swift and opaque investigation brought quick—if not satisfying­—closure to the case and reminds us of the extended controversy that surrounded the impeachment of Justin Robinette, former chair of Duke College Republicans in Spring 2010. Like in the Psalm 100 case, Robinette claimed that his removal hinged upon his sexual orientation. But unlike the Psalm 100 case, the Robinette affair, which was primarily handled by the Duke Student Government Judiciary and Senate and not the University administration, dredged on for more than a year and resulted in complaints filed with federal agencies against the University.

To view the Psalm 100 case and the DCR scandal as identical would be overly simplistic. But it is interesting to note the differences in the handling of both cases by UNC and Duke respectively. In the Psalm 100 case, the UNC administration chose to stay out of the public eye until the decision was made, leaving much of the investigation behind the scenes. While the case was the topic of raging debate from students on both sides of the issue, the decision was made relatively quietly, and the ruling seems unlikely to be challenged.

This is very different from Duke’s handling of the Robinette case, which ballooned into a public affair. As a student group, the DCR was governed by the rules of DSG and the Student Organization Finance Committee, giving student groups some grounds to adjudicate the conflict. The DSG Judiciary’s ruling against Robinette and the DSG Senate’s decision to uphold the DCR charter left some dissatisfied; Robinette filed claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Education earlier this year. However, the open process also facilitated a fast and substantive reform process—today all DSG chartered groups are now required to publish a non-discrimination clause in their constitutions.

There are lesson to be learned from UNC’s swift action in the Psalm 100 incident. Speed and closure are enviable goals, and the Duke administration may be right to intervene more fully in future conflicts. But plaintiffs and litigants can only have satisfaction in open processes that allow for debate and appeal, and we hope that conflict resolution at Duke always stays a public affair.