Letter to the Editor

Dear President Brodhead,

On behalf of the Duke LGBT Alumni Network, thank you for your strong and faithful support for the Duke LGBTQ community.

We are compelled to write you to express our deep concern about the recent incident on campus targeting the LGBTQ community and threatening the life of one of our community members in particular. We join you and our alma mater in condemning this cowardly, ignorant and hateful act. There is absolutely no room in the Duke community for individuals who perpetrate such actions. This was not just an insensitive and inappropriate prank. This act threatened the lives of a class of people and, even more disturbingly, the life of a Duke student. This is a hate crime. We trust and expect that the university is taking a swift, aggressive and complete approach to investigating the matter, bringing to bear the full complement of resources available to it, including the involvement of federal authorities. 

While we were heartened to see last Friday evening’s message to students from Dean Wasiolek, we were disappointed in the length of time that transpired between the hateful event and transmittal of the message. We were also disturbed by the quote in last Thursday’s Chronicle from Vice President Moneta that downplays the seriousness of the offense as “copycat hatred.” While we applaud the university’s internal and external statements of not condoning intolerance, we are concerned and deeply disappointed that, in this particular case, there was not a strong, clear and direct message of zero tolerance for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The statements to date fail to forcefully address this specific type of intolerance and do a disservice to not only all LBGTQ members of the Duke community but to the Duke community as a whole. Perhaps most importantly, the lack of a forceful, zero tolerance message that specifically addresses hatred of this nature does little to reassure those who are the likely targets of this type of hatred and little to deter those perpetrators from continuing their actions. Frankly, these statements appear to side step the specific type of hatred based on sexual orientation and gender identity in favor of a less controversial and more general intolerance statement. We completely agree that intolerance of any type can’t have a home at our beloved alma mater. This situation deserves strong words and swift action specific to this type of hateful behavior. To that end, we fully support the President of Blue Devils United and his call for immediate actions in this area.

As alumni, we want to work with you and senior administrators in the near term on the serious structural and programmatic solutions needed to address and eliminate this type of unacceptable behavior. We look forward to engaging in continued dialogue on this issue. Please know that we are here to help.

Forever Duke,

Fred Steckler

T ‘83