Letter to the Editor

As the Nov. article on Friday’s forum noted, the forum began with a prepared statement recounting fifty years of unanswered minority demands—a fitting reminder of the many brave people who have fought institutional oppression. It also put students’ anger in context and pressured the University to expiate for past failures by acting swiftly in the present.

But in citing only what these past activists were denied, it also neglected fifty years of enormous progress that, as President Brodhead reminded the crowd, those who were at Duke fifty years ago would gladly attest to. Indeed, Duke’s history on issues of oppression is not—forgive the pun—quite so black and white. And current efforts to paint it as such are actually hurting the cause.

Despite the fact that I think the majority of the demands are valid, important and long overdue, I was disappointed by how the forum was conducted in such a combative, arrogant and one-sided way. The dialogue felt vindictive, designed to entrap the administrators into implicating the University. Some of the yes or no questions were so long that I couldn’t have answered yes or no because I’d forgotten half the question in the time it took to read them. And at one point, President Brodhead was asked, “Do you understand why you’re here?” as though he were a child who had misbehaved. The condescension was palpable, and the disrespect it showed left more of a sour taste in my mouth than any of Brodhead’s evasive answers.

Lauren Forman

T ‘16