Where have we come from, where should we go?

Once again, Duke University is beset by issues rooted in the history of our country—and our own university. At this moment, we are not dealing well with the issues of race and diversity. The key question is why? Where have we come from and where should we go?

Part of the problem rests in the university’s satisfaction with the statistical progress Duke has made. In 1995, when I became Dean of Art and Sciences, 15 percent of our students were non-white. In the next nine years we increased that to 35 percent; now it is 51 percent. Based on these figures, some people act as though the statistics prove that we have addressed the problem.

Yet there is no inherent connection between having more than half the students be non-white, and seeking to create a truly multi-racial community where people of different backgrounds talk to each other about the differences in where they come from. Why is it that despite our rhetoric of equal opportunity, neither America nor Duke has come to grips with the systemic inequalities in our society. How many of us—students, faculty or administrators—talk about the degree to which racism, from the beginning, has defined our history. It began with slavery, moved on to segregation, then to the era of mass incarceration where six times as many blacks go to jail for non-violent drug offenses today as whites, even though the same percentage of both races—13 percent—actually use drugs.

So how do we address these issues at Duke? First, we need to engage them explicitly. During the recent occupation of Allen Building, University officials sounded a conciliatory tone. Evidently, they hoped that by appearing to be open to discussion they could quiet the situation and mollify outside observers. (Of course, the subsequent decision to contradict the language of amnesty by bringing charges against student occupiers did not exactly help their credibility). Yet there still seems to be a reluctance to get to the bottom of the issues the students raised. At the Duke Vigil in 1968 after Dr. King’s death, 2,500 students occupied the West Campus quad. Their demonstration focused on workers’ rights at Duke as well as racial tensions on Campus. The current Allen building occupation, 48 years later, is addressing the very same issues. Why, nearly half a century later, is there an eerie sense of history repeating itself.

One way to move forward is to have workers be a formal part of the negotiations that hopefully will take place in the aftermath of the Allen Building occupation. We need to acknowledge the degree to which divisions of race and class at Duke are related, and always have been. But just as important, we need to find a way to confront, engage, and come to understand the ways in which racism has been fundamental to both the history of our country and the history of Duke.

Marcus Benning, former head of the Black Student Association at Duke, and now the president of the Graduate and Professional School Association, has urged that there be a required course in the new curriculum on the history of racism in America, in North Carolina and at our university. This is a necessary and critical first step.

But more important, the university has to make possible a series of small multi-racial groups—10 or 12 students in number—who can meet regularly and talk directly about issues of race, both how they have shaped our past, and how they continue to shape our present. For the past five years, I have taught in a DukeImmerse program, comparing the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa with the civil rights movement in America. Each year, the students in our seminar, who take all four courses together, have come from diverse racial backgrounds; because the classes are small, we are able to talk directly – and intensely – about the issues of racism and class inequality that affect both our history and our contemporary lives.

Such conversations are essential if we are to get to where we need to go. The path ahead will not be easy. But only if we are willing to put into place the infrastructure for this kind of educational initiative will there ever be a chance for Duke to confront its past, understand the power of systemic racism in our country, and be ready to move beyond the long history of refusing to come to grips with who we are.