Signs of support hang on the house where allegations of a sexual assault by lacrosse team members took place on March 13.
Kwak, a junior at Duke, is managing editor of the campus newspaper, The Chronicle.
Newspapers tend to litter the tabletops at eateries on campus a bit more these days, as people keep up with the details of the now notorious rape case that emerge daily. Over the last month, the campus has played host to local and national news stations that parked satellite trucks next to dorms for days, and television crews set up on the main quad every morning.
And yet students around here are anything but reveling in the media's glare. They want to stay as far away from the cameras and reporters as possible. For many students, it borders on invasive. The reality is that campus reaction cannot be summed up in two sound bites of a simplistic divide — one pro and one con.
Spring Break at most college campuses signifies the beginning of the end — and that has never felt more appropriate than it does now at Duke, where two sophomores have been charged with rape, and the future of the men's lacrosse program is questionable at best. The university faced harsh criticism for not responding quickly enough to the allegations, and then for responding too quickly after lacrosse coach Mike Pressler's resignation and the cancellation of the team's season.
Suffice it to say that nothing in the last four weeks has seemed normal here in Durham. "I'm already at the point where it's just numbing. Nothing's surprising anymore," says senior Dan Shvartsman. "The first week, there were so many questions and everything was so interesting. But for me, it's already past its peak; it's almost tiring. I just want to know what happened. I want to know the truth."
So too does the university — and not just about the events of March 13, when the men's lacrosse team held a party that included underage drinking, black strippers were hired to dance before white males, and racist remarks were shouted into the night. University President Richard Brodhead has created five independent committees to look at broader issues that the scandal uncovered, and one of them will examine the lacrosse program. A search for the coach's replacement has not begun and will not begin until after the committee finishes its study and offers its recommendation. But even then, there is no guarantee that Duke will field a team next year.
The Athletic Department released its seven incoming lacrosse recruits from their letters of intent and told both recruits and current players that they can consider their options for transfer. "We've told them that regardless of what happens, we will still offer them scholarships next year," says Art Chase, Duke sports information director. He added that no current member of the team or any of the seven recruits have indicated they will not be attending Duke next fall, but as he admits, that could change at any point.
Losing a lacrosse program for a few years seems like nothing compared to what this scandal could do to this university and community. The talk of racism, sexism and binge drinking that has accompanied this case, to a certain extent, has forced the university to look at the big picture — and confront tough issues beyond the alleged rape of a 27-year-old black student at a nearby college.
And what of North Carolina Central University? The historically black university and the predominantly white Duke cooperate in a handful of academic ventures — the kind of highbrow intellectual programs that mean little to their students. While some students from the universities interact socially, recent events have made many realize for the first time that there is, in fact, another university in Durham.
The bottom line is, most people simply want to know exactly what happened that night. But as final exams come and go in the weeks ahead, most students will be even more relieved than usual that the academic year is coming to an end.