As a student who transferred from Duke, Duke’s latest headline-making exploits have a special significance for me.
The facts: Duke’s fraternity Kappa Sigma sent out an e-mail announcing their “Asia Prime” party.
The Asian American Alliance (AAA) submitted a formal bias incident form to the Center for Multicultural Affairs. The fraternity changed the theme to “International Relations” and said the following: “The Brothers of Kappa Sigma regret to inform you that our forebrothers’ secrets of the far east have not survived the move back onto campus. Without them, Asia Prime cannot go on and must be cancelled.”
The move back onto campus refers to Kappa Sigma’s charter, which was reinstated last year after they it been removed in 2002 for “policy violations.”
Sidenote: Kappa Sigma issued a seemingly more sincere apology once the “racist rager” had taken place and the backlash began.
Students offended by the party made fliers from photos posted on Facebook of the event and hung the fliers around Duke’s campus. According to Duke’s newspaper, The Chronicle, many of the fliers were torn down.
(via The Chronicle)
The offended students organized a protest and leaders in the AAA delivered a compelling and insightful speech. The Chronicle reported that “more than 250 people” (of some 6,500 undergraduates) attended the protest.
The student body at Duke is frustrated with the administration’s inaction. According to coverage from The Chronicle, “Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said he met with Kappa Sigma leadership on Tuesday morning, expressing his disappointment that the party occurred despite encouragement from the University administration to cancel it.”
Apparently, the “encouragement” proffered was not accepted. Maybe next time a stronger form of discouragement might be more effective.
This is not the first time this school year that a racist party has attracted attention. In September, the Duke women’s lacrosse team “threw a Halloween party in which members dressed in blackface.”
Although the NBC article was titled “Duke students rally against anti-Asian frat party,” perhaps a more communicative title would have been, “Duke students rally against annual anti-Asian frat party thrown by Duke students”.
Some people are trying to spin the story by saying the support and attention the Asian community at Duke has received demonstrates progress. However, the fact that Duke has faced this same sort of problem earlier in the year, and that the administration has done little to prevent recurrence, shows either that they have not learned from previous mistakes or that eliminating “racist ragers” is not at the top of their priority list.