It's been a rough few months at Duke. When the sexual assault allegations against the men's lacrosse team broke in late March, those of us who work and study here found ourselves in the midst of a media maelstrom. Satellite trucks were lined up four deep, first on the main quad, then relocated to the parking lot of the Bryan Center. Anyone walking across campus was fair game for a roving reporter. The novelty of this situation quickly wore off, especially given the complexity of the issues rocking the campus, and the deep emotions connected to those issues. How can you talk about the legacy of racism in a sound bite? How do you discuss the complicated intertwined history of Duke and Durham in 30 seconds or less?
Most reporters took the easy way out, seeking interview subjects who would declare their opinion in absolutes. This was certainly Rolling Stone's approach; their reporter identified four undergraduate women, all sorority members, who believed staunchly in the innocence of the accused men. She then followed them around, took careful note of their social patterns, and wrote a piece that presented their social lives (focused heavily on alcohol, drugs, and sex) as typical of all Duke students.
I spent two hours with the Rolling Stone reporter when she was on campus. I agreed with her that some undergraduate women lead social lives that seem incompatible with their intelligence and ambition. We talked about why that happens, about how pleasing male peers becomes more important than staying true to one's self. I talked about patriarchy, about effortless perfection, about the insidious nature of female socialization. I also told her -- over and over and over again -- that the social scene she was witnessing represented just one subculture at Duke, and that many Duke students would find it as unfamiliar as she did. Unfortunately, the reporter did not include that context in her article, which made it a one-sided piece, an incomplete and inaccurate portrayal of Duke.
What would a complete and accurate portrayal look like? I think back to how the Baldwin Scholars -- 36 of them in the spring of 2006, 18 sophomores and 18 first-years -- reacted to the accusations. We have a diverse group of women, nearly half of them women of color. We have varsity athletes (two from the women's lacrosse team), feminist activists, sorority members, survivors of sexual violence, and political conservatives. Not surprisingly, they did not all agree on what had happened or on what should happen next. Different students approached the situation from different angles. Aria Branch appeared on Nightline with three other African-American students talking about the racial aspects of the situation. Our lacrosse players, Rachel Shack and Regan Bosch, appeared in an NBC piece about the success of the women's team and the difficulty they had watching their male counterparts go through this ordeal. Rosanna Myers organized a meeting early on for women who wanted to protest the situation. Claire Lauterbach spearheaded a display of party posters, virtually all of them demeaning to women, that she and other Baldwin Scholars collected over the course of the year.
What was remarkable about this diversity of responses is that they all coexisted peacefully. The Baldwin Scholars gave one another the gift of respectful and constructive disagreement. What's more, they did not let this highly polarizing experience split them by race, by sorority affiliation, or by social class. They recognized that in a situation this complicated, there would be multiple truths, and they tried to see one another's perspectives. In so doing, they were far ahead of most of the media professionals roaming campus throughout March and April. I spoke often of the Baldwin Scholars to the many reporters who interviewed me this spring; I wanted them to know about these remarkable young women leaders who were asking good questions and refusing to reduce the situation to its lowest common denominator. I thought they might learn something from them.
It was a stressful and difficult spring, but it convinced me of the value of the work we are doing with this program. Though the behavior portrayed in Rolling Stone is not ubiquitous, it's true that too many undergraduate women pander to the low expectations of their peers, trading self-respect for popularity. The Baldwin Scholars provide an antidote to that phenomenon by stressing self-discovery, self-confidence, and being true to one's own values. We were very proud of the way our Scholars handled themselves this spring and we look forward to their active participation in the campus culture conversations that will continue throughout the year.