Fifty years ago, Duke University not only desegregated its undergraduate student body, but in the same year it changed the dynamics of university governance by creating the Academic Council. On Thursday, the council heard from one man who in his activism and leadership played a key role in both events.
As part of the council's celebration of its 50th anniversary, Council chair Susan Lozier recognized Jack Preiss, a former professor of sociology and anthropology and an original member of the council. Preiss was a leader in the local Civil Rights movement in Durham and also played a key role in the formation of the Duke council.
Saying that the two anniversaries are closely connected, Preiss said desegregation was delayed at Duke "because there was no faculty body to bring it around."
Brown v. Board of Education, which had been issued eight years earlier, had no effect on the university, he said, and many faculty and administrators believed the decision didn’t apply to private institutions like Duke. An interested group of faculty members and students wanted to change the situation, but Preiss said "the administration was a creature of the Board of Trustees, and there was no faculty voice."
Desegregating Duke was an important milestone, Preiss told the faculty members, but so was creation of the council. The long-term result of faculty governance has been positive and substantial, with an impact far beyond academic issues to that of Duke's relationship to the larger community, he said.
Today, Duke stands closer to Durham because in part of faculty engagement. "When I came here the university was a castle with a moat around it," he said.