Duke University, of all places, should know better. Given the devotion to “diversity” that pervades that institution (see Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case if you have any doubts), you’d think that by now Duke would have recognized that it comprises not one but many communities, that it borders on racial arrogance to insist on categorizing all its students as “Blue Devils,” as though they were all fundamentally alike.
Indeed, as three students who continue to support the idea of “One Duke, United” lament (HatTip to George Leef on National Review’s PhiBetaCons), in many areas of student life Duke insists on separating its students into various racial and ethnic subgroups. As they write,
Over the next few months, prospective freshmen will invade and inspect the Duke campus to decide where they want to spend the next four years. But a select group of them will be separated from the rest because of their race. While their peers intermingle and witness the diversity of Duke University in all its vibrancy, black and Latino prospective freshmen will be attending separate recruitment events.
If Duke insists on emphasizing the race and ethnicity of its students by continuing to sponsor segregated events like these recruitment weekends, the least it can do is to honor the separateness of these students by handing out “Black Devil” and “Brown Devil” tee shirts rather than insisting they disguise their difference by wearing “Blue Devil” shirts, as though they are just like everyone else.
