May 1, 2015

Dear Duke Administrators,

The past semester has been excruciatingly difficult for myself, and many other black students on this campus. The macro-aggressive and micro-aggressive realities of racism and prejudice that characterize my daily experience as a student along with the countless national instances of violence against black bodies throughout the United States have left me wondering just how far our national racial politic has progressed. Systemic racism dictates that nooses are still being hung on the Bryan Center plaza in the year 2015, and that I must still march, rally, and protest simply to remind the world that my life and the lives of my peers matter.

As a result of yet another administrative disappointment, my thinking about Dukes conclusions on the noose investigation over the course of today has been characterized by three distinct sentiments: furiousness, disdain for the timing, and dizziness. When I initially read The Chronicles online headline, an update on the noose incident investigation which stated that the Duke administration had concluded that the hanging of the noose was caused by a lack of cultural awareness and was not a statement related to racism, I was furious. As I began to think about the particular historical context of lynching that frames the hanging of a noose, I was reminded that the significance of the act is the same regardless of the responsible students intentionality. Secondly, I began to think about the timing of this announcement and letter as incredibly poor, given what is happening in Baltimore as violence, racism, and systemic oppression burgeon local and national frustration with the current state of Americas sociopolitical structures around race. Finally, as I continued to sit with and reflect on the responsible students letter and the universitys announcement, I became dizzied. Several administrators have made promises to students that they would work to improve the culture of race relations on campus, citing their aversion to the cowardly act of hatred-- the hanging of the noose. Thus, I was given the impression that administration identified with the anger and frustration of many students about the collective, problematic culture of race relations that is cultivated on Dukes campus. President Brodhead, Provost Kornbluth, and Vice President Moneta, did you change your mind? Did a students proclamation of their cultural incompetency serve to render what you had previously thought to be a cowardly act of hatred to be a simple lapse in judgement? Furthermore, does your promise to make Duke a more inclusive space for racial and ethnic minorities still hold true? Or does your concern focus, instead, on the potential damage yet another nationally publicized racial catastrophe could have on our brand?

This administrative announcement and this astonishingly lax sanction for a student, whose apology letter clearly re-articulated his or her lack of understanding for the significance of the act, are three additional slaps in the faces of black students and their allies. I am profoundly disappointed in what appears to be the universitys decision to release an announcement declaring that racism was not involved in the hanging of the noose alongside such an ill-considered, audacious, and problematic apology. With such a presentation, you may have delegitimized the claims of our outcries. It may appear that you have actually disregarded black students concerns. As it stands, you are setting a precedent that any act of racism or prejudice enacted against a minority student at Duke, no matter how serious, may be excused as long as that students supposed intention was rooted in a lack of proper judgement and not in racism. Do you wish to revoke the assessment that you brought forth in the past few weeks--that the current state of race relations at Duke is unacceptable? Given the unequivocal responses released by other collegiate administrations in response to the racial aggressions they have addressed on their campuses, I urge you to reconsider the decision you have made on how to punish the actions of the student who hung the noose and how you choose to frame the noose hanging in archival history. As a community, we need you to decide that black lives matter, and to do so expeditiously, unreservedly, and permanently, for we still cannot breathe.

A tired, tired, black student,Henry L. Washington, Jr.