Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Bigotry at Duke: Continued

I faced an enormous force of bigotry against LGBTQ people when I taught at Duke Divinity School. Homophobia was omnipresent among senior administrators, senior faculty, junior faculty, adjunct faculty, staff, and students alike.

Some things simply don't change over time. Regardless of the inroads that Dr. Long has made at the LGBTQ Center, Duke University is rife with homophobic people.

Case in point? This story that was first reported in Duke's "The Chronicle," and UNC's "Daily Tarheel," and picked up today on towleroad.com, regarding the former head of the student Republican College Group, Mr. Robinette:

From Towleroad.com:

After being impeached in April from the Duke College Republicans due to shared information with my Executive Board as to my sexual orientation, officers who resigned immediately and me directly have received continued harassment and been intimidated by current members of the Duke College Republicans. Duke University's East Camus Bridge vandalism was preceded by many instances of intimidation and harassment of former DCR officers (threatening Facebook messages from DCR Chief of Staff Rachel Provost harassing my former officers with rumors as to their sexuality and any other "personal information" they may potentially uncover, simply for supporting me. Additionally, former Vice-Chairman Matthew Leonard's dormitory nametag was vandalized with the word "faggot"). The Bridge graffiti has been followed up with anonymous death threats to both me and student Bridget Gomez (who recently created a Facebook group ). Additionally, current DCR Executive Board officer Sabrina McCutchan sent me a threatening message dated today, as well. These have been forwarded to Duke Police and they say they are investigating presently.

By members of the DCR I have been called a “faggot,” “lying faggot,” a supporter of the “faggot center,” “ironic,” “disgusting," and Duke's anonymous gossip site has included these messages: “Justin Robinette: if you ever needed a reason to hate gay people,” “fags and fag-enablers need to step out of the way,” “no one cares about faggots or those who cry faggot,” “DCR = righteous, lying fag = Robinette.” The East Campus Bridge was recently vandalized with the words "Lying Fag Robinette, DCR= Righteous, Get AIDS in Hell." T

Change is not in the air at Duke. I left in 2003. This is 2010. Some things don't change easily over time.

Click here for more.

Pace!

B

2 comments:

MJJM said...

I truly suspect some of the alleged homophobia at Duke might be backlash for the gay community (and gay academics) having joined the lynch mob against the falsely accused lacrosse team, and never aplogizing afterwards. people don't forget so quickly.

MJJM said...

P.S. The dishonest Towleroad, though based in NYC, was part of that lynch mob as well.