Assumptions About Duke Athletics Skew Rape Coverage

To the editors:



As a Duke University student who has been deeply affected by the recent allegations of the rape of a North Carolina Central University student by three Duke lacrosse players, I am not surprised that Brad Hinshelwood would address the “turmoil” on Duke’s campus in Harvard’s student newspaper (“Duke Scandal Raises Issues,” sports, Apr. 4), just as it has been covered in our student newspaper, local newspapers, and national newspapers like The New York Times. However, Hinshelwood’s piece caught my attention in particular because of its bias and skewed assumptions about Duke athletics that only an outsider would make.

Hinshelwood assumes that because three lacrosse players live in one house, all Duke athletes must be able to do so, thereby suggesting some type of special treatment when throwing parties. Nothing can be further from the truth. Because students can only block in small groups, Duke athletes, like Harvard athletes, are spread out in every quad. Simply put, there are no sports sections in quads, and the only visible living groups are fraternities. Seniors may choose to live off campus, just as those three lacrosse players chose to do, but again, this is not limited to just athletes. Anyone at Duke can tell you that there is no “basketball house” on campus.

Second, Hinshelwood claims that “many [Harvard] students probably couldn’t name a member of our men’s lacrosse team, despite its national ranking.” Nothing could be more true of the lacrosse team at Duke, even though they were ranked second nationally at the time of the allegations. Even after this incident, my friends and I still do not know any of their names. In fact, our women’s basketball team is playing for the national championship tonight and for some students on this campus, this will be the first time this season where they will watch our team play. The only sports team that receives attention here by the majority of the student population is the men’s basketball team, and even then, there are still students who do not pay attention to Duke athletics, period.

With these two points alone, Hinshelwood’s claim that the way in which “Harvard athletics are administered helps to avoid the entitlement issues seen at other schools” is an assumption at best. The campus-wide protests against the actions of a few of these athletes indicate that Duke students are just as angry and upset as Durham residents, and that no lacrosse player is receiving any special treatment, before or after this incident.

I urge Hinshelwood and other Harvard students to talk to their friends at Duke, instead of reading sensationalized media coverage, in order to understand the real issues at hand that are affecting our campus and community. Nothing is more frustrating than reading coverage on the alleged rape that does not focus on the actual incident, but on a so-called “culture at Duke” that no one at Duke actually recognizes or calls their own.



MIHO KUBAWA

Durham, N.C.

April 4, 2006