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 illconsidered, 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.