INC NEWS - Editorial: One good semester didn't end parties (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Editorial: One good semester didn't end parties
Herald-Sun, 13 February 2007

Recent news from Duke on off-campus misconduct seemed
worthy of celebration. 

Duke's administration released figures showing that
only 39 students faced disciplinary action for
off-campus violations in the fall of 2006. That was a
79 percent improvement over the fall of 2005, when 193
students went through the campus judicial process. It
sounds like Duke students, perhaps chastened by the
bad publicity from the lacrosse case, have changed
their behavior. Right? 

Let's look closer. According to an editorial in The
Duke Chronicle, the student newspaper, "from a
student's perspective, there has been no perceptible
change in off-campus social life. Parties still happen
.... it's hard to believe that the decline in
citations is due to suddenly more-subdued behavior
..." 

The Chronicle attributes the change to several
factors. One, the sale of a dozen of the party houses
in Trinity Park damped down the fun, but only at those
places. Second, the state ALE staged a major raid on
off-campus parties last year and made more than 100
arrests, accounting for the high numbers in 2006. This
year, there was no big bust, and the numbers declined.


Those are legitimate factors, but looked at from one
perspective, they indicate that Duke's purchase of the
houses and ALE's raids had the desired effect. 

As many residents near East Campus will tell you, the
streets are indeed quieter this year. City
Councilmember Eugene Brown, who lives nearby, praised
the change and credited the sale of the houses and
Duke's campaign for student responsibility. 

But the Chronicle's cautionary note is that the
parties "have just moved." While some students, to
their credit, are working to tone down the rowdiness
and build relationships with neighbors, the party
scene at Duke did not suddenly end. 

That became clear over the weekend, when a Duke
student charged she was raped by a non-student at a
party near East Campus at 405 Gattis St. The incident
allegedly occurred at 3 a.m., when about 50 people
were at the party. 

As we saw with the lacrosse case, when student parties
get out of control, they can cease being innocent fun
and turn into something far more serious and
dangerous. The incident over the weekend is a sign
that, despite a good semester, this problem won't just
go away.