About 75 students and faculty members at Duke University staged a protest Monday in response to a fraternity theme party they deemed racially offensive.
The Duke chapter of Sigma Chi issued invitations for a Sept. 13 party which were decorated to look like expired green cards and set up a mock border control checkpoint at the door.
Latino student organizations at Duke expressed outrage at the party, alleging it promoted stereotypes that equate Mexicans with illegal immigration and drunkenness.
"They are using these negative stereotypes that are dehumanizing to a culture as a form of entertainment," said Sandra Sanchez, president of the Latina sorority Lambda Pi Chi at Duke and an organizer of the protest.
Duke Sigma Chi President Marc Mattioli apologized for the Sept. 13 party.
The event was "designed to be a light-hearted representation of the Mexican tourism scene," Mattioli wrote in an e-mail to Duke's student newspaper, The Chronicle.
Mattioli said he identifies himself as Latino.
Sanchez, however, said Mattioli's ethnicity does not justify the events at the party.
"The fact is, if the president of Sigma Chi is Latino and he didn't realize that this was offensive, that doesn't make any sense," Sanchez said. "It's ignorance."
The Duke administration said neither it nor Duke's inter-fraternity council will treat the party as a judicial violation. Instead, administrators said they have initiated community action events involving diverse student groups. Duke also announced a new minority faculty hiring initiative yesterday.
"Turning this into a violation opens up the issues of free speech and freedom of expression," said Larry Moneta, vice president of student affairs at Duke. "We want to deal with this as it is -- an issue of civility and tolerance and respect for others. Once we turn this into a judicial issue, the stakes change and the dialogue changes."
Moneta said the discussions sparked by the party have broadened to encompass relationships between many communities at Duke.
"We're having some absolutely wonderful dialogue," Moneta said.
The protestors disagreed, characterizing the community discussions as all talk and no action. They called for judicial action against Sigma Chi.
"We really want it to be done to set a precedent so it doesn't happen again," Sanchez said, noting that in the past, Duke fraternities have held "south of the border" parties.
University officials expressed dismay at the incident.
Senior Associate Dean of Students Shamim Sisson said the incident at Duke was reminiscent of similar debates at the University.
"It was both interesting and painful to read, in part because we know that some of our students at the University have on occasion had a similarly unenlightened perspective on their party themes -- referring specifically to the blackface incident here last fall," Sisson said.
Two University fraternities temporarily were suspended last November after brothers allegedly dressed in blackface at a Halloween party. The fraternities ultimately were found not guilty of disorderly conduct by an Inter-Fraternity Council judiciary panel.
Sisson and Coordinator for Latino/Hispanic Programs Phoebe Hautp said the Duke fraternity party highlights the need for diversity education across the country, including at the University.
"What this incident says is there's a lot of misunderstanding as to the realities faced by Mexican-Americans," Hautp said. "This is not a shock that there are students that did this. The question is -- will the reaction be constructive? Will it be destructive? How will it further the work of cultural understanding and equality?"
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