“Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus for all of its students,” said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, in a news release. “However, it was clear that what was conceived as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect.”
The initial official press release statement of the turn-a-round did not contain the threat statement which was added later.
Omid Safi, director of Duke’s Islamic Studies Center, said Thursday evening that the call to prayer was scaled back because of “a number of credible threats against Muslim students, faculty and staff.” The school, he said “is treating this as a criminal matter” and that the threats are “external.” Muslim students, Safi said, have been advised not to speak and be identified, “and are scared and disappointed.” Asked if he personally had been threatened, he said he had been advised by officials to say “a number of credible threats have been made.”
Now, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was some kind of threat. One of the reporters working the story claimed to be getting threats as well. In this social media age everyone gets threats about just about everything, unfortunately. The whole thing was just unbelievably tone-deaf and reaction among students is mixed. There is nothing in there about threats from Christians.
@ucbalumnus It is interesting that the spokesman said “a serious and credible security threat played a role in the decision.”
It is odd that there were no specific details, or even any comment that law enforcement was investigating the incident. I am sure that they are going to be asked for more information about that.
Oh come on, everyone knows that if this was a threat against a Christian org, it would immediately be assumed that it was done by Muslims.
It’s despicable that people are threatening violence over a 3 minute prayer. Absolutely disgusting. And people wonder why so many atheists hate religion.
As for atheism, I don’t consider it a belief system. I don’t consider it a lack of a belief system. For me, it’s more like an adjective that simply describes a part of myself. No more or less important than adjectives like “tall” or “brunette”.
“Oh come on, everyone knows that if this was a threat against a Christian org, it would immediately be assumed that it was done by Muslims.”
Huh. Interesting perspective. Unless a group was claiming responsibility I have no idea why one would assume such a thing. But, there you go, assume away. In fact, I think the opposite is true. People these days are incredibly careful not to assume sometimes even when the culprit is quite obviously one thing or another. We have learned judging is bad and we usually wait for evidence before settling on a motive. And, no-one said anything about violence or Christians so it is fascinating to watch thing get morphed from dumb, bad tone-deaf decision by university into mean Christians. Oh my.
According to an article I read, they’re still going to make the call to prayer, but it’ll be done in a quad instead of from the chapel.
I still view this as regression on Duke’s part (especially since no one on campus seemed to have an issue with the adhan being made), but at least they haven’t cancelled it entirely.
Well, honestly, I still think the original call was inappropriate. I still continue to see a distinction between a college enabling students to practice their faith (ensuring kosher/halal food, ensuring meeting space, having chaplains/directors if the size of the group warrants, enabling them to publish notices of their upcoming events, etc.) and publicly saying the prayer over a loudspeaker. I can’t really think there should be too many reasons anything should be broadcast over a loudspeaker or publicly heard by everyone in the vicinity, unless it’s something like an emergency warning.
I would have been OK if they had requested a certain bell ring tone at those times that would signal to the Muslim students it was time to go to (wherever) on campus, hear the full call to prayer and do their thing.
I’ve been in countries where they had the call to prayer and it’s lovely, but it just feels too “endorse-y” by the college for my taste. I wouldn’t want a college proactively involved in constructing an eruv (ritual Jewish enclosure for the Sabbath), for example.
I basically agree with Pizzagirl, although I also believe a private school can do whatever it wants - from hanging crosses in the classroom to having a call to prayers once a week for Muslims-- as long as it’s within the bounds of law. Now if this were a public school - very different story. One of the reasons I support the whole concept of public schools is that this sort of thing is limited there (or at least subject to rigorous debate.)
“I am pretty sure that if the Atheist club wanted to announce that “God is imaginary” once a week on the loud speaker, the school would not allow it.”
Strongly disagree. Atheists make their point on the Duke campus every day. There is no way the university would censor this. It’d be all over the New York Times in a hot minute.
GTAlum did, in post #116, which is the post I responded to and that started this line of the discussion.
It would be interesting to see how this would go down, but it probably will not, as atheists are generally not part of any organized groups addressing their “non-beliefs,” nor do they generally proselytize (altho I have seen some billboards) nor do they have any particular life outlook in common and certainly not any unifying rituals or traditions. (Just as people who don’t believe in Santa Claus do not).
What do you mean by, “Atheists make their point on the Duke campus every day?”
Not sure what your point is in bringing this up. Is it that you are saying that people who identify with particular religions do not believe in evolution? I did not understand that to be the case across the board.
As @gator88NE says, if you search, you’ll find lots of references to atheist activities at Duke. Of course there are religious people who accept evolution, but Dawkins is a prominent advocate for loud and proud atheism. That’s probably what he’s best known for, not his work in biology.
Ok, but his speech wasn’t about the existence or non-existence of God. Why is it relevant what belief system a particular speaker identifies with, if the topic is unrelated to that? If someone who is devoutly Jewish spoke two years ago at Duke about say, cancer research, do people then say that Jewish people “make a point about Judaism on the Duke campus everyday?” That is nonsensical.
And more evidence that students and faculty were threatened with *violence/i:
Sad and disgusting. What kind of losers are threatening Muslim students and faculty for practicing their religion? I really don’t understand this mindset.
@Bay Earlier in the thread, Much2Learn used as a “what if”, “Duke Atheist Association wanted to invite Richard Dawkins”. I thought it would be interesting to note that Dawkins (a very high profile Atheist) had recently given a speech on campus.
Also, in reply to your statement
If you Google atheist at Duke, you would find several very active groups. One such group is American Atheist.
Gator,
I’m not finding the Duke atheist groups when I google, and the link you provided seems to be to an article about American Atheist, not about a Duke group. Do you have anything else?