Education

Locked-down Duke students lash out at fraternities over campus virus spike

Two days into a week-long campus lockdown at Duke University to curb the spread of coronavirus, students furious with fraternities over the spike in infections that led to the lockdown are calling for the fraternities to be punished - and possibly sued.

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By
Sarah Krueger
, WRAL Durham reporter
DURHAM, N.C. — Two days into a week-long campus lockdown at Duke University to curb the spread of coronavirus, students furious with fraternities over the spike in infections that led to the lockdown are calling for the fraternities to be punished – and possibly sued.
More than 180 students have tested positive for the virus in the last week, and 200 others were in isolation after contact tracing before Duke officials put the lockdown in place on Sunday.

In a statement Sunday, Duke said the new cases were “almost all linked to unsanctioned fraternity recruitment events that took place off campus.”

“This stay-in-place order is the direct result of individual behavior in violation of Duke’s requirements for in-person activity,” the statement said. “Those who are found responsible for organizing and hosting these events will be held accountable.”

During the lockdown, students who live on campus must stay in their rooms except for essential errands like picking up food. They also may walk outdoors in groups of three or fewer. Students living off campus were told not to go to campus and were “strongly encouraged” to limit their movements and activities off campus.

All undergraduate classes are being taught online. Graduate and professional classes are continuing as planned.

"The only reason we’re in this mess is because students feel like they are above the law," freshman Zoe Tishaev said Monday. "I absolutely blame fraternities. I also blame the students who are going to fraternity parties."

"Students are frustrated immensely by the fact that they’ve been playing their part but these so-called privileged fraternity men are not," said senior Shreyas Gupta, a former fraternity member who has formed a group to abolish Greek groups on campus.

After completing the fall semester relatively unscathed, Duke has seen numerous virus clusters since students returned in January, and last week reported its highest caseloads during the pandemic.

"The spark was clearly a number of events that took place over the last 10 days or so that were directly connected to fraternity and selective group activities off campus, as well as some amount of travel," said Michael Schoenfeld, Duke's chief communications and government relations officer.

"What’s happening now was not a precipitous move," Schoenfeld said of the lockdown. "In fact, it’s been telegraphed, as you know, for the last couple of weeks as we have been monitoring this very, very closely."

Duke has threatened campus sanctions for weeks in an effort to keep coronavirus cases down.

"The vast majority of Duke students have been very carefully observing the guidelines, the common-sense guidelines that are out there for public health," Schoenfeld said.

"We are in here for selfish reasons. People put their own well-being above everybody else," Tishaev said. "I’m sure people will continue to not follow the lockdown – the same people who haven’t been following it before – and there is a chance that it’ll get worse because of people like that."

Tishaev said the lockdown comes at an especially difficult time – midterm exams – when students need each other's support.

"Part of the campus life is the sociability of it. It’s been stripped away slowly over the past couple months, and now it’s been completely decimated," she said. "It’s isolating and lonesome, and it makes you feel like you’re alone in the world facing all these problems."

Most fraternities broke formal ties with Duke last fall after the university pressed to bar first-year students from taking part in rush activities. Nine of the 13 fraternities formed their own Durham Inter-Fraternity Council.

An online petition calling on the university to sue the new governing council for “reckless endangerment” has gathered more than 1,300 signatures.

Will Santee, president of Durham Inter-Fraternity Council, said rush activities were supposed to be virtual, but those policies "were not adhered to."

"We do recognize that there is this correlation between Durham IFC cases and cases within the vast Duke community. So, we do recognize our role in that," Santee said. "Things didn’t go as we wanted them to."

The group is setting up a hotline where people can anonymously report violations, he said, adding that the information will be turned over to Duke officials.

"We’re not bad guys. We’re Duke students," Santee said. "We’re kids. We didn’t want anyone to get COVID. No one wants anyone to get COVID. ... We want to do our part as we see our responsibility within the Durham community."

Schoenfeld said the students who hosted or facilitated those fraternity events "will be held accountable," noting that they could be suspended or expelled.

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