Asian American Students Report Racist Harassment at Duke University

December 20, 2017

Asian American students at Duke University have shared racist comments they heard within the campus in recent weeks.

In an article published on Dec. 18, Duke’s independent student news organization The Chronicle revealed shocking stories of racism unimaginable in a 2017 academic community.

The headlining account is that of first-year student Greta Chen.

On Dec. 2, Chen was watching a basketball game with a group of female friends at the university’s Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Soon, they figured that a sports reporter was tweeting racially-charged comments about their group, who, for one, wrote, “The Asian chick Cameron Crazies behind me are openly swooning over Grayson Allen the way their moms swooned over Cheap Trick.”

The reporter, going by @LonelyTailgater, was identified as John Stansberry, who has since deleted his Twitter account.

Chen told The Chronicle, “We were just kind of shocked. We didn’t know what to do, we didn’t want to make a big deal in the middle of the game.”

She later posted about the experience on Facebook and heard from senior Christine Lee, president of the Asian Students Association, offered to raise the issue to higher authorities. As a result, Stansberry will never be allowed to cover from Cameron again.

“If he requests credentials again, we will not honor it. Based on his actions, he will not have the [future] opportunity to be in Cameron,” Jon Jackson, senior associate athletics director for external affairs, said, according to The News & Observer.

Sam Kim, another first-year student, also had a taste of racism. This time, the incident happened at the university’s Marketplace, which features eight dining venues that serve meals throughout the day.

According to Sam, he was trying to order a black bean burger when a cook made the following comments:

“I bet you’re from California, I am 100 percent sure.”

“I bet you play piano, too.”

“No no, where are you really from?”

Sam told his parents about the incident later. He also shared the experience on Fix My Campus, a service run by the Duke Student Government.

Part of it reads:

“Many of the staff assume right off the bat that I don’t speak English (lived here for 10 years, thank you very much) and treat me accordingly, which is humiliating, to say the least.”

“After all the talk of diversity and inclusivity, this is not what I expected when I came to Duke.”

As per The Chronicle, there have been more resources for Asian American students on campus such as the AAPI BASE within the Center for Multicultural Affairs, and further measures are being taken to improve diversity training.

Read the full story here.

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