Dr. Knight's Speech: Tape #15

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-	Good evening.	0:02
	This is Douglas Knight speaking.	0:03
	I know that all of us are weary this evening,	0:06
	but I would like to speak to you before you have	0:10
	an opportunity to hear the recording of the session	0:13
	this afternoon at which Dr. Kerckhoff and Charles Hopkins	0:17
	reported jointly to many members of our community	0:22
	on the progress which we made last night	0:26
	in formal discussion of the problems which have concerned	0:31
	us so deeply in these past days.	0:35
	That meeting offered positive proof	0:40
	that we can move a long way toward solving our problems	0:43
	with reason if we are given an adequate chance to do so.	0:48
	In a moment, I would like to return to that meeting	0:55
	last night, but first, let me say one thing	0:58
	which I cannot emphasize too strongly.	1:03
	Many of you and many others in the community and the region	1:09
	may regard as major new decisions arrived at last night,	1:13
	matters which actually have been concerns	1:19
	of the university for months or for even years.	1:23
	Some of the information about programs	1:30
	which relate particularly to the concerns	1:33
	of our Afro-American students had not been reported	1:35
	and some of that which had been reported rather fully	1:39
	obviously was not read by many of us on campus.	1:43
	To take just one example,	1:48
	on February 4th, almost 10 days	1:50
	before the drastic step of occupying the first floor	1:54
	of Allen Building, we announced two major decisions	1:58
	affecting our Afro-American students and indeed,	2:03
	all of our students who might face particular problems.	2:09
	I think it is important to note that both	2:15
	of these decisions already accomplished a week	2:17
	before the disruption of Allen Building,	2:20
	and I speak here, of course, of our decision	2:24
	to launch a summer program to assist all students	2:27
	who want and need special academic assistance	2:31
	and the decision to hire an affective advisor	2:34
	for minority groups.	2:38
	In particular, an advisor for Afro-American students.	2:40
	I think it's important to note that these decisions	2:45
	were achieved in the normal course	2:49
	of the university's operation and there are only two	2:52
	among many decisions on which we have taken	2:57
	very positive action in these last months.	3:00
	Now I would like to relate them to the discussion	3:04
	which we held last evening.	3:08
	That discussion, I think, was valuable for those of us	3:13
	who took part in it.	3:17
	Most of all, because we learned so much from one another	3:20
	about issues which many people at Duke	3:26
	and many people in the country have said divided us	3:29
	as a nation and which we ourselves, like everyone else	3:33
	in the country, have felt, at times, to be the sharpest	3:37
	issues of national disagreement in these last years,	3:41
	the issues of equal rights and opportunities	3:47
	for all people in this country.	3:52
	Our discussion last evening was both very specific	3:58
	and very general, as you can imagine.	4:04
	It was very specific in that it addressed itself	4:08
	to the list of concerns	4:14
	and demands which our Afro-American students	4:17
	had submitted to us.	4:19
	It was very general in the sense that all of us	4:22
	were learning what lay behind and beyond	4:25
	these specific demands	4:29
	in the way of deep human concern and at times	4:34
	of human indignity or injustice.	4:40
	In the course of the evening, all of us learned	4:46
	three important things	4:49
	about the particular list of demands submitted to us.	4:54
	First, as I have already suggested,	5:00
	that the university has, in the past months and years,	5:03
	taken major steps to deal with many of them.	5:08
	Second, that in a number of other cases, we are actively	5:14
	at work on problems which it will take some time	5:19
	for Duke or any other university to solve adequately.	5:23
	For instance, the finding of the black advisor	5:29
	who is absolutely right, or the development of a program	5:33
	of Afro-American Studies which has academic solidity	5:39
	and at the same time, as relevance to many students	5:45
	in our community.	5:50
	Third, during our discussion, we discovered a number	5:54
	of outright misunderstandings about requests and demands	5:58
	which had been made.	6:04
	I will give you as three examples of these misunderstandings	6:06
	a true misunderstanding about enrollment in the university.	6:12
	The real concern of our Afro-American students	6:19
	is that the enrollment of black students at Duke	6:22
	increase beyond its present low level.	6:27
	This is a concern which all of us share.	6:31
	To speak of one particular percentage is not wise.	6:35
	To speak of increase is not only wise, but honest.	6:42
	Second is an example of a misunderstanding	6:49
	to speak of academic achievement in high school	6:54
	as the only measure for judging admission to college.	6:59
	After we discussed this question for a bit,	7:06
	it was clear that really, the issue was that	7:09
	of a supposed emphasis	7:14
	on the scholastic aptitude tests,	7:18
	which are not designed for students who may come	7:22
	from disadvantaged backgrounds or those backgrounds	7:25
	which are different from those of the great majority	7:28
	of students in American universities.	7:32
	We were able to establish the fact	7:36
	that our way of selecting students to attend the university	7:39
	in every case includes the most serious attention	7:45
	to high school achievements and to the recommendations	7:50
	of teachers and others who know a student well.	7:54
	It's a third example of misunderstanding	8:00
	which we could correct in the course of the evening.	8:03
	Discussion of the grading system for Afro-American students	8:07
	very quickly became a discussion of the nature	8:12
	of grading systems in the university world	8:16
	for all students, and this is a subject which can honestly	8:20
	be the concern of an academic community,	8:26
	to select only one group and talk about a special	8:31
	grading system for it would clearly be both	8:35
	unwise and insulting, but no one pretends	8:38
	that any one grading system is the ideal one	8:42
	for the whole university community.	8:46
	Now the results which we achieved and which	8:52
	Mr. Kerckhoff will be describing to you	8:56
	in just a few moments were not brought about	8:59
	by confrontation, as some may have said.	9:01
	They were brought about instead by human beings	9:05
	who met in mutual faith	9:08
	and true desire for the understanding	9:11
	of one another's points of view.	9:14
	There is, as I see it,	9:18
	no other constructive road	9:20
	for this university or any other university to travel.	9:21
	Together, we must find many ways to meet	9:25
	but conflict and violence	9:29
	simply interfere with our ways of meeting.	9:32
	They do not clear the road, they block it.	9:37
	Now I would like you	9:42
	to hear Professor Kerckhoff's detailed	9:43
	presentation of the results	9:47
	of our meeting last night.	9:48

Item Info

Title:

Dr. Knight's Speech: Tape #15

Date:

February 16, 1969

Subject:

Format:

Extent:

0:09:52

Digital Collection:

Silent Vigil (1968) and Allen Building Takeover (1969) Audio Recordings

Source Collection:

WDBS collection, 1949-1983

Series:

WDBS Tapes of the Allen Building Takeover

Rights:

Rights Note:

Duke has not determined the copyright status of this item. Regardless of its status, we have made a good faith determination that online access through the Duke Digital Repository is an acceptable fair use and otherwise permitted under U.S. copyright law. For more information, see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

Identifier:

UA31120005-RR-0042
4f2b75ad453ce72d3f2d9bbb6edddb15
uawdbs2
duke:372834
silau001041
ark:/87924/r45718s3g
df5da01f-c71a-4ee2-b992-ec7312db1cc4

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Dr. Knight's Speech: Tape #15

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