Opinion ID: 2342172
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Dr Knight's Activity

Text: You probably don't know this either, but in order to get this money, Dr. Knight had to sign an Assurance of Compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and he did so sign on January 13, 1965. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare is the muscle behind this Assurance gimmick, and once they have induced you to accept the bribe they are naturally going to demand that you do what they tell you to do. I am sure you can understand that, and I'm sure that all of you would be willing to sacrifice in principle for some ten to fourteen million dollars. If you cannot be bought with those figures, then you must have studied at Duke under an entirely different type of administration. Shortly after the signing by Dr. Knight, H.E.W. told him to produce the constitutions of all fraternities and sororities to see if any discriminatory clauses pertaining to white caucasians only existed. Dr. Knight dutifully complied and used his own authority to coerce by threatening to deny to fraternities and sororities the use of university facilities. Fortunately, our liberal minded students and faculty members saw nothing in this demand as an encroachment on personal freedom, and, also fortunately, the main body of our students were so busy minding their own business as not to challenge this usurpation of their right of selection in matters of personal association. You must understand, of course, that the reason for the Government handing out money, which they borrow from you without your consent, is political. So, to stay in the good graces of H.E.W. and keep this debt money coming, we had to go out and recruit a quota of blacks. Don't misunderstand now. These are qualified blacks, selected with care, because they are expected to do the work; however, practically all of them are lacking in funds, so we pay them to come to Duke. Those of you who have children at Duke who entered on a competitive basis, and for whom you pay in full, may question our policy of admitting blacks on a quota basis and paying them to come; however, you would be more in sympathy if you had H.E.W. inspection teams on your back and all this money was dependent upon your compliance. You want us to have a good physical plant don't you, and what of it if we trade away a little moral principle? H.E.W. is always inquisitive about blacks on the faculty and blacks in administrative offices and the mixing of colors in hospital rooms. Their inspection team got fooled when they visited the hospital because we knew they were coming over from Chapel Hill and we scrambled while they were here and unscrambled after they were gone. You may rest assured that we do not like the moral implications of any of this and we realized that this sacrifice of principle would catch up with us  but we needed the money.