Duke University is known as a standout in both academics and athletics, but it should be better known as a campus that censors dissent from the prevailing leftist orthodoxy and attempts to punish both professors and students who fail to fall in line.

Former Duke Professor Dr. Evan Charney found this out the hard way. Until recently, Charney was an associate professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy. After a two-decade career at the august institution, during which he won awards and was highly regarded by both students and faculty, Charney was informed that his contract would not be renewed. The issue? According to a report from the Faculty Hearing Committee, a group of faculty from various departments at Duke, Charney’s firing was “largely” a result of his teaching style which some faculty believed had “a tendency to provoke negative reactions, and perhaps harm, among some students in the classroom.” 

Charney himself called the accusation “extraordinary,” and others have noted that his student evaluations confirm his excellent teaching skills. During the period from Fall 2014 to Spring 2018, Charney’s received a score of 4.48 out of 5 for “fostering a positive class dynamic and atmosphere conducive to learning.” The departmental faculty average was only 4.34.

In a piece titled, “The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Education,” Charney explained his understanding of the true reasons behind his dismissal.

“The answer, I believe, is twofold,” he wrote. “First, the complaint of a handful of students concerning the events of a single class in which we discussed racism at Duke; second, an administration willing to give this complaint absolute credence and greater weight than a record of 20 years as an outstanding teacher, and to distort that record to ensure a negative vote of the faculty.”

Professor Charney is far from the only casualty of Duke’s fervor for political correctness; students have suffered as well. In November of 2021, the president of Duke University’s student government took the extraordinary step of vetoing approval for a chapter of the pro-Israel campus group Students Supporting Israel (SSI). According to the campus newspaper, the student government president had not issued a veto in over five years prior to the debate about SSI’s recognition.

Student Government President Christina Wang claimed that she was vetoing SSI because the organization “singled out an individual student on their organization’s social media account in a way that was unacceptable for any student group.”

So what comment was so egregious that it should stand in the way of SSI’s recognition? After a student tweeted a link about SSI’s pending approval with the comment “My school promotes settler colonialism,” SSI responded to her by name stating, “please allow us to educate you on what ‘settler colonialism’ actually is and why Israel does not fall under this category whatsoever. These types of narratives are what we strive to combat and condemn, which is why Duke’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel has been officially established & is here to stay.” Apparently, calling out an individual by name for their mendacious and anti-Semitic public tweet is “unacceptable” at Duke.

Also in 2021, Duke police were asked to investigate alleged “homophobic” and “anti-Black” graffiti that was scrawled on the East Campus Bridge. The only problem—the bridge is officially designated by the university as a free speech zone where “Individuals and student groups may express opinions within this area that are not restricted by content, except by legal standards.”  Despite this explicit promise of free speech, Duke administrators stated that the perpetrators could face disciplinary consequences under the school’s “hate and bias policy.” Duke’s persecution of faculty and students who refuse to submit to the administration’s radical outlook merits its inclusion on the list of the most fascist universities.