I wondered, Exactly what views were others attacking? Was he advocating for racism? Sexism? Torture? The return of prohibition? Some views ought to be savaged. He was gracious enough to clarify on the record. He began by writing about his formal training as an RA and the norms inculcated by his boss and coworkers:

One memorable example…

Another RA expressed concern about a “Trump” sign hanging outside a resident’s window. There seemed to be unanimous consent in the room that the sign was inappropriate or at least undesirable and my boss made that explicit. She said that although policy forbade her from taking down some signs without taking down all, she would stop by the resident’s room and “remind them that their behavior affects other people.”

When I voiced concern about censoring political speech, I was blasted by a fellow RA who called Trump’s name “hate speech” because of what it represents.

I myself did not vote for Trump and do not respect him. But it was shocking to me that what seemed like the majority of students and faculty would be fine with censoring political speech they disagreed with. The culture was more concerned with silencing dissent than fostering it.

Another example concerned an incident on campus. One morning, a small rope tied in the shape of a noose was found on the main yard. The administration and students were outraged at this overt display of racism.

I was ready to condemn the racist perpetrator with them.

After several days of protests and threats, news slowly leaked that an international student had hung up the noose to text his friends and ask them to “hang out.” While the joke wasn’t the most sensitive or wise, there was absolutely no racist motivation. And yet, I heard students calling for the student’s expulsion. Luckily, I do not think the administration complied, but for my next few years on campus, I would hear students talk about the “noose incident” as an example of pervasive racism on campus. I am as morally opposed to racism as anyone else, but it rubbed me the wrong way when some people insisted on bolstering their claims with stories that were demonstrably false.

[Note: An official Duke investigation attributed the incident to the international student’s “ignorance” of the symbol and “bad judgment.” He was not expelled. Excerpts from his apology are here.]

In these and other scenarios, I felt like there was almost no one who I could confide in without being shamed for my stance. It seemed beliefs as innocuous and bipartisan as the right to political speech on campus were too outrageous to hold. In my isolation, I searched for sanity on the internet. I still remember the first afternoon I discovered the videos of brash conservative pundit Steven Crowder on YouTube. I gorged for hours, feeling pent-up aggression alleviate as I heard someone else condemn the hypocrisy I found at every turn on campus. I found similar refuge in Sam Harris and Ben Shapiro.

With some time and distance between Duke and me, I do not look to them nearly as much. I find Steven Crowder’s habit of mocking his opponents’ appearances petty and annoying and Shapiro’s lack of expressed empathy frustrating. I even listen to NPR these days and regularly read The Atlantic, both of which I consider to be left-leaning (I could not have tolerated more liberal media at Duke than I already received).

However, in the toxic campus environment of incessant virtue-signaling, counter-factual victimhood and thought suppression, I was driven into the conservative ‘intellectual dark web’ where I found solace from the barrage. Duke faculty and students want the world to see things the way they do. But I think they push away all but the most-progressive.

Politically, I stand close to where I did before but I have become embittered by the arguments on the left and view them with much more distaste. Even today, reading the opinion section of the Duke Chronicle will make me angry.