Duke University

A Duke professor filed a lawsuit against the University last Wednesday, alleging that Duke pays her significantly less than her male colleagues and that she faced retaliation for her complaints. 

In 2020, Rachel Lance, assistant consulting professor in the department of anesthesiology, was allegedly assigned additional work without an increase in pay by Joseph Mathew, her immediate supervisor and chairman of her department. 

After initially raising “multiple internal complaints” to several University offices, Lance also began expressing concerns about a potential pay gap between herself and other male colleagues in her department. In August of 2021, Lance filed an official complaint with the Office of Institutional Equity, followed by a Charge of Discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in October.

Lance says that after the complaints were filed, Mathew and other Duke employees created a “hostile work environment” through retaliatory comments and actions, including repeated attempts to pressure Lance into “dropping” her complaints. 

In one such instance, Lance was allegedly told by a professor that her complaints labeled her as a “troublemaker.”

On Tuesday, MGM Chief Administrative Officer Kris Matthews informed all department members that OIE and MGM were designing a training module aimed at “helping members of our department be fair and welcoming of individuals who differ in their background,” according to the email.

“Per School of Medicine guidelines, all faculty are required to attend a session,” the email read.

Within minutes, Bryan Cullen, James B. Duke distinguished professor of molecular genetics and microbiology, replied to everyone on the email chain.

“My initial reaction is I refuse to engage in left-wing Maoist political propaganda workshops and, as a tenured faculty, that is my choice,” Cullen wrote in an email reply obtained by The Chronicle.

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Department members reacted to Cullen’s reply within the email chain and on social media.

"In the below figure, we see a textbook example of a tenured faculty member whose grasp on human decency is on par with his grasp on the reply-all function," wrote MGM doctoral candidate Jeffrey Letourneau in a reply-all email obtained by The Chronicle.

“It is unfortunate you will not be attending Bryan as you might learn that posting comics with transphobic undertones is typically inappropriate for a prestigious Duke tenured faculty member,” doctoral candidate Jonathan Ark wrote in an email reply obtained by The Chronicle.

When Cuban-American author Jennine Capó Crucet speaks to students of color at PWIs she reminds them: “This place never imagined you here, and your exclusion was a fundamental premise in its initial design.” The same holds true of Duke Student Government, an organization which will inevitably reflect the values of the university by working in conjunction to, instead of in opposition of, Duke administrative forces. Senate, committee meetings and social gatherings have added fuel to the hellfire that is the psychological trauma caused by my existence in an elite environment.

I am writing to resign from Duke Student Government because of recurrent microaggressions within the organization. Truth is, I’m tired of feeling like an on-hand diversity token and discrimination detector.

To be successful in DSG, a student must be comfortable networking with the predominately white and wealthy representative body and adhere to respectability politics during meetings (especially if said meeting is with an administrator). Normative notions of respectability encouraged by the executive team are tainted with the belief that behavior from dissenting minority and/or low-income students is inherently inferior. Upon my departure, there will be zero senators from underrepresented ethnoracial groups on the Academic Affairs committee. Seemingly, in DSG, intellectualism and changing the face of higher education are not considered acceptable pursuits for Black or LatinX students.