October 17, 2019

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The Chronicle

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T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2019 DUKECHRONICLE.COM

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 18

The story behind Duke and Palantir, a company with ICE contracts By Mona Tong Local and National News Editor

A data analytics company that recruits at Duke has been the subject of recent controversy and student opposition over its contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Students protested Palantir Technologies Sept. 24 while the company participated in TechConnect, an annual networking event for engineering and computer science students, and hosted an ethics workshop the day before. According to senior Cat Jeon, one of the students who helped to organize the TechConnect protest, “a lot of people were deterred” and left Palantir’s line at the event. She said that many students had not previously known about Palantir’s relationship to ICE and were shocked to learn of it. “Another girl and I had little handouts, and we basically went to every single person in the [Palantir] line, giving them our flyer and saying, ‘Hey, do you know this about Palantir?’” Jeon said.

What happened at the TechConnect protest

The day before the TechConnect protest, a group of around five students held a small demonstration at Palantir’s ethics workshop. The protesters, in addition to a few more interested students like Jeon, scrambled afterwards at 11 p.m. to brainstorm ideas for organizing a larger TechConnect protest the next day. One of the things they decided to do was place red posters over a few building signs, such as one reading “Humanity over Profits” at the Fitzpatrick building, Jeon added. At the TechConnect event, the protestors took shifts in small groups of four, their main goal being to block the recruiting efforts of the target companies. They aimed to protest multiple companies, including Amazon, as it provides cloud-computing services to ICE, Jeon noted. However, she said the protesters prioritized Palantir for their “direct connection to ICE.” The Palantir representative seemed “angry” and called the police on the protesters, Jeon said. During the time it took the police to arrive, the line had dwindled down to just one or two people, she added. When the police arrived, Jeon said that she and the other protesters had to relocate to outside the building, since under Duke policy students must file with the University Center Activities and Events (UCAE) Office before protesting. “At that point, it’s not really doing any kind of antagonistic thing anymore because it would be approved by the University,” she said, explaining why the group did not register their protest. Outside, they continued their efforts, shouting things like “No Tech for ICE,” and “Palantir, you work for ICE,” until the next shift showed up and went inside to protest. Those who were in the second shift of protestors were also asked to leave after another police call was made. Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, affirmed Duke’s commitment to protecting See PALANTIR on Page 12

Bre Bradham | News Photography Editor Students protested Palantir’s connections with ICE.

Charles York | Photography Editor

Chronicle File Photo

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Sen. Chuck Grassley (right) penned a letter to Vincent Price about Duke not renewing Evan Charney’s (left) contract last year.

GRASSLEY DIGS INTO DUKE By Bre Bradham Investigations Editor

Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy drew some ire when it decided not to renew Professor Evan Charney’s contract and he had to stop teaching at the end of the Spring 2019 semester. Now it has also attracted the official attention of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and the Senate Committee on Finance. Grassley recently penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, mentioning several high-profile cases involving faculty academic freedom in higher education, and sent a formal letter to President Vincent Price requesting answers about Charney’s case. The letter noted Duke’s tax-exempt status and raised broader concerns about academic freedom in higher education. Charney, meanwhile, began a new job last month—right back at Duke. The Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity hired him as a research scientist, and he began working there Sept. 2. The new role does not currently include teaching. “I’m working at Duke, believe it or not,” Charney said. “I was ready to leave, I was set to leave, and I got hired at the Cook Center for Social Equity.” Charney said he did not know about Grassley’s column until a student pointed it out to him. A staff member from Grassley’s office had reached out a few months ago about the topic and they had a phone conversation, Charney said, but he did not know what would come of it. A registered Democrat and self-described liberal, the former Sanford professor said he was not surprised that a Republican senator had picked up the issue. That reflects a larger paradigm shift in higher education, Charney said, as liberals suppress free speech on college campuses. Grassley’s letter, dated Sept. 25, comes a few weeks after the Department of Education prodded the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle Eastern Studies about its representation of Islam and use of Title VI funds. In the wake of the Department of Education’s letter, Price and Provost Sally Kornbluth issued a statement on

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academic freedom. Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for government affairs and public relations, pointed to the statement when asked about Grassley’s letter, saying it still stands. “No outside entity will determine what Duke faculty will teach, how they teach it, what they choose to research or write about, or who can speak on our campus,” states a line Schoenfeld highlighted from the message.

‘An equal provocateur’

opportunity

Evan Charney was sitting outside Au Bon Pain on a sunny Saturday earlier this October, a ring rapping against the metal table with each emphatically-made point about free speech in higher education. At this time last year, he was regularly teaching a class called Policy Choice as a Value Conflict in the Sanford School of Public Policy and beginning a public fight against the University about its decision not to renew his contract. As an associate professor of the practice, he had been teaching at Sanford on five-year contracts for almost two decades and didn’t expect there to be problems when he came up for review this time. But in early 2018, the Sanford faculty voted not to renew his contract, citing a number of reasons. Charney appealed the faculty’s decision to Kornbluth, who upheld Sanford’s call. Then he took the case to the Faculty Hearing Committee, filing a complaint on the grounds that the Sanford decision had violated his academic freedom and due process rights. “The members of the panel were disappointed with Sanford’s handling of Professor Charney’s reappointment,” the FHC report stated. “Professor Charney was, for many years at Duke, a highlyrated, University-decorated, and—for many, many students—beloved and formative teacher.” The FHC unanimously decided to not take action on his request, effectively rejecting it, but acknowledged in its decision that the issue boiled down to his teaching style—“dissatisfaction with Professor Charney’s classroom @dukechronicle @dukebasketball |

performance was plainly the primary motive for his nonrenewal.” Charney appealed the FHC’s decision to Price, who also rejected the appeal. That finalized his departure from teaching at Sanford, and his last class ended in the Spring 2019 semester.

‘Serious concerns about the state of higher education’

Grassley, the chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Finance, published the opinion piece that included Charney’s case in the Wall Street Journal in late September. In “The Senate Takes on Campus Censorship,” the senator also mentioned Harvard University, Sarah Lawrence College and Villanova University. “True cases of discrimination need to be investigated and handled with care,” Grassley wrote. “But media reports indicate many such complaints are frivolous and politically motivated.” In addition to the commentary and a news release, Grassley also fired off oversight letters to the four colleges with questions about their handling of the cases. In the letter addressed to Price, Grassley started by noting Duke’s tax-exempt status as an educational institution and noting that the senator has seen a “variety of media reports discussing incidents in higher education involving faculty suffering difficulties with or expressing concerns about teaching or researching topics that might challenge or encourage critical thinking about the conventional wisdom or a popular ideology of the day.” “The purpose of this letter is not to re-litigate Duke University’s decision not to renew Prof. Charney’s contract nor is it to question the adequacy of procedures afforded to Prof. Charney in the wake of that non-renewal,” the letter states. “However, Prof. Charney more generally raises serious concerns about the state of higher education.” The letter goes on to list 23 questions, some of which feature multiple parts, regarding Charney’s case and Duke’s Bias Response Advisory Committee. The questions range from the type of orientation See GRASSLEY on Page 4

@thedukechronicle | © 2019 The Chronicle


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October 17, 2019 by Duke Chronicle - Issuu