The 1960s and 1970s: A Sea of White · "Cherry Blossoms Among Magnolias?": A History of the Asian American Experience at Duke

Duke University Board of Trustees Resolutions

Bowing to increasing pressure to desegregate, Duke finally allowed its first black undergraduates to enroll starting in 1963.^[1]

Carol Hom (Class of 1976):

"The foreign born Chinese students were kind to me. There weren’t that many Asian American students, and I didn’t feel any kind of kinship with them nor did I feel that I had to."^[2]

A Sea of White: Duke University Class of 1966

Melvin Chen (left page, fifth row) was probably the only student of Asian descent in the overwhelmingly white Class of 1966. From the 1966 Chanticleer.

Throughout most of the 1960s and 1970s, the number of students of Asian descent at Duke still remained extremely low. Given the few Asian communities in the American South at the time, as well as the concentration of Asian Americans on the West Coast, Duke remained a school dominated by well to do Caucasians primarily from the Mid-Atlantic region.

Despite the administration taking actions to diversify the university, such as officially allowing African Americans to enroll in the undergraduates colleges of Duke starting from 1963, Duke’s student body still remained extremely homogeneous. Records from the Registrar office reveal that the overwhelmingly majority of students in the Duke Class of 1971 identified as being white (over 95%).^[3] Of the 4.64% of the students who identified as being minority, only 1 (0.21%) identified as “Oriental.” Similarly, in 1974, only 23 students out of the 5,458 enrolled in the undergraduate colleges of Duke were identified as being “Oriental American.”^[4]

Although the number of Asian students at Duke was extremely modest during this period, the Chinese Student Association was founded at Duke in 1971, which in 1981 became the Society of Asian American Students, the precusor to today's Asian Student Association (ASA).^[5]

In the 70s, black students made up the overwhelming majority of minority representation within Duke's student body, as shown in this document from the registrar records.^[4]

The majority of Duke's small number of Asian students in 1974 were enrolled in Trinity, as shown in this document from the university registrar records.^[6]

Besides the student body, Duke's faculty makeup was also extremely homogenous, as shown in this document from the 1972 Affirmative Action Plan.^[7]

Duke University Office of the University Vice President & Vice Provost, Legacy, 1963-1993: Thirty Years of African American Students at Duke University (Durham: Duke University, 1995), 24.
Carol Fong, inteview by Alan Ko, email communication, June 18, 2016.
Table, “Personal Characteristics of a National Sample of College Seniors and Duke Seniors in the Class of 1971,” [1971], Box 32, Office of the University Registrar Records, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
Table, “Minority Students, Fall Semester 1972-1976,” [ca. 1976], Box 32, Office of the University Registrar Records, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
Report, “Task Force Proposal for the Improvement of the Asian and Asian American Student Experience,” [2000], Box 1, Asian Student Association Records, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
Table, “Student Information Roster, All Students, Fall 1974,” [1974], Box 32, Office of the University Registrar Records, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
Report, “Affirmative Action Plan for Equal Employment Opportunity,” [1972], Box 1, Office for Institutional Equity Records, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.