Loading

Your Ethics 101 Assignment: No Lying for a Week. What Do You Learn?

Most people agree that lying is wrong. But could you actually live your life without lying to anyone about anything? 

They don’t know it yet, but the students in Ethics 101 are about to find out.

Students in class
Scarlett Schwimmer (left) and Vincent Hovsepian (center) listen to a classmate during the discussion. Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

Jesse Summers sets up his classroom differently than most philosophy professors. Instead of facing the front of the classroom, students face each other, sitting in small groups around tables spaced throughout the room. 

Right now, these groups are busy discussing a famous scenario about whether lying is morally permissible — Immanuel Kant’s “Murderer at the Door.”

As summarized by Summers, this scenario is: “You’re in your house. Your friend comes to the door and knocks. Your friend says, ‘Someone is looking to murder me. I’m going to hide in your house.’ You let your friend inside. Then there’s another knock on your door. The murderer is at the door and says, ‘I’m looking for your friend. Is your friend here?’”

The answer seems obvious, right? “No.”

But that conflicts with Kant’s ethical theory, which takes a strong position when it comes to lying: don’t do it. But should we really take lying off the table in all cases, even when someone’s life is at stake?

The students are still debating this when Summers calls them out of their small groups and opens the discussion to the entire class. What do they think about lying to the murderer at the door?

“If it’s life and death, all bets are off,” is the first student’s response.

“The only reason you wouldn’t lie would be a norm against lying,” another says, referring to an earlier discussion on ethical norms.

“Good!” Summers says. “If your view is, the norm is ‘Don’t lie,’  and norms should be followed, you tell the truth.”

“Murderers aren’t entitled to the same norms as others,” someone else says.

“Kant uses this case as a way to establish how committed he is to saying you should always tell the truth,” Summers explains. “I think he’s trolling a little bit. But his point is that you respect other people’s rational autonomy. You don’t assume the person is going to do bad things. You assume the person is capable of being reasoned with, and in virtue of that, you don’t deceive them. But Kant doesn’t say you have to let them in the house,” he adds.

“What’s going to stop them from trying to break open the door?” one student wonders.

“Morality, presumably,” Summers says, trolling a little bit.

“The only way a universalized principle works is if everyone subscribes to it,” another student says, seeming a little frustrated. “You can’t have some Kantians and some Utilitarians.”

“How honest should I be, then?” Summers asks. “Should I tell the truth all the time, no matter what? Or do we have norms in place to establish the limits of when I should tell the truth?”

“Honesty can be really self-serving,” a student says. “I’m not convinced it’s a norm at all in certain cases.”

Summers seems very interested in this response, but the class is out of time, and he has to prep the students for their next meeting. 

“Here’s your assignment,” he says. “Not starting at the end of this class — starting in a few hours, you are going to commit — ”

“No…!” someone gasps. 

“—  to not deceiving and lying to other people for one week,” Summers finishes. “Don’t short-circuit them, don’t manipulate them. Be honest with them. And keep track of the times when you fail to do it.”

“I’m playing poker Wednesday,” a student says. “Can I lie in poker?”

Summers doesn’t answer yes or no. “This is the assignment,” he says.

“…I’m going to lose money,” the student says mournfully.

Jesse Summers teaching
Jesse Summers speaks to students during a class discussion. Summers structures the class around students’ contributions. “It’s such a fun class, but it’s impossible to prepare for,” he says. Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

“They think they’re just killing time waiting for me to get to the real material,” Summers says of the students’ small group discussions. But he thinks these discussions serve an important function.

“They settle into these groups and end up with these classroom relationships because they talk to the same people in class every time,” he says. 

Like every other college instructor in the world, Summers has been thinking about teaching in the age of generative AI. “When we went to Zoom during the pandemic, I thought, ‘What is truly important?’” he says. “Now with Generative AI, I’m like, ‘What are we doing in the classroom?’”

Summers isn’t opposed to incorporating AI into his teaching; in fact, he recently gave students the option to use it to teach themselves the basics of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. He said the results were so promising, he’d do so again. 

But if ChatGPT can step in and teach students the basics of Aristotle, what should the role of an ethics professor be?

People used to come to universities because “that’s where the books were,” Summers says. Now, “You don’t need to be here for the books, so why do we need to be here?” 

Right now, for Summers, the answer is simple: to connect with other people. “You get to have this conversation with the professor and other students about what you’re doing.”

In other words, what the students are learning isn’t just “What does Kant or Bentham or Aristotle say about ethics?” It’s “Isn’t it fun to talk about ethics with other people?”

“It’s so fun,” Summers says with complete sincerity.

Ryan Si talking during class
Ryan Si gestures as he speaks during a class discussion. Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

“We know a good bit about each other because we talk about our lives a lot,” Ryan Si says about his Ethics 101 group.

Si is a sophomore studying political science, economics, and philosophy. In high school, he participated in Lincoln Douglas debates — competitions where teams of students use philosophy to argue for or against resolutions. But he decided to take Ethics 101 because it was about ethics in “everyday cases.”

“A lot of the readings we do aren’t really dense theory,” he says. “We can take the ideas from the text and just kind of run with it…and obviously, when you’re talking in discussion, people don’t tend to bring in super abstract ideas. They bring in their own experiences.” 

In addition to readings, practical assignments,  like “no lying for a week,” are topics for discussions. Some of these practical assignments aren’t practical at all, like the one to “waste time” for an hour (“I assume some version of scrolling is not how you’d like to waste time,” is Summers’ only caveat).

On the day I visited, he opened the class by asking the students to discuss whether or not superheroes are “assholes” because they regularly flout norms that the rest of us follow.

Liz Romage
Liz Romage joined Ethics 101 as a teaching assistant after taking the course the previous year. Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

“Professor Summers does a great job of setting up the conversation, and then opening it up for people to bring up real-life examples,” says Elizabeth Romage, a junior studying public policy and psychology. She is also pursuing an Ethics certificate.

During open discussions, when Summers is talking to one student, asking follow-up questions that encourage them to dig a little further in their thinking, he intentionally moves to the opposite side of the room. This prompts the student to talk louder so that everyone else in the room can hear them, and anyone can join the discussion at any point.

“I think, honestly, Professor Summers runs the class in a way where it just works,” Romage says. “He’s very open. He’s very inclusive. He makes the students laugh…He’s outlining that it’s a safe space where we’re learning from each other.”

“I think that Professor Summers is very non-judgmental when people share ideas,” Si says. “I struggle with this a little bit because I did debate in high school, so my first reaction is, ‘Why is it wrong?’ I think his approach is the antithesis of the way that I used to approach ideas. He’s like, ‘Why do you think that?’ or ‘Does this tie to something that somebody else said?’ And I think that’s what makes it very welcoming.”

Do students have opportunities to participate in these kinds of discussions elsewhere at Duke? Romage says there are some, but “I don’t think they know where to find them a lot of the time.”

“That’s why I think the class is awesome,” she says, “having it built into your schedule and knowing that you do have that space.”

“Opening yourself up to questions, to comments, to being challenged, and then learning from it all — that is a great skill, and I think Ethics 101 is an awesome place to practice that,” she says.

A student raises her hand during a class discussion
Sasha Rhee raises her hand during the class discussion. Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

“I think the topic area is very interesting,” Si says of the class. “I think it’s applicable to every single person. And I think no matter who you are, if you take the class, you’re going to get something out of it.”

What has Si gotten out of Ethics 101? 

Si says that he uses ethical theories from class as “thought tools” for how to approach specific situations.

“Like, I have this ethical dilemma,” he says. “What theory is calling to me? And how can I use that to reason what is moral?”

But sometimes that might mean setting a certain ethical theory aside — like Kant’s directive not to lie.

“I did my very best — like, I swear I tried,” Si says of the “no lying for a week” assignment. “But then there came an instance where one of my friends was really going through a tough time. They were feeling a little bit lost — like, ‘Why am I in college? Why am I this major?’ Like, everything

“A lot of my words ended up sounding like, ‘Don’t worry — things will work out, even if it’s hard to see right now.’ I can’t know if that’s true — if everything’s going to be all right or not. So I guess that was a deception. In that instance, I thought that a different ethical theory other than a very, very strict ‘no lie’ theory was more important.”

Reflecting on this, Si says that some ethical theories don’t consider human relationships enough.

“They don’t shine a big light on relationships for something that’s so important for people,” he says. “A lot of studies have indicated that the relationships that you have with people are the most important indicator of how your life turns out and how happy you are.”

Si says that he started to see how relationships fit into ethics when he started reading Aristotle on friendship. And he also brings ethics into his own relationships — in discussions with friends who enjoy talking about philosophy as much as he does.

“The more I learn, the more I can bring to these conversations, and the more I can teach them, and they teach me back as well,” he says. “I think that’s a very rewarding way to pursue ethics. It’s a very nerdy way to bond, but it is a good way to bond.”

Student laugh during a class discussion
Dhruv Bindra (left) and Dylan Jeffries (center) laugh during the class’s discussion. Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

A New Study Asks: How Do Kids Figure out Where They Stand Politically?

This article by Duke University science writer Robin Smith originally appeared on Duke Today.

Illustration of three children playing with modeling clay, creating political symbols, while a researcher looks on and takes notes
Where do our political attitudes come from? Worldview Lab co-directors Stephen Vaisey and Christopher Johnston say that most research focuses on subjects in early to middle adulthood — by which point political views are often already solidified. Hoping to fill in the gaps, they’ve teamed up with Duke sociologist Jessi Streib and Bass Connections to conduct a study focused on 10–12-year-old children. Illustration by Yunyi Dai.

The contentious 2024 U.S. presidential election may be over, but Americans across the political spectrum remain baffled by the other side.

The percentage of U.S. adults who see the nation as divided on key values is higher than at any point in the last three decades.

Nearly half of Americans think members of the opposing political party aren’t just wrong, but bad people.

But how do we end up leaning toward one party over another in the first place? It’s a question that’s been nagging at one Duke University team.

“Why do some people come to identify as Republicans, and others as Democrats?” said political science professor Chris Johnston, who co-directs the Worldview Lab in the Kenan Institute for Ethics.

He and Worldview Lab co-director Stephen Vaisey, along with Duke sociology professor Jessi Streib, wanted to know more about this process.

But the more they read about the origins of our political leanings, Streib said, the more they realized how little was known.

Some of the best-known studies to date tracked people from the end of high school onward, following them once or twice a decade until they reached middle age.

But when it comes to political views and orientation — one’s preferences about issues such as abortion, gender roles, whether a person identifies as liberal or conservative — studies suggest that most people’s core beliefs start to crystallize much sooner, before they reach adulthood.

That leaves researchers guessing about how the experiences we have up to that point influence our perspectives.

“We have very little data on what happens during those early periods,” Johnston said.

Furthermore, previous studies followed people during a different political era, from the 1960s to the 1990s, when Americans were less ideologically divided and the media less fractured than they are now.

In an effort to fill the gaps, the researchers have teamed up with Bass Connections to launch a new study of children and their parents, starting with 10- to 12-year-olds.

They’re following them once every two years until they reach voting age to better understand how various influences during those formative years shape our politics.

Many factors — including family and religious upbringing, peer pressure, the media, even our DNA — all have a hand in shaping a person’s political ideology.

Typically, parents are one of the earliest influences on young people’s politics, Streib said.

But family dynamics can be complicated, she added. While most U.S. teens share their parents’ political loyalties, some kids grow up in right- or left-leaning families only to cross party lines as adults.

Streib said she’s particularly interested in the values and political messages kids are exposed to at home, and how children respond when those messages conflict.

It may be that their parents talk about equality at the dinner table, while acting differently in their day-to-day lives — by living in a gated community, for example, or treating people with disdain or suspicion just because they’re poor.

“How do kids make sense of mixed messages like that?” Streib said.

As we get older, “other influences come into play too,” said Duke sophomore and Bass Connections team member Suhhyun Lee, recalling her first access to social media at age 13.

Add to that what kids pick up from their friends, at school, from elsewhere on the Internet.

“We want to know where kids are hearing about politics, what they’re interested in finding out for themselves and how that all shapes the way they ultimately develop,” Streib said.


“It is hard to pin down what causes what [in the relationship between personality and politics]. To get at this, we need to start early to capture the period before these links are formed, so we can observe the causal sequence.”

— Christopher Johnston, Worldview Lab co-director


Some researchers argue that our political beliefs may be even more deep-rooted, embedded within our very nature or psychological make-up.

For example, studies have found that people with certain personality traits tend to lean toward one party or the other, Johnston said.

Republicans and Democrats tend to differ in how they relate to novelty and uncertainty, hence the stark divisions between the two parties on immigration issues such as border security and pathways to citizenship.

But just because there is a connection between personality and politics doesn’t prove that one caused the other, Johnston said.

“It is hard to pin down what causes what,” Johnston said. “To get at this, we need to start early to capture the period before these links are formed, so we can observe the causal sequence.”

Johnston stressed that the goal isn’t to teach kids about politics or shape people’s perceptions, but rather to understand how they grow up to hold a range of political views. “We want a diversity of perspectives,” he said.

To do that, the researchers are looking at participants’ views on a variety of issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, their personality traits, and their responses to questions like, “Which is more important to you, curiosity or good manners?”

Aided by undergraduate students, the team conducted the first round of surveys with children and their parents this past fall, before the 2024 election, and will follow up with them with more in-depth interviews this spring.

And while today’s tweens won’t be eligible to vote in a presidential election until 2032, preliminary interviews suggest they already have nuanced views on politics.

“I think we were all really surprised at how much they knew,” said Duke junior and Bass Connections team member Hava Stone. “They just really wanted to talk about what they thought.”

“Kids are much more mature than you think they are,” Johnston said.

Call for Applications: 2025 Re-Imagining Medicine Fellowship

What does it mean to be a good healthcare practitioner? How do we learn to care for people, not as containers of symptoms and illness, but as bearers of stories? How do we work for just, fair, humane, and equitable practices of health care? How do the arts, ethics, and history help us prepare to practice medicine with character and creativity, to develop a sense of meaning and purpose in our work, and to encourage and empower the communities whom we serve?

If you are a current first-, second-, or third-year Duke undergraduate planning on working in health care and are interested in exploring these questions, Reimagining Medicine (ReMed) invites you to apply for a Summer 2025 Fellowship.

In this program, you are invited to imagine the ways that healthcare professionals can use their specialized knowledge and skills with humility to care for individuals, cure and prevent disease and suffering, flourish in their chosen profession, collaborate with other professionals, and work toward the greater good. Fellows will join with healthcare professionals and faculty from other disciplines to develop practices and skills that will help them to attend closely to their own stories, to the stories of the places where they live and work, and to the stories of the communities whom they plan to serve.

The Reimagining Medicine Fellowship is limited to 20 students. The priority application deadline is February 14, 2025. After that time, applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until available spots are filled.

Eligibility

Current first-year, sophomore, or junior undergraduate students at Duke who are planning on careers in medicine (MD/DO/PA training), nursing, physical/occupational therapy, health administration, public health, or other healthcare-related disciplines are invited to participate. Priority will be given to rising juniors and seniors.

Commitment

ReMed is not a stand-alone program. To enable critical reflection on lived experiences and practices, Fellows are required to pair their participation in ReMed with an internship, employment, or service work related to health or health care over the summer. Fellows must arrange this parallel experience on their own. Practicum experiences must be at least twenty hours a week for eight weeks over the summer, and may include, but are not limited to:

  • Formal Duke civic engagement or research programs, with permission from the directors of those programs
  • Volunteer service in a health-related setting
  • Paid employment in a hospital, clinic, public health agency, or health-related company or nonprofit
  • Engagement in clinical research

Applicants must specify their proposed summer experience at the time of application. If your placement is not confirmed, please note in the application the type of experience you are considering. ReMed staff may be able to make recommendations.

Schedule

The 2025 ReMed cohort schedule has three components:

  • Immersive Week: Fellows will gather in person for a week at Duke from May 11–16, 2025 (the week following commencement). This immersive week will feature shared meals and conversation, experiential learning at Duke Hospital and Duke Regional Hospital, engagement with creative writing and the visual arts, introduction to the medical humanities, and facilitated reflections on justice and equity in health care.
  • Weekly Virtual Seminars: Following this week, ReMed will meet virtually for eight weeks. Fellows and faculty will gather for weekly 90-minute ReMed Seminars online to reflect on their summer experiences and to engage in conversation with leading scholars and practitioners in the medical humanities. Readings, writing exercise, and reflective practices will be assigned between seminars. These seminars will take place on Zoom from 4:30 pm–6:00 pm ET on the following Thursdays:May 22, May 29, June 5, June 12, June 26, July 10, July 17, July 24 (no meetings June 19 or July 3).
  • Fall 2025 ReMed Dinner Gathering to reflect on and celebrate the summer ReMed cohort and student accomplishments (date TBD).

ReMed Fellows are expected to participate fully in all components of the fellowship, including the entire immersive week, and to miss no more than one virtual Seminar.

Award

For full participation in the Fellowship, Fellows will receive:

  • Housing at The Lodge Hotel, located near the Duke School of Medicine (RAs and others with prior housing arrangements may opt out of the provided housing option), during the immersive week
    • Meals throughout the immersive week
    • $1000 honorarium

Application Questions

  1. Full Name
  2. Major (if known)
  3. Minor (if known)
  4. In 250 words or less, describe your interest in working in health care. What motivates you, and what area(s) interest you most?
  5. In 250 words or less, describe a time when you faced a challenge and worked to overcome it. What did you learn about yourself and others?
  6. In 250 words or less, describe a time when you discovered an unexpected connection with someone or changed your mind as the result of a conversation.
  7. Please describe your plan for a summer practicum experience (at least 20 hours/week of work or service in a health-related setting in summer 2025 — see call for application for details).
  8. In 250 words or less, describe how engaging the medical humanities, arts, ethics, and history through ReMed will make a difference in your summer health-related work or service, and/or in your future career in health care. Be as specific as possible.
  9. Please provide contact information for one faculty/staff reference: full name, title, email address, work phone, and how you know each other. (We will contact these references — they do not need to submit a formal letter.)
  10. Please upload your resume (PDF, two-page limit).
  11. Please list any additional summer programs or fellowships (e.g., DukeEngage) that you plan to participate in.
  12. All Fellows will be offered accommodation at The Lodge Hotel near the Duke University Hospital Campus during the ReMed immersive week, 5/11/24-5/16/25. Please note your lodging intention below. (This is for reservation estimates only, and can be amended later should your application be accepted).
    • I intend to stay at The Lodge Hotel
    • I intend to arrange my own accommodations
  13. By submitting an application, you are indicating your intention, if selected, to participate fully in all aspects of the Fellowship including the summer experiential week in May 11-16, 2025. You agree to participate in the immersive week and all virtual weekly meetings. Do you know of any conflicts with your participation, as described? (Please note if you plan to take Summer Term 1 courses).

Apply Here

Priority Deadline

February 14, 2025

Questions?

Contact Program Coordinator Victoria Yunez Behm at victoria.behm@duke.edu or Faculty Director Warren Kinghorn at warren.kinghorn@duke.edu

ReMed is a program of The Purpose Project at Duke, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and the Trent Center for Bioethics, Medical Humanities, and the History of Medicine. It is sponsored by a grant from The Duke Endowment.

Rev. Dr. William Barber II on Maintaining a Moral Movement

This article by Thomasi McDonald was originally published on Duke Today as “William Barber on Maintaining a Moral Movement.”

Rev. Dr. William Barber II is a prominent political and religious leader who advocates for  “moral movements” that unite diverse coalitions and policies that promote the common good. Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

Three days after the national election, Duke historian Adriane D. Lentz-Smith stood in front of nearly 300 people at the Hayti Heritage Center. Like the audience, she was looking to Rev. William J. Barber II, the national civil rights leader and one of the country’s leading theologians, to help her process her complex feelings about the election’s outcome.

Weeks before the election, Lentz-Smith said she had attended a Stevie Wonder concert in Greensboro, where the legendary recording artist taught the audience that love is not about people deserving it.

“It’s about us doing it because it’s necessary,” she said.

But post-election, Lentz-Smith said she was having a hard time holding on to Stevie Wonder’s lesson because she was experiencing a “sort of emotion between contempt and fury, and I can’t imagine that I’m the only person, and I can’t imagine that this isn’t something you’ve encountered before. And I’m wondering what do you do with this?”

A Duke Divinity alumnus, Barber did not disappoint the audience that gathered in the former sanctuary of one of Durham’s oldest historically Black churches. The celebrated theologian and distinguished historian participated in a riveting 70-minute conversation as part of the Kenan Institute’s Ethics of Now series, which Lentz-Smith has hosted since 2018.

Rev. Barber speaks into a microphone
Rev. Barber is an alumnus of two universities in Durham, N.C.: North Carolina Central University and Duke Divinity School. Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

As much as any theologian of his generation, Barber can lay claim to the moral mantle of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s social gospel movement. The Baptist preacher first came to the nation’s attention in 2013, when he organized the Forward Together Moral Movement in North Carolina, highlighted by what became known as the “Moral Monday” rallies at the state legislative complex in Raleigh, where nearly 1,000 people were arrested.

In 2015, he founded Repairers of the Breach to extend the Moral Monday movement as it grew nationally. In 2018, he helped to spearhead a revival of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign that was originally led by Dr. King.

Barber said the Christian tradition includes the concept of agape love.

“You love people, things, persons, situations, communities, because they need something other than what they have. And they may not give the love back to you. But if you don’t give it to them, you become them,” he said.

Barber added that he refuses to allow any moment in this country, even when it is at its worst, to turn him into a lesser being.

“If I become that, then I can’t be an instrument of [transformation,]” he said. “We’re human. We should hold on to that fury. Faith doubts. Faith has to have doubt within to be authentic faith. Love sometimes struggles with hate. I would say if you just felt a need to grieve [on Election Day], you’re probably a little late.”

Barber said “we should have been angry long before now,” adding that what happened on Election Day was the fruition of the “Southern Strategy” deployed by the Republican Party starting in the mid-60s at the height of civil rights legislation.

The strategy, Barber said, created what GOP leaders described as “positive polarization” that would “pit people against each other that should be allies.”

The anti-poverty leader said it was “a planned reality.”

“Doctor King in 1965, said the greatest fear of the oligarchs in this country is for the masses of poor negroes and poor white people to get together and form a voting bloc that could fundamentally shift the economic architecture of the country.”

Barber co-authored a recently published book, “White Poverty: How Exposing Myths about Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy,” which focuses on the power of this multiracial coalition.


“I believe we ought to take every piece of public policy and ask more questions. Does it establish justice? Does it provide for common defense? Does this policy promote the general welfare? But I also add this from a Christian religious perspective — is it rooted in truth? Is it rooted in justice? Is it rooted in love? Is it rooted in mercy?”

— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II


Barber also offered pointed criticism of the Democratic Party campaign strategy that dismissed the economic hardships of the working-class poor, and years ago abandoned the South’s most impoverished citizens.

“The number one economic issue was a living wage everywhere,” Barber said. “Living wage was on the ballot. It won. Why wasn’t living wages a major campaign issue?”

He addressed the audience’s concerns about the election’s implications, including Lentz-Smith’s remark that “we are bearing witness to a period of intensifying nativism and rancid racism.”

“We are in a crisis of civilization,” Barber said. “We’ve got some serious questions to ask about this crisis of civilization.”

Barber took to task white evangelicals, whom he described as “opportunists who wrapped defense of segregation in the language of morality,” and “Christian nationalists [who] fail any kind of faith moral test.”

Audience members listening to Barber speak
Nearly 300 people attended the event at the Hayti Heritage Center in downtown Durham. Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

“I believe we ought to take every piece of public policy and ask more questions,” Barber said. “Does it establish justice? Does it provide for common defense? Does this policy promote the general welfare?

“But I also add this from a Christian religious perspective — is it rooted in truth? Is it rooted in justice? Is it rooted in love? Is it rooted in mercy?”

The civil rights leader said the nation should have grieved for the millions of people who died at the height of the covid epidemic.

“We lost 350,000 people, not from covid, but from the lack of health care,” he said. “And we entered covid [as] the only advanced country — so-called advanced country — that did not offer health care based on your humanity rather than your job.”

Barber also criticized corporate media titans who declined to endorse a presidential candidate.

“How can you not endorse when you have a candidate that everyday violates everything that the Lord hates?” he asked. “And I read in Proverbs 6 where it says the Lord hates proud eyes, a lying tongue, sowing division, hands that shed innocent blood. And then you look at everything Jesus said of a nation ought to be welcoming the immigrant, caring for the least of these.”

However, Barber said history shows that the politics of “arrogance, pride and injustice always goes too far and creates its own demise and creates the movement that takes it out,” and, he later added, “where the extremists go so far, they actually unite us.”

He encouraged the audience not to give in to despair.

“You’ve just been through an election,” Barber said. “You haven’t been through 250 years of slavery. You just went through an election, you haven’t been through 25 years of Jim Crow. So come on now. Let’s [not] glorify your pain too much.”

Lentz-Smith and Barber stand in front of an applauding audience
Photo credit: Summer Steenberg.

 

Call for Applications: Regenerative Futures Lab

Regenerative Futures LabApplication deadline: December 5, 5:00 p.m.

Creating something new with the tools of the old does not work. Our current systems are failing us. But what might a new, better system look like?

Regenerative Futures Lab (rLab) is the place where students collectively try to figure out how to navigate paths to a re-imagined future that prioritizes the well-being of humans and the planet.

rLab is seeking high-level thinkers, detail-oriented individuals, and all skillsets in between. Applicants should be reflective, thoughtful, curious, and collaborative.

Projects are semester-long commitments, with a stipend. All Duke undergraduate students are eligible to apply. The theme of the 2024–2025 Academic Year is What Do We Owe to Each Other, with a focus on Dignity. See below for project descriptions.

Dying with Dignity:

Researchers will take an ethnographic approach to explore what Duke students think about death and dying as well as the larger question “what is a dignified end-of-life?”. In a non-hierarchical cohort structure, researchers will host and participate in on-campus Death Cafes, interview cafe participants, and reflect on their own experience with their cohort.

Dignity for All:

The project seeks researchers who are both big-picture thinkers and detail-oriented executors to design and realize a semester-long, cradle-to-grave project addressing the question “What is necessary to lead a life with dignity?” The goal is to collect data around this question and ideate actionable strategies to foster a world where dignity is a right, not a privilege. The team will develop a measurable project idea and deliverable that identifies the elements of a dignified life and how we, as an individual and community member, may achieve it.

Learn more about rLab

Click here to apply

Through Story of Bus Killing in Durham, N.C., “Changing Same” Exposes Discrimination and Violence Faced by Black Soldiers During Jim Crow

Illustration of an intersection of Broad St. and Club Blvd with memorial plaque, with a silhouette of a soldier projected onto it
A state historical marker just a few blocks north of Duke University’s East Campus commemorates Booker T. Spicely, a Black Army soldier killed by a bus driver in 1944. Spicely had challenged the bus driver’s demand that he move to the back of the bus. Illustration by Yunyi Dai.

A new play premiering this November, “Changing Same,” recounts an incident of racial violence that happened in Durham, North Carolina, just a few blocks north of Duke University’s East Campus — the 1944 killing of Private Booker T. Spicely, a Black Army soldier who pushed back against Jim Crow segregation laws.

After spending an evening on leave in Durham’s Hayti district, Spicely was traveling on a bus back to Camp Butner when the driver, Herman Council, ordered him to move to the back. After initially arguing that he was wearing the same uniform as the white soldiers on the bus, Spicely compiled. When Spicely exited the bus, Council followed and shot him in the heart with a .38 caliber pistol.

Spicely was transported to nearby Watts Hospital, but was refused treatment on account of his race. He was taken to Duke Hospital and died shortly afterward.

At the time, the bus system in Durham was operated by Duke Power, now Duke Energy. Duke Power paid Council’s $2500 bail and kept him on the job. Council was tried and acquitted by an all-white jury, who deliberated for fewer than 30 minutes.

James Williams, former chief public defender for Orange and Chatham counties and longtime civil rights activist, said that he first encountered Spicely’s story while doing historical research on Durham attorney C.J. Gates, who prosecuted the case against Council.

“The more I read, the more I was convinced that something needed to be done,” Williams said. He called several people he knew in Durham, and the Booker T. Spicely Committee was formed.

The committee first applied for a state historical marker to commemorate and honor Spicely. Their application was successful, and the marker was placed at the intersection of Broad Street and Club Boulevard in Durham in December 2023. It stands between the spot where Spicely was shot, now Club and Berkeley Street, and the hospital that refused to treat him, now the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.

The committee also petitioned Duke Energy to fund several initiatives: a scholarship in Spicely’s name at the North Carolina Central University School of Law, a symposium, and the commissioning of a play telling Spicely’s story.

When Duke Energy granted their request, the committee wrote to Mike Wiley asking him to write the play. It was the first he’d heard of Booker T. Spicely.


“The arts take a black-and-white picture and fill in all of the shading and the colors. It gives it the dimensions that allow an audience to walk in the shoes of these characters, of these real-life individuals. That’s the importance of being able to utilize art, especially theater, to be able to share history.”

– Mike Wiley


“I spend so much of my time knee-deep in North Carolina history,” Wiley said. “It shocked me that I didn’t know the story of Private Spicely.”

Wiley is an acclaimed actor, playwright, and documentary artist who writes and performs one-man shows about key episodes in African American history. He co-directs America’s Hallowed Ground, a program of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University that works with communities reckoning with painful histories through the power of the arts.

Wiley said that his initial reaction to hearing Spicely’s story gave him an entry point into writing the play.

“You hear it from someone, and then you hear another version or another angle from someone else, and that spurs you on to want to know more about it,” he said. “You want to know every little bit that you can possibly find out about the story.”

Wiley brought on a frequent collaborator, playwright Howard Craft, to co-write “Changing Same.” After assembling their research, they developed the play as a series of monologues from different characters, giving different perspectives on the bus shooting and Council’s trial.

Because they knew from the beginning that they were writing a one-man play that Wiley would perform, they didn’t have to worry about finding an actor who could embody its diverse characters, who range widely in age, race, and gender.

That, Wiley said, is his “wheelhouse.”

Mike Wiley leans against a table and looks at a laptop screen
At an early rehearsal for “Changing Same,” Wiley looks at a concept for set design on director Joseph Megel’s laptop. He was holding a cane that he intended to use as a prop while playing Gideon, the elderly character who opens the show. Photo credit: Sarah Rogers.

“It may sound cliché, but no one does it like he does,” said Tracy Francis, a production manager  who has worked with Wiley for nearly 20 years.

It was a few minutes before a “Changing Same” rehearsal in Swain Hall at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and Francis was setting up tables for a read-through of the play, along with the play’s director, Joseph Megel, and dramaturg, Elisabeth Corley.

Wiley arrived with a wooden cane, saying he was “going to play with it for Gideon,” the first character to appear in the play.

Gideon’s advanced age becomes obvious as soon as Wiley starts to recite his first monologue — recite, not read, because he closes his eyes as he speaks, rocking his head from side to side. He strokes his thumb against his shirt, seemingly unconsciously. Even the way he holds his lips against his teeth suggests that some of them are loose or missing.

“He’s definitely aged since the last reading,” said Francis, and everyone in the room laughed.

The second character to appear is Mitchell Byrd, an Army lieutenant. As Byrd, Wiley’s spine straightens. All of his movements are controlled and economical, making his smallest motions significant. Before he even asks a question, his eyes narrow into the slightest of squints, looking for — no, demanding — the “Yes, sir”  he wants to hear. The effect is authoritative. Byrd is a soldier on a mission.

That mission is to determine the likelihood of civil unrest in Durham following the Council trial and its expected verdict of “not guilty.” Byrd lists three additional incidents in the U.S. South, all taking place within the previous two years, in which bus drivers shot Black soldiers, killing or seriously injuring them. None resulted in a guilty verdict.

“This scene does so much work,” director Joseph Megel said, admiring the monologue.

This scene shows the audience that although the Spicely case is specific to Durham, it is not an isolated one. In spite of serving their countries at home and abroad, Black soldiers and veterans faced rampant discrimination across the United States, and when this discrimination escalated into violence, there was no justice for its victims.

“It’s tough,” James Williams said, his voice full of emotion, as he recalled the first time he read about Spicely’s murder. “How cruel people can be. And it’s not just an individual case. I mean, this is systemic.”

Williams recounted the case of Isaac Woodard, a Black World War II veteran who was traveling home on a bus in South Carolina in 1946 when he had a disagreement with the bus driver about stopping to use the restroom. The driver radioed the police, and when Woodard exited the bus, they beat him with nightsticks. Woodard was permanently blinded.

It’s important to remember cases like Spicely’s and Woodard’s, Williams said, and to educate younger generations about them, because of the ways that the past continues to reverberate in the present.

“I think about James Baldwin, when he talked about ‘We are trapped in history, and history is trapped in us,’” he said. “And until we appreciate that more robustly, I think we’ll never grasp how wide and how deep the changes need to be.”

Wiley believes that the arts can help audiences not only to understand history, but also to experience it, in all its emotional resonance.

“The arts take a black-and-white picture and fill in all of the shading and the colors,” Wiley said. “It gives it the dimensions that allow an audience to walk in the shoes of these characters, of these real-life individuals. That’s the importance of being able to utilize art, especially theater, to be able to share history. Art, in a way, is the bridge between the past and the present.”


“Changing Same: The Cold-Blooded Murder of Booker T. Spicely” runs November 7–10 at Swain Hall at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and November 14–17 at Brody Theater in Branson Hall on Duke University’s East Campus.

Part of The Process Series at UNC, the play is presented by StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance and America’s Hallowed Ground at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.