Duke College Republicans (DCR), founded in 1965, was an active organization on the Durham campus for 55 years before its sudden dissolution during the 2020 election season. After four years of dormancy, the group was revived on October 14, 2024, by junior Zander Pitrus. Amidst challenges posed by administrators and disgruntled student Democrats, Duke College Republicans seeks to facilitate civil discourse on campus by creating a community of like-minded and differently minded students, bringing in political speakers and pushing back against campus censorship. A week before the 2024 presidential election, the Martin Center spoke to Pitrus, now DCR president, to get his perspective on the organization and his experiences as a Republican on Duke’s campus.
The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Martin Center: What happened in 2020 that made Duke College Republicans become inactive? Is that an issue for the organization now?
“How can you have an intellectual pursuit if you’re not advancing intellectual freedom and free speech on campus?”Zander Pitrus: People [within DCR] were divided over whether they should endorse Trump for the primary election, because there were a lot of people who opposed him—it was an ideological difference. It’s not an issue for us at all 1731908987. Trump is our presidential candidate right now and we’re fully supporting him. He’s the only candidate that we have for the Republican party. If it’s going to be called Duke College Republicans, then we need to have members that are strongly behind the Republican party as representatives on campus who have important discussions with people about what the Republican party stands for. The reason that I restarted Duke College Republicans is because I want there to be constructive conversations and promote civil discourse on campus, and you can’t really do that if you have somebody in the club who disagrees with you and just agrees with the mainstream sentiment on campus.
Martin Center: Could you talk a bit more about why you started the club?
Zander Pitrus: I saw that university administrators were indifferent towards free speech, which is a significant concern on campus. How can you really have an intellectual pursuit if you’re not advancing intellectual freedom and free speech on campus? And so I thought one of the best ways to advance this issue on campus is by establishing Duke College Republicans and pressuring administrators, in a sense, to consider our perspectives regarding free speech, polarization, and censorship on campus instead of just dismissing the fact that Republicans exist on campus. [Republicans] are fearful of expressing themselves, and I want people to come out of the woodwork and mitigate that fear to the fullest extent, because I am wholly discontent with being at a top-10 institution like this where there aren’t productive conversations and constructive disagreements. There’s no point in being here if we don’t have productive conversations and constructive disagreements.
Martin Center: How do you foster these productive conversations on campus?
Zander Pitrus: In order to facilitate [free speech], you have to mitigate fears among Republicans that have been instilled over time. You have to build a community that’s very strong, to get these people to come out and at least share their perspectives among other like-minded people, which in turn will give them greater confidence to express their views on campus with other people who disagree with them. That’s what sparks a civil discourse. Establishing Duke College Republicans, and giving people a community in which they can share those perspectives, advances that issue robustly. I’ve already seen this with the Duke College Republicans. Many people that were reluctant to be a part of the organization or share their beliefs are now part of the organization and proudly so. Just seeing that shift within a week of starting the club is very uplifting.
“One of the bigger issues on campus is the bureaucracy and red tape that’s limiting speech.”Martin Center: Has the organization run into any tricky situations?
Zander Pitrus: Yes. One of the bigger issues on campus is the bureaucracy and red tape that’s limiting speech, and that was our issue that we first had with administrators. We had an event with PBS News on the Saturday following the club being established on campus, and administrators require us to submit an event request so many days in advance. We couldn’t really do that if we were just established, and PBS could only come on that Saturday. And so we had to make it happen somehow, but the administrators were telling us to cancel our event and that it couldn’t proceed. It took a lot of talking with higher administrators, but not all of them are willing to cooperate. Some of them will just blatantly decide that I can’t proceed with the event instead of trying to work with us to make it happen.
So that’s one of the issues. The bureaucracy is just insane on campus. [We] wanted to bring Charlie Kirk and Tulsi Gabbard on campus, and we wanted to do it outside. Charlie Kirk goes to all these universities, and he’s always outside, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a problem. But we submitted it, and they didn’t get back to us until weeks after, noting that they had to submit it to Duke police to do a risk assessment. Then, they decided that we had to be forced inside, and they forced us in a place where it was restrictive and people couldn’t just walk up and be a part of the event. It was a small space, as well. So they didn’t even give us the opportunity to do the event outside. That’s restricting free speech, just an overly bureaucratic system that restricts speech. And then Tim Walz comes here, and he does it in that same location that they forced us into, but he wanted to do it inside, and he was content with that, so they decided, okay, because we’re doing it with him, we’re gonna do it with College Republicans, as well. With their bureaucracy, they just have so much power that if they do something for the Democrats on campus, they decide that we also have to comply with that, as well, even though that’s not our request. They just use that to masquerade the fact that they don’t really want Charlie Kirk and Tulsi Gabbard to come on campus.
Martin Center: It seems like Duke’s administration is pretty biased against you guys.
Zander Pitrus: Yes. I’ve had only two [mid-level] administrators reach out because they were actually interested in hearing my mission and perspective on campus. And I shared with them: Republicans don’t feel comfortable speaking to administrators on campus. There’s been all of these indications from administration that they don’t value our perspectives on campus, which is why people are so fearful. The president of the university came out with strong statements in favor of affirmative action and against the decision overturning Roe v. Wade. He didn’t leave any room for students to disagree, and he inextricably linked it to the mission statement of Duke University. That does not support conversation on campus, and it causes people to question the legitimacy of the university and its institutional neutrality. Institutional neutrality is incredibly important for universities, and Duke does not comply with institutional neutrality. Duke doesn’t even have free-speech principles. The Chicago Principles are adopted at over 100 universities. Duke has nothing. If you’re a Republican, they’d rather just try to censor you in any way instead of actually having valuable conversations.
“He didn’t leave any room for students to disagree, and he inextricably linked it to the mission statement of Duke University.”For the PBS event, we had a Duke media administrator watching the interview. I shared my perspectives as a Republican on campus and the fact that people aren’t willing to engage in difficult conversations. He [the administrator] was whispering to a producer, and he said, “Make sure you fact-check everything that he said about Duke.” I called him out and said, “How are you gonna check my personal experiences as a Republican at Duke University?” This indicates the fact they don’t want to admit the fact that free speech doesn’t exist [at Duke]. They just portray themselves as supporting speech when they truly do not. We’re in 2024, going into 2025, and our students still have to fight for free speech on campus.
Martin Center: How do you view your college Democrat counterparts?
Zander Pitrus: The Democrats on campus don’t want to have discussions with people who disagree with them. And that’s reflected in the fact that there was so much controversy regarding the College Republicans being reestablished on Duke’s campus. People made comments like “It was better when they were in the closet,” and they’ve been calling me “white supremacist,” “racist,” and “sexist” anonymously on social media. These students who are supposedly some of the smartest people, getting into an institution like Duke, are the same people who are so ignorant and unwilling to have conversations with people. I’m concerned that these liberals are not receiving a valuable education, because, across the university, their beliefs are just celebrated, affirmed, and reaffirmed. They’re not being challenged in any sense, and that’s the beauty of an education: to be challenged, so you learn how to develop your own beliefs. But at our institution and [many others], they teach you what to think instead of how to think, and that’s a strong deviation from what education should be. And you see that right here on Duke’s campus where these people are not willing to engage in challenging conversations.
Martin Center: Why is it important for students to join political groups on their campuses?
Zander Pitrus: Being in a political organization like Duke College Republicans or even Duke Democrats allows you to share [your] beliefs with like-minded people and, first, have conversations with people who may disagree with you inside your party. You recognize, okay, maybe people don’t always agree with me, and I’m gonna learn how to refine my beliefs based on my discussions with people if I feel like my belief isn’t strong enough. That’s the purpose of free speech: It allows you to recognize your beliefs and allows you to hear other people, to know whether you’re gonna continue to uplift your beliefs and try to solidify them or you’re gonna completely abandon them because they don’t align with the truth.
“Maybe people don’t always agree with me, and I’m gonna learn how to refine my beliefs based on my discussions.”Being in a political organization and having conversations on various different topics with like-minded peers to the greatest extent possible is incredibly important to mitigate polarization on campus. Once you know how to disagree with like-minded peers, and you know there’s no ill intent, you’re also gonna reflect that on campus and assume good will when you’re having conversations with people who wholly disagree with you.
Martin Center: Are there any other experiences as a Republican at Duke that you want to share?
Zander Pitrus: Before school even started, in my freshman year, there were these people in my dorm who stalked my social media and saw that I was following Trump. This circulated somehow around the entire dorm, and people started coming up to me and just laying out the words “homophobe,” “sexist,” “racist,” “xenophobe.” And that’s all they did, not seeking to understand why I believe what I believe in, not trying to understand me as a person and the fact that my beliefs are more nuanced than just “being a Republican.” These people on Duke’s campus don’t believe that conservatives are able to express themselves or that there’s any validity in their expression, and that’s so wrong. It’s so wrong to be at a top-10 institution and hide your political beliefs. People need to join College Republicans, because the population of conservatives and Republicans on campus are just so scattered and un-unified that we need to make a change.
Sophia Damian is a student at Wake Forest University and a 2024 Martin Center intern.
This article was originally published at www.jamesgmartin.center
