Majority Opinion

Robinette v Duke College Republicans

April 20, 2010

Associate Justice David X. Wang

Associate Justice Gavin Z. Forrest
Associate Justice Yingyi Shen

On April 19, 2010, Justin Robinette filed suit protesting the decision of
Duke College Republicans to impeach him from his executive position
as DCR Chairman. He cited four allegations to this effect:

1. The DCR created a hostile environment towards those of the

LGBT community.
2. He was discriminated against on the basis of his sexual
orientation.
3. The DCR was operating against a SOFC by-law by having a
graduate student serve on their executive board.
4. DCR members intimidated him on the basis of his sexual
orientation; that this intimidation led him to resign.

With regards to the third allegation, we find that the DCR was indeed
operating against SOFC Bylaw, Title 4, 1b1, which states that “Three
fourths of total membership and all officers must be undergraduates”.
The DCR’s former Executive Director was a graduate law student, and
his presence violated this by-law. However, he submitted his
resignation shortly after the allegation was brought against him, and
thus, this Judiciary finds no reason to further address this issue.

With regards to the fourth allegation, in this particular case, we the

Judiciary will only rule on the actions of the DCR organization as a
whole, not the actions of specific DCR members. Thus, we do not feel
it is appropriate for us to address the first clause of the fourth
allegation with respect to the actions of the individual members; this,
in effect, will cause us to refrain from ruling on the second clause.

The remaining allegations are extremely serious in nature. The Duke

community will not tolerate any form of discrimination based on sexual
orientation, and the actions taken by this Court will seek to uphold this
Community Standard. With regards to the first allegation, this Court
finds that there is not substantial evidence to validate the claim that
the DCR created an environment hostile to the LGBT community. Upon
hearing extensive testimony brought forth by both sides, this Court
concludes that the DCR, as an organization, did not perpetuate any
acts that can be construed as targeting the members of the LGBT
community in a negative manner. The actions of the DCR Executive
Board stemmed from a growing dissatisfaction with the leadership of
the plaintiff, and this Court believes that the ensuing results, however
drastic, reflect that dissatisfaction, and do not contain any
discriminatory agenda or intent. There is no strong evidence showing
that this dissatisfaction is due to the discrimination of the plaintiff’s
sexual orientation, but rather purely on the quality of the plaintiff’s
leadership. To this degree, the evidence presented does not support
the claim that a LGBT-hostile community was created by the actions of
the DCR.

This Court finds the evidence to be neither convincing nor conclusive

enough to validate the remaining allegation that the plaintiff was
discriminated against due to his sexual orientation. This Court has
determined that the legal proceedings by which Justin Robinette was
removed from office followed the appropriate by-law guidelines.
Additionally, this court does not find that those actions were
conclusively motivated by discrimination due to the plaintiff’s sexual
orientation. While the disclosure of the plaintiff’s sexual orientation
coincided with the timeline of the impeachment trial, it was clear that
this process had begun long before the issue of sexuality was made
widely known. In addition, any criticisms and actions levied against the
plaintiff during the impeachment process came only from a
professional standpoint, and the plaintiff’s sexuality was in no way
called into question in a discriminatory manner during his tenure as
Chairman. Over the course of investigation, the Judiciary did discover
that the plaintiff was allegedly discriminated by certain individuals
using inappropriate language. This issue did raise our concerns.
However, this discrimination occurred at the hands of individuals, away
from any official affiliation with the DCR as an organization. Thus,
seeing as this suit is filed against DCR, the Judiciary does not see any
organizational discrimination on the basis of the sexual orientation of
the plaintiff, and the Judiciary cannot support the plaintiff’s claim.

As such, under these conditions, the majority of the Court dismisses

the allegations brought forth by the plaintiff with a 3-1 majority vote.