Duke’s student ticket line is headed for the kind of showdown that only a Carolina game can create.
At the center of it is a dispute over Krzyzewskiville, where one group of tenters says it got knocked out of line for the March 3 men’s basketball game against UNC-Chapel Hill because two members missed a 2:45 a.m. line check on Feb. 14. According to the Duke Chronicle, one of them was a heavy sleeper and the other has hearing difficulties, and neither heard the bullhorn a student government line monitor used four times to wake campers.
Now the group is taking its case to Duke’s student court. Junior Charlie Pearlman and his fellow tenters argue that the policy running the campout discriminates against the hard-of-hearing and violates student government’s promise that each student has “ the right to equal protection under the law,” including protection from disability discrimination. They also say the policy was improperly adopted earlier this semester.
The complaint is aimed in part at a rule saying “digital evidence will not be accepted as proof of location.” Pearlman’s group wants that provision removed so it can use cell-phone location data to show that seniors Sanjeev Dasgupta and Logan Laguna-Kirkpatrick were in their tent outside Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Line monitors, though, have said location tracking can be easily spoofed by leaving a phone in a tent.
Sara Constand, one of the two head line monitors, told the court that Krzyzewskiville is “a meritocracy” where “students can earn their entrance to the game through their own work,” the Chronicle reported.
This year’s campout has already had more than its share of turbulence. The student court previously examined how student government handled the policy-setting process this school year, and the campus administration temporarily shut down the tent city because of a rapidly spreading flu bug.
Pearlman’s group is waiting on the court’s decision and, for now, Laguna-Kirkpatrick said they’ve opted “to decline to offer comments” until the judgment comes down.
The stakes are obvious enough. Duke’s game against UNC gives Mike Krzyzewski’s Blue Devils a shot to answer for their 82-78 road loss to the Tar Heels on Feb. 8.
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