Duquesne University president Charles J. Dougherty said Friday that the point he was trying to make about the behaviors of some off-campus students was valid.
Nevertheless, he issued an apology to student leaders after an editorial in the student newspaper Thursday took issue with his apparent use of the word “libertine” to describe those behaviors and an outcry among students, parents, alumni and others followed.
His remarks were made at a recent campus town hall meeting with employees. During the session, a discussion of student housing improvements led to talk about an increase in the number of juniors and seniors leaving residence halls for off-campus apartments.
“We know why they move off campus,” the editorial quoted the Mr. Dougherty as saying. “They [flout] the state liquor laws and they live a libertine lifestyle that is not allowed on campus.
“We are aware of the Mardi Gras that goes on [off-campus] every weekend,” the paper quoted him as saying.
The editorial in The Duquesne Duke took issue with the word “libertine,” noting its definition as “a person who leads an immoral life and is mainly interested in sexual pleasure.” The editorial asserted that students instead are driven off campus by higher residence hall costs.
Through a school spokeswoman, Mr. Dougherty declined an interview request from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In a letter to Student Government Association president John Foster on Friday, Mr. Dougherty defended his main observation, if not the choice of words.
“I made the point that life off campus allows for greater access to alcohol, sometimes in violation of state law. It also allows for sexual behaviors that we cannot accept on the campus of a Catholic university,” he wrote. “We know these things from multiple reliable sources.”
He continued: “I did not mean to imply that every student who moves off campus does so for these reasons or for either of them. I know this not to be true. And I apologize to anyone who took my remarks to imply that I believe this.”
Since the editorial was posted Thursday, it already has had more than 15,000 page views, second-highest cumulative total of any story since The Duke’s current website went online a few years ago, said editor-in-chief Julian Routh. “It’s just been the talk of campus for the last 24 hours,” he said.
The remark may have struck staff in the student newsroom personally. The editorial said more than half of the staff lives off campus.
First Published: October 23, 2015, 7:34 p.m.
Updated: October 24, 2015, 3:07 a.m.
