Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Stephen Miller Gets Protest Letter From Duke Classmates

Members of White House adviser Stephen Miller’s graduating class at Duke University have a message for the Steve Bannon protege: you don’t represent the values we learned at school.

“We find it impossible to see in your words and actions any glimmer of the university values we so cherish, nor the slightest suggestion that you spent four of your most formative years at the same dynamic, diverse institution of higher education we did,” the petition signed by more than 3,500 people reads.

According to the signers, the diversity on Duke’s campus and extracurricular life should have taught Miller the importance of “intellectual honesty, tolerance, diversity, and respect that we seek to promote in the world.”

Nonetheless, the alums and allies affirmed, “You can rest assured we will continue to champion those very values and serve as representatives of the Duke we want the world to see—for the next ten years and for the decades to follow.”

Miller was a controversial presence on Duke’s campus, writing columns for the college newspaper that attacked feminists, atheists, liberals and beneficiaries of affirmative action in stark terms.

He went on to work for then-Alabama senator and now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions after his stint at university – a gig that eventually landed him in the Trump orbit. Miller has been one of the most ardent backers of the “nationalist-populist” agenda seen as the brainchild of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. The two collaborated on one of the new administration’s most controversial executive orders – the so-called Muslim ban.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.