DURHAM -- A local defense lawyer is challenging the arrest power of the Duke University Police Department on the grounds it violates separation of church and state.
On Tuesday, Bill Thomas, a former defense council in the Duke lacrosse case, filed a motion to dismiss alcohol-related traffic charges against 19-year-old Thomas Holloway, arguing that Officer Doreen Hogan’s stop near Duke’s East Campus was illegal because of the university’s affiliation with the United Methodist Church.
In August, three judges with the N.C. Court of Appeals stripped Davidson College of its arrest power, saying state-certified police protecting the Presbyterian school represented an excessive entanglement between government and religion. Campus security officers at Campbell University and Pfeiffer, a Methodist school, similarly lost their power to enforce state laws in 1994 and 2002, respectively.
The N.C. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal on the Davidson case, according to Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for the N.C. Attorney General’s office, which certifies police officers throughout the state. Thomas likewise anticipates the Duke case will end up in appeal.
"This will be a long process and I expect it to proceed through the appellate courts regardless of which side prevails," he said.
Though Duke University comprises students, faculty and staff of all faiths and no faith, Thomas argues that the influence of Methodism and the prominence of Duke Divinity School, a seminary that trains Christian clergy, clearly establish Duke as a religious institution. .
Duke’s bylaws require that 24 out of 36 members of its Board of Trustees be elected by the United Methodist Church in North Carolina.
Thomas cites the university’s Latin motto, translated “Knowledge and Religion”, and its bylaws: “The aims of Duke University are to assert a faith in the eternal union of knowledge and religion as set forth in the teachings and character of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ... to develop a Christian love of freedom and truth ... and to render the largest permanent service to the individual, the state, the nation and the church.”
He points to the central place of Duke Chapel on the campus, and the carvings of Methodist heroes like Francis Asbury, George Whitefield and John Wesley inside. He specifically mentions a $22-million expansion to the seminary in 2005
Thomas also quotes Duke President Richard Brodhead installing New Testament scholar Richard Hays as the divinity school’s interim dean earlier this month: “The divinity school is the embodiment of the intention of the university to fulfill its calling in the preparation of a learned ministry. It is also the symbol of the long and abiding relationship between church and academy.”
