Thursday, January 18, 2007

The Group of 88's Myths and Realities

If nothing else, the rump Group of 88 has demonstrated a talent for revisionist history. Their recent statement unsuccessfully attempted to explain away both the context and the actual wording of their springtime ad.

Myth #1: The Group of 88’s statement had nothing to do with the accuser’s March 14 allegations.

The new statement claims that many (unnamed) people have “intentionally” misread the April 6 ad as, among other things, “a comment on the alleged rape.”

Reality

It’s hard to treat this assertion seriously.

The lead section of the Group of 88’s statement mentioned “what happened to this young woman.” I doubt that signatories were referring to the accuser’s dangerous habit of mixing alcohol and Flexeril; or were expressing their concerns about the impropriety of filing a false police report.

Moreover, the statement’s author herself, Wahneema Lubiano, conceded the connection between the statement and the case; ESPN reported that she prepared the statement fully aware that it could be seen as “a as a stake through the collective heart of the lacrosse team.” A vivid image.

Finally, four of the ad’s eleven anonymous statements that allegedly came from Duke students specifically referenced the accuser’s allegations.

Myth #2: The Group of 88 was committed to upholding the presumption of innocence for the lacrosse players.

The new statement claims that the signatories “stand firmly by the principle of the presumption of innocence.”

Reality

As with the first myth, it’s hard to treat this claim seriously.

Several Group members independently commented on the case either shortly before or shortly after the ad appeared:

  • Houston Baker penned a public letter denouncing the “abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence, and drunken white male privilege loosed amongst us” and urging the “immediate dismissals” of “the team itself and its players”;
  • William Chafe published an op-ed suggesting that the behavior of the whites who lynched Emmett Till provided the appropriate historical context through which to interpret the lacrosse players’ actions;
  • Wahneema Lubiano told the N&O that “people can’t imagine that the woman could have made a false rape allegation.”

These remarks do not suggest a passionate commitment to the lacrosse players’ presumption of innocence.

Several of the ad’s anonymous statements that allegedly came from Duke students also do not reflect the presumption of innocence. One anonymous student allegedly said, “No one is really talking about how to keep the young woman [the accuser] central to the conversation, how to keep her humanity before us.” Another anonymous student allegedly said, “If something like this happens to me . . . what would be used against me—my clothing?” A third anonymous student allegedly said, “Duke isn’t really responding to this. Not really. And this, what has happened, is a disaster.’

These remarks do not suggest a passionate commitment to the lacrosse players’ presumption of innocence.

Finally, and most obviously: if the Group members were so concerned with presumption of innocence back in April, why didn’t they include those three words somewhere in their statement? And why, after all this time, has not even one of the 87 who signed the “clarifying” statement denounced Mike Nifong for mistreating their own institution’s students?

Myth #3: In saying “thank you” to anti-lacrosse player protesters, committing themselves to “turn up the volume,” and announcing that the affair “won’t end with what the police say or the court decides,” the Group of 88 in no way prejudged the case.

The new statement claims, “We do not endorse every demonstration that took place at the time. We appreciate the efforts of those who used the attention the incident generated to raise issues of discrimination and violence.”

Reality

As with the first two myths, this claim, too, is difficult to treat seriously.

In the Group’s after-the-fact justification, 88 Duke faculty members failed to notice protesters who had branded the players guilty, even though the potbangers received extensive media coverage at the local, statewide, and national level. The Group of 88 also failed to notice the “wanted” posters that were plastered around campus. So when their statement said “thank you” to the protesters, Group of 88 members were actually thanking other, unidentified protesters.

In the event, the rump Group’s statement—just like the original Group’s statement—goes out of its way to thank the potbangers. The rump Group stated, “We appreciate the efforts of those who used the attention the incident generated to raise issues of discrimination and violence”—the very agenda that the potbangers claimed to support as they held signs demanding “Castrate” and “Time to Confess.”

As Stephen Bainbridge points out, the rump statement appears to bolster its contention through a distorted quotation:

The ad thanked "the students speaking individually and...the protesters making collective noise. We do not endorse every demonstration that took place at the time. We appreciate the efforts of those who used the attention the incident generated to raise issues of discrimination and violence."

Notice the strategic use of ellipses in the second paragraph's quotation from the original ad. Here's the relevant passage of the original ad in full text:

To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard.

Is it just me, or does thanking students for "not waiting" - presumably for the legal system to do its thing - sound a lot like rendering a judgment?

In fact, the Group’s new claim that the April 6 ad dealt not with the lacrosse case in particular but broader problems of racism and sexism in general mimics the very same strategy adopted by . . . the potbangers.

On April 10, shortly after defense attorneys announced there were no DNA matches, it briefly appeared as if the case would end. Potbanger leader and Duke graduate student Rann Bar-on predicted that “the media will turn to a pretty harsh, but pretty short-term assault on us (the people who ‘jumped to conclusions’...we will see that phrase a lot in the near future).” To address the problem, he recommended that the potbangers

focus on the notion that this case merely uncovered a far deeper problem, namely the sense of entitlement and privilege so pervasive on Duke's campus. Duke-Durham relations are tense for a reason: Duke kids are upper-class, rich, entitled, privileged and so on. This case merely highlights their lack of respect for the community in which they live. The players’ guilt or lack thereof has no effect on this.

Bar-on wrote these words on April 10. In their new statement, the Concerned (with Being Sued) Duke Faculty are following in the potbangers’ steps: to avoid expected condemnations of having rushed to judgment, they contend that their goal all along was “a far deeper problem,” wholly unconnected to the condemnations of the lacrosse players.

Some might deem this approach the height of cynicism.

Myth #4: The “clarifying” statement will limit the Group of 88’s legal liability.

Reality

Given that this new statement was undoubtedly cleared by a lawyer, I’d suggest that the rump Group find new counsel.

I hear that Mike Nifong might be looking for work soon. Given how much the Group of 88 has assisted him over the past ten months, perhaps he’d be willing to take their case on a pro bono basis?

262 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Another terrific analysis by the Brooklyn College professor, who runs circles around the pathetic Duke professors.

Anonymous said...

KC: I had mentioned the fact that the Groioup of 87 were tilting at windmills, and then it came to me like a flash. I posted this previously on a thread, but I think you may get what I am saying more than most as you have followed this case carefully:

Oh my God. This hit me like a lightening bolt when I mentioned the Group of 87 tilting their lances at windmills.

I have finally realized the cruel moment when reality imitates fiction.

Crystal is Michael Nifong's Dulcinea. He was bound to save her virtue, refusing to see her for who and what she was. As enraged as Don Quixote was at the traders from Toledo who he saw as insulting his Dulcinea's honor, Nifong sprang to the offensive to save Crystal's. Like Sancho, Wilson played along with the charade in order to preserve the appearance for his chivalrous knight.

His delusion has now become painfully apparent in my mind now. This is a sad moment.

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

kcjohnson9 said...

The Dulcinea comparison is a most interesting one.

Several months ago (August or September), I had lunch with a person who's followed the case extremely closely, and he made exactly this comparison.

And, of course, the reality of CGM was so different than Nifong's image of her could be sustained because Nifong never spoke to her about anything substantive.

Anonymous said...

I am a strong supporter of K.C.'s courageous and effective work on this board, but I have no idea what he means or intends by his repeated reference to the Gang of 88 as a "rump group."

Even if this does make sense in some allusive context, the phrase I think comes across as a bit puerile.

It is true that the enormity of the Gang's actions make reasonableness in response difficult, but the reasonable tone of K.C.'s blog is one of the key reasons for its effectiveness.

Anonymous said...

I can not but wonder at the timing of the new 88 statement and the Karla Holloway "hearsay story".

I think that Holloway releasing a hearsay story, at the same time the new statement was released, will go to increasing damages against her and Duke when the lawsuits start rolling in. Who will believe she released this info after 9 months, just when the new statement was being released by coincident?

It will show a continuous planned attack on the Lax players. In short it is no longer a "oops we made a mistake", but a coordinated on going effort. Have Duke lawyers ever heard of "going to show state of mind".

Chicago said...

Great job laying out the facts of the case KC. Keep your foot on the gas pedal. You are the source of truth. Durham-in-Wonderland is a bullshit free zone, unlike Duke I am sad to report.

Anonymous said...

JLS says...

re: Professor Johnson, Equire MD and "tilting at windmills"

That analogy works for the Gang of 88. That analogy works for the popbangers. Mangum was so far from what they hoped and dream and claimed she was. They were defending her honor, really using her honor to make their political point.

Nifong on the other hand is just a cyncial political hack DA. He had no illusions about Mangum. He did not and does not care about Mangum. He only wanted to win an election and he was willing to do it any way he could. But he KNEW very early on what he was doing.

kcjohnson9 said...

To the 12.14:

Sorry I wasn't clearer. I was referring to the group that issued the statement two days ago as the "rump Group of 88"--since only 50-odd members of the original Group signed on.

This is the congressional historian in me--the term originates from the Rump Parliament of the British Civil War.

Joe said...

KC, when I grow up, I want to be you. People will think I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not.

Wish I were through with law school so I could really get involved...

Anonymous said...

Never saw Zahn before - she really is terrible. What was the reason everyone was on that roof freezing? To subtle for me. Thanks KC for another fine article.

Joe said...

12:04, doesn't work. The whole point of Don Quixote, imho, is a nostalgic affection for a chivalric world that doesn't exist--we wish it could exist, like it does in Medieval literature.

Mike Nifong's world sort of disgusts me. And, I hope, everyone who's not a professor of "African-American (read: race-baiting) studies."

Points for generosity, though.

Anonymous said...

Given that this new statement was undoubtedly cleared by a lawyer, I’d suggest that the rump Group find new counsel.

I cannot imagine any way in which the new statement could reduce the group's liability in the slightest, if evaluated by a sane jury. I'm even hard-pressed to figure how it could win any sympathies from a Durham jury.

Even the very nature of the ad is insulting. To be meaningful, apologies by individuals must be given individually; group apologies must be given by a clearly-defined and acknowledged group leader.

The professors signed onto the G88 letter as individuals. They must therefore apologize as individuals.

Anonymous said...

KC

Great analysis.

Mr. Pepsi

Anonymous said...

JLS says...

re: 12:14

Dictionary.com says:

"Rump

7. constituting a subsidiary or small group or the remnant of a once larger organization"

So as Prof. Johnson says he is using the term in a standard if no frequent way.

Anonymous said...

I too believe that this is the group of 88's attempt at a coubter attack. The Durham Responds listserve has come back to life recently. I give you Sam Hummel's latest.


A member of this list has requested that information be provided about
the connection between racism and rape. Below is a piece written on
the subject by the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence (NAESV).

"Racism and Rape"
A Policy Statement by NAESV

The history of rape in the United States is a history of racism and
sexism intertwined. Rape was an important tool in white colonists'
violent efforts to repress Native nations. During slavery, both white
and black men raped black women with impunity. After the Civil War and
during Reconstruction, white mobs lynched numerous black men based on
trumped up charges of sexual assault of white women, and the specter
of lynching terrorized the black community.

Popular media in this country continue to perpetuate racial
stereotypes, particularly about women of color. Portraying black women
and Latinas as promiscuous, American Indian and Asian women as
submissive, and all women of color as inferior legitimates their
sexual abuse. Portraying men of color as sexually voracious and
preying on innocent white women reinforces a cultural obsession with
black-on-white stranger rape, at the expense of the vastly more common
intra-racial acquaintance rape.

Although the data is limited, many women of color appear to be at
greatest risk for rape. A nationally representative survey indicates
that while almost 18% of white women and 7% of Asian/Pacific Islander
women will be raped in their lifetimes, almost 19% of black women, 24%
of mixed race women, and 34% of American Indian and Alaska Native
women will be raped during their lifetimes. Additionally, undocumented
immigrant women who are raped often cannot turn to the authorities
because they fear deportation. Moreover, they often lack
linguistically appropriate and culturally relevant victim services
within their communities.

We at the NAESV know that only by aggressively addressing both racism
and sexism will women of color and white women be able to obtain real
justice for the sexual crimes we suffer. To that end, we call on
everyone, particularly creative people working within popular media,
to reject and subvert racial and sexual stereotypes. We call on the
press to cover more intra-racial acquaintance rape as a serious social
and public health crime.

We must also take responsibility within our own ranks. We call on
anti-rape organizations and allied activists to work actively to end
racism. We must not use or perpetuate racial stereotypes in working to
end violence against women. We also call on anti-racism organizations
and allied activists to work actively to end sexism and sexual
violence. We must not use or perpetuate sexual stereotypes in our work
to end racial injustice.

He some how forgets that less than one half of one percent of all rapes committed against black women are by white men. Considering the races of the parties involved at 610 Buchanon it would seem to me to be the most salient statistic. I also have much more faith in statistic's from the FBI than I do from NAESV.

Anonymous said...

Joe - Ah, but aspiring law student, it is a case in point when one's representation in any area allows personal feelings and ambition to cloud professional judgment.

Nifong is certainly not a sympathetic character in all of this, but he definitely fooled himself into believing that the accuser was a victim. Whether this unreality was created by financial and political gain, it definitely morphed later into a belief that was not in fact true was true in his own mind. The result was a severe injustice to the accused players, and the loss of a career through unethical conduct, at least by what we have seen.

And this is easier than you think while in practice. Keep your eyes open, and keep your emotions firmly out of a case.

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

Anonymous said...

Yes, Duke's national ranking is headed toward the second tier--no doubt about it. Why? Because its incompetent infrastructure has been exposed for all the world to see. Funny thing, though, if this same incident had happened at Brown, I believe its reputation would also be heading south--for the same reason.

Looking at Duke now is like looking at a beautiful ballerina farting.

I smells Duke's deserved demotion.

Bravo multiculturalism, and bravo feckless administrators.

Yeah, Duke will take 5 years to "recover" from this.

LFnOL

RP

Anonymous said...

The Cabal of 88/87's statement is simply absurd. Do any of them ever think their arguments out?

IF this is a widespread problem on the Duke campus, then 1) WHY would you need to place an ad after this particular incident - considering they claim there are many - if the statement had nothing to do with the lacrosse players? and 2) Why can't you produce any of these issues as proof?
--it makes more sense that this is the first fish to swim your way in years and it was best to be the first on the bandwagon for bragging rights.

Secondly, they're not painting a pretty picture of Duke right now. Either they're saying that Duke is a campus completely intolerant of diversity and there's rampant crimes against women OR they're making the case of inferior faulty, thereby Duke not being worth the $43k it charges. Either way, Duke's made much about their fund raising and application goals i 2006 - the real test will be when people start accepting offers. Something tells me that Duke will be sending out a record number of Waitlist acceptances.

Lastly, these 88/77 need to travel outside of their group think circles more. The very last thing people respond to is condescension. We're not stupid. Surprisingly enough, many of us can read and comprehend. Attempting to reinvent the meaning and context of the listening ad is downright insulting.

Anonymous said...

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

Do you really think Nifong "was bound to save [CGM's] virtue, refusing to see her for who and what she was"? I think he knew very early on, as did the Durham police, exactly "what she was."

With Nifong out of the case and because most of us would like to see the good in people, it will become harder and harder to see Nifong for what he apparently was. When he conspired with Meehan to withhold evidence, Nifong was not trying to save CGM's virtue and he was not refusing to see her as she was. He was trying to keep alive an issue that would re-elect him, even if it meant ruining the lives of three young men he knew were innocent.

For me, that means he was evil, not deluded.

Cochise's Enchilada

Anonymous said...

CE: Evil is itself a form of delusion. Rationalization is itself the height of evil.

I think that in Nifong's mind, his main motivations were personal in terms of monetary gain and poltical ambition. He had to think she was telling the truth, he had to think something had happened. This was the way he rationalized his own actions.

Don't get me wrong. I do not feel sympathy for Michael Nifong, because what he did was plainly wrong in my eyes. I merely offer an insight, which is what lawyers do. They look for motivations, and analyze such things based on their own experience. A crook may think robbing a bank is fine because banks have so much money. He cannot admit he's robbing that bank because he's a crook, and is greedy, taking what is not his.

It is a classic way criminals rationalize their own behavior. I think this is the root of how Nifong rationalized his own. In the end, though, his own self-delusion trampled the rights of the Defendants, and were highly unethical (as well as clearly illegal). This is the danger when one fools oneself as an attorney.

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

Joe said...

I'm with the Mexican food person, which is why I feel perfectly justified in my disgust. Sure, if I make Supreme Ct. someday, I'll keep my emotions out of it. While I discuss a scummy, politically profiteering DA, though...

All bets are off.

Michael said...

The strongest message to date from Duke is Gustafson's quote:

I am furious at the personal attacks that Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans have suffered without benefit of a thorough, dispassionate investigation into the allegations of March. I am furious at the lack of response of many agencies to the documented threats on their persons, and the cavalier way their persons and families have been treated.

Gustafson Jan 17 2007 blog

He is also furious at the attack emails aimed at the 87/88. But he's used the strongest language to date in anger at how the Duke 3 were treated.

That's the kind of language that the university should be using about the treatment of the LAX players.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

12:15 anon

Another post on another thread indicates accurately that denotatively a "rump" group is a constitution of often a few core members with usually some hangers-on from a larger, original group that has somehow been deposed or delimited from some former power or position they held; very often associated with a political party in control of a country, or government admin. (from tryanny to democracy) which, although now or just about to be out of power, remains in some lesser version of itself, with fewer members, "to fight another day."

That poster objected that KC was straying from the true meaning of the term. I submit, however, that connotatively at least, "rump" is in many ways the ideal way to describe this group. While other weasels have replaced some of the group who neglected to sign on with this latest blob of PC blather, the group's position is in many ways that of a rump group: deposed from the PC/MSM throne they held through December, truly relinquishing it only on the departure of Nifong, this group is now foisting on the Duke community and the public a defiant non-apology apologia, clearly indicating they are determined to be a legitimate player in an arena in which the events of the day--the banishing of Nifong, the all-but-given perception of everyone save the lunatic left--pity that still includes MSM'ers at many media organs--have totally discredited them.

Like The Ingroup which is now an outgroup, their partisan rage layered with fake apologies betrays their newly rump status.

Anonymous said...

RP is correct: if the Duke administration fails to act...they will not come.

Think of Duks as a brand. If Hasselblad publicly refused to correct manufacturing problems in its lenses, how many photographers would spend good money on the camera?

Duke's "brand" recognition now is reflected in Richard Brodhead's weak leadership, and in Karla Holloway's stupid looking grin.

The damage to Duke is tremendous.

Healing will solve nothing when what you really have is a festering wound.

Anonymous said...

12:22 Given Zahn's previous reporting on this case I thought her special on race last night was fairly good. I was surprised that Cash didn't get his new phone rumor on the air. Hoping that Zahn knew about it and wouldn't allow the 4th hand racist rumor on her show.

Anonymous said...

NYSM:

wonderful analysis of rump

the 5th def of rump in Am Her Dict is the inferior part--so the term works as meat and politics

where meat meets mediocrity

RP

Newyorkstateofmind said...

JLS 12:25

I missed your post on this issue as I was writing my typically voluminous one on the same subject.

You got it down--the truth to "rump" status for the G88--quite succinctly; but then I obviously like to write, thus expanded my thoughts on this topic.

Anonymous said...

Wayne Fontes: That's the trouble with Sam Hummel and his Ubuntu group ilk. They purposely ignore the facts about rape and race statistics. Most rapes in the U.S. are black-on-black, and after that, black-on-white. White on black rape is miniscule. Do these statistics mean any claim of rape by a black woman against white males shouldn't be investigated? Of course not. It should be investigated immediately. Each case is individual, and should be treated as such. But what those statistics DO negate are Hummel's theories of a racist, sexist, paternalistic, classist society causing multiple rapes of black females by white males. The Hummels will never bring up the truth because it blows away their wishful (and probably mean-spirited) fantasies. Though I hate to think of myself as vengeful, I think it will be justified to bring a major lawsuit against him when the time is right, IF he's proven to be the one behind the vigilante posters. Having theories is one thing, but wishing them to be true so badly that you hurt innocent people is reprehensible.

Anonymous said...

Well, referring to the Gang of 88 as a rump group is too kind. I see them as nothing more than Repackaged Nazis. Wrote this letter about it in www.diverseeducation.com in response to their article in http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_6857.shtml:

Well, talk about good news, bad news....so-called "Professor" Holloway resigning from Duke University over the University's decision to readmit two of the Lacrosse players accused of raping a stripper. The bad news is the idea she can go to another university to contaminate other "skulls full of mush" (to paraphrase one of my favorite comedians) with her sick, racist, and hate-filled diatribe. The rest of the Gang of 88 will continue to preach their brand of Nazism on Duke's Campus. So much for Higher Education.

Talk about a sick joke to read Holloway resigning over what she refered to as a "breach of ethical citizenship". Don't make me laugh. What kind of "ethical citizenship" does she consider to be model in her book? Vigilantism? Racism? Inciting violence? The last quote was just too rich-"I could no longer in good faith with this breach of common trust." Since when has she, or the rest of the Gang of 88, ever worked in any "good faith" at all? What have they done to earn any trust? Puh-leeasse!!!They wrote and sign an ad that prejudged three kids, inflamed tensions based on race and sex, and even participated in protest rallies where the brain-dead participates were holding up signs saying such colorful epitiaths such as "Castrate Them". Is that their idea of "ethical citizenship"? Where I'm from, we call that a lynch mob. How about the "Wanted" posters with these kids' pictures, the pot-bangers just outside their housing, the harrassment, and the threats these kids had to endure? Is that working in "Good Faith", worthy of "Common Trust"? I suppose it could be considered such.....in Communist China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and the rest of the 3/4's of the United Nations. Well, that is the True Face of Liberalism. Sounds more like Repackaged Nazism to me. Well, this is NOT the America I went to war for.

So the fallout? The Communist DA Nifong faces ethics complaints and may be disbarred and even sued, along with Durham County. Holloway resigned, but could be open to civil litigation along with the rest of her gang. Duke University could also be sued for letting the Gang of 88 and their brainwashed followers run amuck as they did. If any of kids would have been hurt, they could face criminal charges as well. If they were in the military and pulled the stunts they did, they would be subject to court martial. Sounds like the military has more prestige then the "prestiegious" Duke. Given how these kids were treated by their faculty, sounds like we have more rights in the military.

Be nice if any standards can be put on University Faculty, as this is a clear commercial for an Academic Bill of Rights if I have seen one. David Horowitz couldn't have possibly speak anymore clearly about that. Students need to be protected from the kind of abuse of power perpetrated by the Gang of 88 and their ilk. We expect bullying and hazing from other students at any grade level, but what is more appalling than to have a faculty instigate, and even participate, in that behavior? Well, out of this sordid mess, take your pick.....false accusations of rape, a DA who behaves more like the Gestapo, a University President with no moral courage to stand up to the Gang of 88 and their brainwashed followers. Let them run anymore roughshod, and it could well take the North Carolina Army National Guard to do it. What could be a nicer flashback to them than to have Tarheels patrolling their campus with fixed bayonets? At least Duke University would see a better class of people than the likes of Holloway and her ilk.

They would also be a class of people who definately know the species of animals that the Gang of 88 are, just as well as the rest of us who have, or now currently, serving in the military. Just as our fathers and grandfathers before us who served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and other places, have seen with our own eyes, the handiwork of people exactly like the Gang of 88 in other countries, where they got the power of life and death over their people and used that power on a whim. That handiwork was seen in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, the "re-eductation" camps of Communism, the mass graves in Iraq under Saddam, and lots of other places that are living hells that we have, or even tried to, liberate. Sounds like our own Universities need to be liberated too.

It's funny that even in this day and age that the word "racist" invokes images of Rednecks drinking beer, burning crosses, and shouting racial epitaths. Even then they get excused to a degree as they are often said to be uneducated, ignorant, and illiterate....much like John Kerry thinks of the military. So what excuse does the Gang of 88 and their braindead sheep have, given their education? Well, call it for it is......just like Nazis, Facists, Communists, and even Islamofacists, they're pure evil. It is what it is. Anyone with any sense of decency on our college campuses have a moral duty to oppose and undermine them at every turn. Question them, challenge their authority, expose them. If I were those kids, if I did, against all better judgement, returned to the university, aside from lawsuits and civil rights complaints, I would be finding creative ways to get payback. Taking face pics of the Gang of 88 and superimposing them over the bodies of infamous Nazis, Communists, and other assorted known thugs and dictators would be a good start. Counter-protests against the braindead sheep would be another. Looking at the webpage, www.protestwarrior.com, is a source of great ideas.

And finally, anyone who has read the letter posted by the Gang of 88 on concerneddukefaculty.com shouldn't be surprised. It is typical, self-serving excuse making tripe, blaming bloggers, radio talk shows, and everyone else for "not getting it" about their original ad. Well, this Redneck GI with a degree (which means I am not uneducated, ignorant, and illiterate), just like so many others got the ad just perfectly. They actually wonder why the NRA compares them to Nazis or why one of my favorite comedians calls them Stalinists. It's because they act like Nazis and Stalinists. That's as getting it clearly as there is.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

12:53 RP said

"where meat meets mediocrity"

Cool allusion; like it.

Anonymous said...

Right now, there is someone in Norway and Beijing, China reading Durham in Wonderland.

What a boon for Duke public relations!

M. Simon said...

-esq,

I used to hang with outlaw bikers back in the day.

They had a whole culture that totally rationalized their "right" to rip people off, murder them, etc. You have to be very awake to stay alive when hanging with such a group. Good zen. Bad karma.

Anonymous said...

The potbangers who carried the huge "Castrate" banner and other threatening signs were obviously in step with the 88. The potbanger spokesgirl screeched the following words through her bullhorn in front of 610 Buchanan:
"I just want to send a message to the people involved in this assault and the people who think that it's OK to propogate sexual violence and racial violence and class violence. There are not just legal consequences for these actions. There are community consequences, and the people that are here today are members of your community and we will be here tomorrow and into perpetuity protecting each other and taking care of each other.The community consequences for this action, I guarantee you, will range far beyond the legal consequences that you will face."

Anonymous said...

propagate

Anonymous said...

1:01 and International Readers of Durham-in-Wonderland

Dear followers of Durham in Wonderland who currently live outside of the USA. Please feel free to contribute your thoughts on this important matter.

Anonymous said...

I read the Open Letter To The Duke Community and the statements therein that the April 2006 ad, which was mostly a compilation of selected statements, was a call to action and not a comment on the alleged rape, the team party, the specific students accused or the rendering of a judgment.

To me, the Open Letter needed to address five statements in the ad that jumped out at me in order to support the position asserted in the Open Letter. It only addressed one of the five.

1. Quoted Statement: “These students are shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman and to themselves.”
What HAPPENING were you referring to?

2. Quoted Statement: “We want the absence of terror…”
What TERROR did you believe was being referenced?

3. Quoted Statement: “If something like this happens to me . . . What would be used against me--my clothing? Where I was?”
If something like WHAT happens to the declarant?

4. “no one is really talking about how to keep the young woman herself central to this conversation, how to keep her humanity before us . . . she doesn’t seem to be visible in this.”

And keeping her central and tangible was important because why?

5. “To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard.”
The Open Letter stated that they do not endorse every demonstration that took place at the time and was directed at the efforts of those who used the attention the incident generated to raise issues of discrimination and violence. OK, this was a question I had, and the Open Letter provided an answer that I can accept.

Now, about the other four.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

Dave C. 12:58 said

"Sounds like our own Universities need to be liberated too."

Absolutely, and an all-too-applicable image of the siege students are under in dealing with the PC mandarins at most universities these days, and virtually all the elite ones.

As for KC's use of "rump" however, the term is actually pan-political, preferring no particular form of government or ideology whatsoever. Even the real Nazis had rump cells of Nazis who fought vainly but determinedly against the Allied occupation after the 1945 denouement. Of course these groups were so few in number (and their members numbered so few), that they were quite ineffectual; but real, and rump, they still were.

Anonymous said...

I really have to laugh.

Everyone is blaming the rump, precious, nifong--but no one is posting about their enablers--Duke alumni and Duke administrators.

Do you want to cure the disease, or treat the symptoms?

RP

M. Simon said...

new york,

I read something recently that said that the rump Nazis - Werewolves - caused trouble for a few years after the war and were the genesis of some allied policies.

The Russians, being more brutal, had fewer problems initially. Their brutality in the long run (and their economics based on theft - see my 1:07AM for how that relates to biker gangs) destroyed them.

I fact the biker gang I hung with was basically Marxist in nature with Marxist rationalizations. A bunch of intellectual outlaws.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

RP 1:13

Right on about Duke Admin; Brodhead and his minions are almost single-handedly responsible for this case going down the way it did, in that their failure to stand by the LAX team early on gave Nifong momentum to ignore the evidence and press on with his prosecution without having to sweat much pressure--in those critical early weeks--for doing so.

As for Duke alums, that's another story in my book. Sure, had there been a much more concerted and public effort from at least some substantial number of Duke alums to back the LAX team from the get-go, Nifong again may have not been ballsy enough to pursue charges like he did.

On the other hand, notwithstanding the truism that "for evil to triumph, good people need only sit back and do nothing," the alums had no real fiduciary or direct relationship of obligation with any current Dukies. They all had and have their lives somewhere else (even if in Durham), doubtless caught up in the distractions that so many people face in working for a living, paying mortgages and rent, and all the rest.

It is indeed the Admin who had not only a fidcuiary relationship to the LAX team; they had THE fiduciary relationship--an affirmative duty to protect the reputation of the LAX team members, which naturally would include attempting to screen them from creeps like Nifong, G88, CGM, and assorted leftists loonies agitating about the faux "rape."

Anonymous said...

It seems to be well known in Durham and at Duke that the DPD targets Duke students. There are lots of examples of Duke students being treated differently.

The pattern, known to Duke, well show a that Duke failed to protect its students.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

simon 1:29

Yes, werewolves the code name for rump Nazis after WWII. And it is true that their agitations and plots and occasional guerrilla strikes did cause some problems. The reason I describe them as ineffectual is that the occupying Allied response to their machinations was still quite ruthless, and therefore effective in keeping them down--ruthless at least by the standards of today, if not, as you so accurately relate, the Russian Stalinists in the neighborhood at the time, or for that matter their appointed guardians in the East German Stasi.

Anonymous said...

K.C. I was the 12:14 poster and I appreciate your explication of the obscure usage of "Rump." As I said in my original post, I expected there would be some kind of allusive meaning.

However, that is not how the term is likely to be understood today by most readers.

Anonymous said...

JLS says...

re: NYstateofmind

No problem, I write many long responses too. Also I only firmly knew this because someone pointed it out on one of yesterdays thread.

M. Simon said...

anon. 1:50,

I read this blog for education and entertainment.

I learn something new every day.

I also try to leave a comment or two with some knowledge in it every day.

Anonymous said...

JLS says...

re: JoeT,

I usually refer to such people as statists. We need not worry whether their view of using the state to achieve their ends perfectly matches, Hitler or Fidel or Stalin or Mao or whomever.

We just need to recognize that they want to use the power of the state to force people to think and act as they wish. That is they are a danger to all people who don't want to be under the thumb of the government. And certainly they don't like defendant's rights presumption of innocent until the state proves one guilty, as that reduces the government's ability to coerce people to behave as the statist wishes.

Anonymous said...

from anon 12:14, 01:50

"I am a strong supporter of K.C.'s courageous and effective work on this board, but I have no idea what he means or intends by his repeated reference to the Gang of 88 as a "rump group."

Even if this does make sense in some allusive context, the phrase I think comes across as a bit puerile.

It is true that the enormity of the Gang's actions make reasonableness in response difficult, but the reasonable tone of K.C.'s blog is one of the key reasons for its effectiveness."


http://tinyurl.com/2rfwr
http://tinyurl.com/yvflrh
http://tinyurl.com/yobdkb
http://tinyurl.com/24ysxd

Anonymous said...

As others have pointed out, the above article on racism and race has an alarming lack of statistics to back up a serious premise. The lack of numbers, much less the accurate use of statistics, has been a common thread in the 88’s arguments. Like the original 88 ad, everything is anecdotal. I get the feeling that statistics as a course of study are underappreciated in the departments that the 88 come from. And that is a shame, because statistics is THE course that should be required in colleges today. There is no way that a person pursuing African-American or Gender studies cannot benefit from a thorough grounding in statistics. (When I attended Duke, Stats was considered a blow-off course.)

BTW, writing from China (although not Beijing).

Anonymous said...

Since Karla Holloway is a ringleader of the "new" statement, given her recent behavior, I would say that members of the Duke faculty STILL would like to see the three young men convicted.

This "statement" was the worse in CYA activities. I would prefer that these faculty members engage in CYF (Cover Your Face).

If Duke is overrun with racists and rapists, as they allege, then there always is NCCU across town. They would not even have to move.

Vitruvius said...

Since someone above asked for comments from international readers, and since I've become a student of this situation and thought about it further, I'll post again (I popped up last week on the matters of barratry and champerty), from north-western Canada. For the record, not only am I not anti-American, I'm pro-American.

In order to understand the problems presented by cases like this and the circumstances surrounding them, there are two quotes that I find useful. First, Matt Ridley wrote in the Guardian on 2003-04-08: "For the past century the world has got steadily better for most people. You do not believe that? I am not surprised. You are fed such a strong diet of news about how bad things are that it must be hard to believe they were once worse. But choose any statistic you like and it will show that the lot of even the poorest is better today than it was in 1903. [...] All this has been achieved primarily by that most hated of tricks, the technical fix. By invention, not legislation."

Second, Alan Charles Kors wrote at the Objectivist Center on 2003-10-19: "The cognitive behavior of Western intellectuals faced with the accomplishments of their own society, on the one hand, and with the socialist ideal and then the socialist reality, on the other, takes one's breath away. In the midst of unparalleled social mobility in the West, they cry "caste." In a society of munificent goods and services, they cry either "poverty" or "consumerism." In a society of ever richer, more varied, more productive, more self-defined, and more satisfying lives, they cry "alienation." In a society that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians to an extent that no one could have dreamed possible just fifty years ago, they cry "oppression." In a society of boundless private charity, they cry "avarice." In a society in which hundreds of millions have been free riders upon the risk, knowledge, and capital of others, they decry the "exploitation" of the free riders. In a society that broke, on behalf of merit, the seemingly eternal chains of station by birth, they cry "injustice." In the names of fantasy worlds and mystical perfections, they have closed themselves to the Western, liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit, and human satisfaction. Like Marx, they put words like "liberty" in quotation marks when these refer to the West."

What we have in this situation in Durham is a combination of Marxist statists typified by the so-called cultural studies folks, and legislation-oriented folks like the legal system, combining to deny the progress of the last century and beyond. And they call themselves progressives.

The solution to this sort of problem is to ask the Engineers what to do -- they are the masters of invention, not legislation. And, based on the evidence currently available in this case, and in perfect opposition to the behaviour of the Marxists, the Engineers have been the epitome of reasonableness in this matter.

There's an old joke that the Engineers would tell you to build a bridge out of it. And they're exactly right. What the Duke faculty and students, and their families, and Durham, and North Carolina, and the United States of America, and all of the rest of us have to do is use this case to help build a bridge from the Marxists and the statists to reality, and there are some tools available to help do that, from the blogosphere, to private litigation.

Anonymous said...

It's my understanding that Karla Holloway has not resigned from Duke University (we can only wish). She has instead resigned from a committee at Duke University that was studying "race relations" or some such stuff. Presumably, her committee work was unpaid.

Anonymous said...

KC
Thanks so much for remembering the lunch and my early take on the Dulcinea analogy-typically kind and generous of you. Nifong was desperately looking for a case upon which to build his re-election effort, which was dead in the water at the time. And then along came Dulcinea...

Anonymous said...

12:31, RP



Guess they turned you down at Duke, huh?

Wouldn't invite you over to play with their kids?

Did those mean people at school say "no"?

Didn't make the cut?

Just not quite Dukie material, are you?

You know you can't always get what you want...

So sad...

Anonymous said...

You could have a pool on which member will turn first.

Anonymous said...

I think the rump is officially roasted. I love rump roast for breakfast.

These rogue rumps continue to be a pain in the a**.

Pure CYA is behind the Open Letter.

These people are trying to save their behinds, for goodness sake, how could we make them the butt of our silly jokes?

KC, you may want to delete this, but, like Esq and Rp yesterday, I couldn't resist.

Anonymous said...

There are several key passages that need emphasis for what they don't say. The chief is:

"We do not endorse every demonstration that took place at the time."

This is the mouse in the grainery: It's style is used in debates to leave the impression that the group did not approve of the demonstrations: they do not endorse every demonstration.

1. "do not" is present tense; it says nothing about the first Group of 88 statement.

2. Even though there is overlap, the "we" in this statement is the current signers, not the 88.

3. The "every" is important, because many of the 88 were at most of the demonstrations, even organizing them. Maybe there was one demonstration that was in favor of the team (there was more than one), and that was the one they didn't approve of, so now they can say "We do not approve of every demonstration."

I was on a high school debate team, too. This "we do not approve of every demonstration" approach was a trained method of obfuscation. It sounds good, but has absolutely no information content.

Anonymous said...

The problem for these professors and for Duke is that they encouraged demonstrations on campus that targeted certain individuals. This was not a campaign against rape and racisim, but rather was a specific set of attacks against individuals with names and faces, and who were Duke students.

Unfortunately, these people cannot escape that particular fact. They cannot say they were speaking out on a general basis. Furthermore, the many statements that John Burness has made certainly were made in his employ as a Duke administrator, and as a spokesperson for the university.

In short, we are looking at real liability here. This latest CYA attempt does not cover for everything that has been done, and they know it. Hence, that last offensive from Orin Starn to Karla Holloway to Cash Michaels. It is now or never for the people who want to "save" this case.

Anonymous said...

We appreciate the efforts of those who used the attention the incident generated to raise issues of discrimination and violence.

The G88/87's revisionist history is an admission that they blew it. They rushed to judgement on Duke LAX players in an effort to make the alleged victim the poster child for their cause: discrimination and violence. Now they are trying to rescue their beloved larger issue from the lies (Susan Estrich's word) of the accuser.

When one cries "wolf" as the G88/87 did, the way to restoration is to say, "I was wrong. It wasn't a wolf." Instead they are saying, "We never said it was a wolf, we were simply supporting others who had concerns about carnivourous mammals." Wouldn't a straight forward apology be a better way for the G88/87 to regain credibility for themselves and their cause? I'm not sure whether it's pride or embarrassment that prevents that course of action.

Anonymous said...

What is even more amazing about the claim or "Myth # 1: The Group of 88’s statement had nothing to do with the accuser’s March 14 allegations."

How do the protesters/potbangers/
88ers explain the location of the protests IN FRONT OF THE LAX HOUSE. Are we to believe that was by chance they demostrated about broader social issues NOT RELATED to the charges in front of the lax house? I guess we are...

Anonymous said...

To Vitruvius

Thanks for a substantive post and for actually placing this case in an appropriate as opposed to a factitious "wider context."

Anonymous said...

In my lifetime, I honestly thought I would never encounter a group of people anywhere near as pathetic as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, etc. A group of people so unethical and morally bankrupt.

That is until this case and the witnessing of the disgusting, vile behavior of the Group of 88, Cash Michaels, Victoria Peterson and the rest of the Nifong enablers.

I'm honestly shocked to see the scum at the bottom of the barrel so overflowing. Just think how much better this planet would be if both of these cancers went away.

Vitruvius said...

You're welcome, 8:11. My perspective on this matter comes from two sources: (1) my mom's catholic insistence that god created all people equally, which fits in very well with my notion that you can't tell about someone based on how they were created, you can only tell based on how they've behaved since then, and (2) my old beat-up libertarian trying to get by attitude that while people should be as free as possible as individuals, so then they should be judged based on their responsibility in handling that freedom, from an axiological perspective.

I should probably mention at this point, for those who aren't familiar with the term axiology, that it is described at Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiology - as follows: "From the Greek αξια (value, worth), it is the study of value or quality. It is often thought to include ethics and aesthetics -- philosophical fields that depend crucially on notions of value -- and sometimes it is held to lay the groundwork for these fields, and thus to be similar to value theory and meta-ethics." In short, axiology is the study of: What is valuable?

Is the notion of "race" valuable? And if so, how much? If one goes to answers.com and looks up "race", one will find the following provisos from The American Heritage dictionary:

"The notion of race is nearly as problematic from a scientific point of view as it is from a social one. European physical anthropologists of the 17th and 18th centuries proposed various systems of racial classifications based on such observable characteristics as skin color, hair type, body proportions, and skull measurements, essentially codifying the perceived differences among broad geographic populations of humans. The traditional terms for these populations -- Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, and in some systems Australoid -- are now controversial in both technical and nontechnical usage.

"The biological aspect of race is described today not in observable physical features but rather in such genetic characteristics as blood groups and metabolic processes, and the groupings indicated by these factors seldom coincide very neatly with those put forward by earlier physical anthropologists. Citing this and other points -- such as the fact that a person who is considered black in one society might be nonblack in another -- many cultural anthropologists now consider race to be more a social or mental construct than an objective biological fact."

The National Geographic's mitochondrial DNA analysis project certainly seems to be leaning in the direction of denying any sort of notion of racial purity: tinyurl.com/gpqgp

So perhaps it is the pragmatist coming out in me. I doubt we will ever have definitive answers on metaphysics, we will probably always be stuck with plowing through the orthodox ontology du jour as we ever make Occam's razor sharper. Meanwhile, life goes on, and that's where axiology brings it all together. It's the ancient battle between the utilitarians and the humanists, between Bentham and his nephew Mill, and I must say I've got one foot planted firmly on each side of the debate ;-)

We have recently been celibrating, in part, the legacy of Mr. Martin Luther King's birthday, not Mr. Abraham Lincoln's, yet I should like to point out that Mr. King was in part standing on the shoulders of previous great Americans and other students of the evolution of civilization, as epitomized in this speech given by Mr. Lincoln on July 10, 1858:

"Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden.

"That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will -- whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro.

"I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! [Voices -- "no one," &c.] If it is not true let us tear it out! [cries of "no, no,"] let us stick to it then, [cheers] let us stand firmly by it then. [Applause.]"

/End Lincoln quote

We have to treat individual people based on how they behave, based on classic notions of axiology, not on how they look or whether or not they identify with some set of traditions commonly known as some sort of "culture" to some degree.

AMac said...

NW Canada 6:51am --

You offered two quotes worth reading. Thanks.

Here's a further thought on 'engineers.'

Provost Lange, Pres. Brodhead, and many Group of 88 faculty have complained vigorously about G88'ers receiving lots of antagonistic email. As far as commentary on their roles in facilitating the Hoax, this brings to mind the aphorism, "you can dish it out..."

At the same time, I believe them when they claim that their inboxes regularly fill with obscene, hateful, and even threatening e-letters. This is wrong! As Michael Gustafson wrote, nobody--G88 included--should be subjected to such abuse.

Having said that: even without expertise in I.T., I can visualize easy and cheap engineering approaches to the problem of unsolicited, anonymous hateful/obscene/threatening emails. I won't review details; any I.T. person could surpass my ideas before his or her second cup of coffee.

Instead, I'd note the apparent lack of interest in ameliorating this problem by, say, 90%. No public discussion of this issue that I can see by anyone at Duke.

It's as if the Administration and the Hard Left prefer the status quo. That lonely, scared faculty should continue to face the burden of reading each and every disparaging email from the hordes of anonymous racist psychopathic hegemons that lurk beyond the ivied walls.

I am not sure why that would be.

Anonymous said...

Now,I understand the word "spin".

Anonymous said...

Why is the 100,000 dollars bail still in place?

Anonymous said...

Loved those comments Vitrovius. Thanks!

Observer

Vitruvius said...

I agree with you, AMac, and with Professor Michael Gustafson, that obscene, hateful, and threatening talk have no place in the rhetoric of a matter as important as the dialectics involved here. That's why I don't do it.

When I spoke about asking engineers how to solve the problem, AMac, I didn't mean in the narrow sense of I.T. -- that's not engineering anyway -- I meant in the broader sense of the engineering of systems that bring good things to life. Thus the quotes: it turns out that the best results we've seen as a species recently have come from real engineers, not social engineers.

We as a species stand on the history of Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Magna Carta, and the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States of America. This history has produced a legacy of effective social behaviour for constructing volitional systems. Marxism doesn't work well. Individual freedom, responsibility, and merit work much better.

There are assorted groups of fear-mongers and even less savoury people who want to deny this, for the purposes of what are now justifiably seen to be classically illicit gains. They are the enemy.

Anonymous said...

This new ad is a pathetic attempt for the Duke 88 to try and cover their tails legally. They see on civil suit already beginnning and they want to try and blanket themelves with this new ad. What a bunch of idiots. The damage has already been done and with this new ad they have now done more damage to the 3 falsely accused and to Duke University. I hope all 88 signers are tied up in civil court for years to come.

Anonymous said...

First, the person using Wayne Fontes as a "nom de cyber" is a comedic genius.

Second, Johnson's cruelly efficient exposure of media "coverage" (save 60 mins.) of this farce has been instructive. It seems to have proceeded as follows:

First phase: Swallow and report the sensationalistic/inflammatory race/class and "lacrosse culture" protests coming out of Duke early on.

Second Phase: Now that the case has collapsed, there's only strict reporting of each new hole in the case...with no mention of the larger "social context" that was so prevalent when the media collectively thought that they had an actual Tawana Brawley situation, i.e., a gold mine.

AMac said...

Vitruvius 8:53am --

I meant my 8:32am comment to be a small instance of how the approach you sketched out could be gainfully applied to one aspect of this case. If I misinterpreted your point, no foul, I hope.

I still wish that Duke's administrators would belatedly implement technical fixes that would largely ameliorate a problem that both they and their faculty have highlighted as being important.

Anonymous said...

One issue that no one mentions in this conversation is why Duke seems so isolated from the Durham community. Once upon a time, Duke selected at least some of it's senior administrators from business, political, or academic institutions from NC, or at least from the south. More recently, though, Duke has been recruiting senior administrators from other prestigious universities out of state. That may be good for University prestige, and these recruits might be excellent administrators, but the lack of connection doesnt help relations with the community. If Terry Sanford or his equivalent was still President of Duke, Nifong might have gone forward, but he would have been damn certain of his grounds before doing so.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant analysis.

The "Gang of 88" is overmatched going up against KC. He obviously has the facts and timeline of the case on his side so they are facing an uphill battle. It is the the equivalent of Duke going up against Catawba in hoops.

M. Simon said...

8:56AM,

Uh, they have done more damage to themselves as well by admitting that they were off base on the first ad.

Anonymous said...

Further to the Cervantes anaology: the delusional Nifong is to CGM as the delusional Don Quixote is to Dulcinea. After all, not unlike Cervantes, Nifong never meets CGM until his fictional tilt is essentially over and Dulcinea doesn't actually ever appear in the novel. In 400 years, little has changed. One definition for "quixotic" is "possessing or acting with the desire to do noble and romantic deeds, without thought of realism and practicality." We are indeed doomed to repeat history, again and again.

M. Simon said...

Amac,

Ouspensky said: "some people get all their pleasure from negative emotions".

Sound familiar?

Anonymous said...

Joe said: 12:04, doesn't work. The whole point of Don Quixote, imho, is a nostalgic affection for a chivalric world that doesn't exist--we wish it could exist, like it does in Medieval literature.

Disagree.

It wasn't just Nifong who was steeped in chivalry in this incident. The G88+ were also acting out in a chivalrous manner. Powerless, innocent and vulnerable female being saved from the evil clutches of the powerful males who had tied this damsel in distress to the tracks. This is a part of the G88 schtick.

Stereotypes empower double standards. As long as people ignorantly fall for the stereotype we are vulnerable to the traps of double standards. KC has exposed a bit of their attempts to promote a stereotype of the "bad male" who is sexually violent. Take the time to learn the truth about this. Have a look at a recent Canadian tv program on men. Watch how the announcer by the end of the program has shed his brainwashing and is asking "Why have I not heard this before?" Three of the four guests are familiar with the peer reviewed research on intimate violence and one guest and the announcer are not and support the stereotype without question. The announcer changes his mind by the end of the program while the other man simply gets irritated. It's fascinating to watch.

When millions of people are asking that same question of "Why haven't I heard of this?" the power of the G88 will be erased.

M. Simon said...

Amac,

The idea of race corresponds pretty well with average IQ.

Ashkenazi Jews being a case in point on the high end. Blacks on the low end.

There was a long discussion of this here on the "Holloway Leaves CCI" thread.

I'm not going to reprise the arguments.

However, since the variations are wide within each race it is best to treat every one as an individual.

Besides none of that says anything aabout a persons moral behavior. Although we do know that criminality correlates with low IQ. Which still is about averages not individuals.

Anonymous said...

The intellectual dishonesty exhibited by the Duke faculty is shocking and embarrassing.

How can they deny that their "listening" ad -- a statement that contains at least 3 references to "what happened" and similar references to "the disaster" and "this disaster" -- is not a straightforward declaration of belief in the truth of what we now all know to be false allegations of rape?

This reminds me of the classic example, explained to so many young lawyers learning how to take depositions and question witnesses, of questions objectionable because they assume facts that have not been proven. "When, sir, did you stop beating your wife?"

Just as this question presumes that the witness, in fact, beat his wife, so too the facultys' statement presumes that, in fact, something "happened to this young woman."

Duke Law alum

Anonymous said...

Will someone tell FODU to credit "Senseless" to the NY Post instead of Fluff Wilson's NY Times.
I love my "Oasis of Sanity"!

Anonymous said...

KC wrote: "Given that this new statement was undoubtedly cleared by a lawyer, I’d suggest that the rump Group find new counsel. I hear that Mike Nifong might be looking for work soon. Given how much the Group of 88 has assisted him over the past ten months, perhaps he’d be willing to take their case on a pro bono basis?"

KC -- Lawyer here. I appreciate your efforts to bring to light the facts of this case and to hold people accountable. But I wonder why you imply that the Group of 88/87 could have some kind of legal liability for publishing both their original "statement" and their recent "clarification." I really don't think either one contained anything actionable. Morally and professionally reprehensible, yes. But not legally actionable, as far as I can see.

Anonymous said...

Hail Vitruvius!

Invention has been hugely denigrated in favor of legislation on University campuses. Out here in the wild west, using environmentalism as a pretext, the 'intellectuals' launched their attempt to seize dominance over us engineers way back in the 70s by setting up the program called the Social Management of Technology. By reading the organs of the American Society of Civil Engineers, one can see that these once hard-headed realists (physical, not political) have ingested the poison and now speak PC almost as well as the 'studies' groups.

The implication of the SMT movement was that engineers were antisocial brutes (sorta like lacrosse players) and must be brought to heel by the wise socialists speaking for the 'community'. The benefits that those technical inventions brought to the wider community (the one which included everyone, not just the political activists) were wholly taken for granted, as something that could be instituted by decree. As California now does in it legislative 'design' of non-polluting automobiles...

It cheers me that the Duke Engineering Department is still mostly immune to the lynch-mob epidemic which has engulfed the Arts and 'Sciences' faculty.

Vitruvius said...

No foul AMac, I agree. But look at the deeper issues of technology and their impact on this situation. From time-stamped 911 calls and digital photographs correlated with enhanced images of wrist-watches, to DNA analysis, to the ability of individual citizens to protest the oligarchies via this here intarweb thingy, and the instant access it provides to the previous claims of the characters involved in this matter; justice is served not by little technological hacks like email filtering (the Stalinists were good at that) but rather by the broader advances of technology that enable the exposition of the truth per se.

Call for Galileo, telescope courtesy telephone please -- apparently it's Sherlock Holmes, he wants to know why the Marxists can't build lenses that aren't clouded.

Anonymous said...

9:12,
You are right, as we all know, the Rump IS outmatched significantly by KC. Members of the Rump have complained about the bloggers with "too much time on their hands," blogging and commenting on the case, but really the bloggers devotion to assessing every piece of information about this case was inspired in large part by the Rump's lack of interest in and complete failure to assess the facts of this case. Despite the Rump's resentment, the bloggers are, not surprisingly, the experts on the case. Of all people, the Rump scholars should appreciate the investment of time, the sustained research, and careful analysis offered by the bloggers, KC Johnson and Bill Anderson in particular. We all understand that for whatever reason, the Rump members chose NOT to invest their energies in a close anaysis, but when they make public statements of fact and intent that seem so poorly grounded, they really do make themselves and the university they represent look quite foolish.

Observer

Anonymous said...

I have to agree with 9:35. The G88 have little to worry about legally. Even if liable, it would be really bad PR for the 3 to sue sideline commentators (even if professors at their own school) after first suing Nifong, the accuser and Duke U. Maybe the G88's words, however, could be used in lawsuit against Duke Corp.

Does anyone else find it odd that a group with more than enough English professors among them can't write a simple page without being 'misunderstood'?

I think it can be explained by the inane deliberations that were going on:
“We had a long discussion about what the word ‘regret’ means, and philosophy professors weighed in and we had a whole range of very detailed discussions in terms of the etymology of specific words."
Jeez, only in academia (or in diplomatic relations with China).
http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_6902.shtml

--the expat in China again--

Anonymous said...

Mrs. Evans had it right: Nofing used CGM. He had cast a net, looking for a case to bring him votes and this perfect-storm of a case was picked out and brought to his attention, despite being absolutely devoid of merit from the outset. He chose to pursue it with complete disregard for truth or for the massive harm he was going to cause, unwilling to let it go. I don’t excuse CGM, but she is so messed up that no one could have believed her – her own words make it clear nothing happened, to the extent that hers is the strongest witness testimony the defense has. She had apparently learned that playing the victim works and that she would never be held to account. I don’t doubt that she is unstable and though it is quite hard to find pity when so many of her problems seem to be self-inflicted (not to mention inflicted on others), she is pitiful. From the start, things were spun and selectively released in support of the lie. I can find no pity for Nofing.

Look at the timeline, there was every reason to drop the case by the time he went forward with charges. Look at how the line-ups kept being repeated in such a way as to give him some basis for charging someone specific. Look at how he made up the demo on TV of how CGM was choked and how he insisted what "happened" was about race, playing to stereotypes that are widely held, having been shouted and taught for years by a very vocal minority and uncritically accepted by so many others. Look at the objective testimony about the behavior of CGM. It is all there and was right in front of him. He was lying, trying to bully everyone into taking his side. He did all this with no self-deception – he knew. Who do you suppose arranged that early interview with the N&O? Who arranged to release the inflammatory (but understandable, in light of what really seems to have happened that night) e-mail, in the context that he had created? CGM has clearly been coached – does anyone really believe that Nofing has been honest about when he spoke with her and the nature of the conversations? Given that the on-the-record testimony is as it is, what do you suppose came out in private?

He may have been a mush-head, but he knew what he had -- a corrupt power structure who would help him push a tissue of lies before a jury that would be so inflamed it would convict, or at least enable him to push things to the point where the accused, advised of this prospect, would be forced to plea. Consider the reprehensible, malicious, and illegal police conduct. And, sad as it is to say, it all worked. He was elected. He was enabled by a deeply corrupt police and judiciary in Durham. He had community activists who gave him suckle and sustenance. He was able to convince the DNA lab director into joining in on this. And, most hurtful of all, he was able to bully Duke into complicity in it all. If only someone at Duke had done the right thing, had investigated and had the wisdom to see things as they were or the courage to stand for bedrock, unassailable principals. There is the excuse that things were in crisis at the time but no excuse seems to hold as to why it has taken so long to do so little. This is what I struggle to understand.

Anonymous said...

It would seem to me that the liability lies not in the G88's words, but rather in the atmosphere that the Duke administration permitted to be on campus. Students who are under the legal presumption of innocence should not have to worry about running a gauntlet of signs calling for them to be raped and castrated. ("Give them equal measures.")

The G88 helped to make matters worse, but I don't think that any of them would be individually liable for what happened. That is my take, anyway.

Anonymous said...

Couple of good links regarding "The Group"...

Cornell lends some student support...

http://tinyurl.com/yov2e8

New York Post discusses "is the new Group-of-88 ad Orwellian or just Bull****?"

http://tinyurl.com/2a9h64

AMac said...

Observer 9:48am, China expat 10:15am --

A couple of years ago as part of my then-employer's continuing ed program, we watched and then discussed a training video. It was a case study of the Challenger disaster. It showed that Thiokol engineers knew about the danger of overly rigid seals at low temperatures. Institutional pressures ("gotta keep to the launch schedule") and weak management led to "groupthink," and thus to the consensus decision to allow the fatal launch to proceed.

A similar process seems to be the curse of the G88/87. It is facilitated rather than imposed by Duke's weak-kneed administration--all universities are comprised of mostly-autonomous fiefdoms, so "strong university management" is an oxymoron.

The G88/87 have now crafted two work products that can only be described as inadequate on factual, grammatical, and ethical grounds. As Observer noted, they "chose not to invest their energies in a close analysis, but when they make public statements of fact and intent that seem so poorly grounded, they really do make themselves and the university they represent look quite foolish."

I would guess that one of the root causes of the G88/87's groupthink is that the skills of "close analysis" are debased in many of their fields. Over time, muscles atrophy with disuse. The writings of some high-profile Groupers (e.g. Profs. Baker, Lubiano, Holloway) suggest that this is a problem for the authors of these statements.

Feelings of inadequacy could well arise when such academics compare their work with the output of peers in mainstream departments. This could also contribute to the groupthink that seems to plague these folks when they get together to attack others or justify their own conduct.

Anonymous said...

Lessons not learned by these guys (I guess they thought they were too smart to study).

1) Never cosign a document (from a petition to a loan) when you know that at least one other signatories isn't being sincere.

2) Never sign anything with fuzzy language ever and definitely don't do it as a group with with a membership a over... say... 10.

Anonymous said...

KC, thx for the British history lesson. I guess once a professor always a professor. I now know why intellectuals don't make it in advertising, the rump group of 88 does not exactly roll of the tongue :)

BTW, good analysis, I'm sure you've made the life of group of 88 critics a lot easier.

I am now starting to think that one of the consequence of this scandal will be a shift in how people use the mass media. I was skeptical about blogs a few years back but I think that blog like yours are steps toward a new type of news reporting and analysis. Even google has a blog search section now(its in a beta stage and still has a few bugs, but is still very functional).

My view is that the current news media (the CNN, FOX news, NY Times, etc.) is going to have to either find a way to form alliance with the blog community or find their relevance and readership diminish. I don't think they will die, but who knows? (e.g. who would have predicted that Encyclopedias like Britanica would ever be replaced, but look at wikipedia now, things don't look good for traditional encyclopedias anymore)


I might even try my hand at a blog myself instead of anonymously comment on so many :) One thing for sure, if I do start my own blog, I would regard your blog and the Liestoppers blogs as blueprints for mine.

Good job

Anonymous said...

The discussion about the precise thinking of Engineers reminded me of the following:

Three medical doctors are discussing the easiest operations.

MD #1: "Clearly the easiest is performed on Engineers. Every part is numbered in precise fashion. One replaces a broken #12.3256 with a new one. There is no room for error."

MD #2: "Yes Doctor Engineers are quite easy, but I prefer operating on Financiers. They too are numbered and every operation is quite simple. However one receives the added benefit of compounding and the replacement parts are incrementally better than the parts being replaced."

MD #3: "I see both of your points but disagree. The easiest operation is on a Gang of 88 member."

Jaws hit the floor and the other two astonished MDs proclaim, "What the hell are you thinking Doctor?"

MD #3: "It's quite obviouse, the Gang of 88 have two moving parts, their mouths and their assholes and both are interchangeable."

Ba-da-bing...

With all due apologies the punch line is actually geared for Attorneys...

Anonymous said...

9:21 AM anon,

Drawing analogies can be fun and Maryland Esquire makes points worth considering (and maybe the Gang of 88 can even be seen as quiotic, at least demented and quiotic). Nevertheless, I doubt we contribute to understanding or eventual justice by seeing Nifong as "possessing or acting with the desire to do noble and romantic deeds."

Going back to Maryland Esquire's comments, I also seriously doubt that Nifong is so incompetent as a lawyer that he would actually see CGM as a romantic heroine.

Anonymous said...

I tried to submit this earlier but couldn't find that it took.

So here it is again:

The Duke Chronicle--online--has, on its first page, ads for women's self-defense items.

If the need for self-defense items is so high that it generates a market justifying the expense of advertising, something must be happening.

That something would be--call me crazy--assaults on Duke women.

The stats for on-campus assaults are only part of the picture, since most of the women have to go off campus from time to time, even if they live on campus. So the other part of the picture is how things are in Durham for Duke women.

Anyway, with all this going on--more than likely--where were the potbangers and the gang of 88 all along?

Anonymous said...

"The players’ guilt or lack thereof has no effect on this.

A somewhat awkward phrase. Too bad there isnt a word for lack of guilt.

Anonymous said...

11:07,

"Innocence" works well--perhaps they did not want to imply the players could actually be, well, "innocent." A number of people have choked on that word in the context of this case.

Observer

Anonymous said...

'MD #3: "It's quite obviouse, the Gang of 88 have two moving parts, their mouths and their [manners filter] and both are interchangeable."'

Yes, but in either chase you first have to do an emergency footectomy.

Anonymous said...

11:17am Observer:

"A number of people have choked on that word [innocent] in the context of this case."

Great point, Observer. 'Innocent' is just too inconvenient a word to contemplate when it doesn't fit into your agenda.

I keep thinking of that NCCU student journalist who couldn't bring herself to write an article because of all the truth she found out about Crystal.

Didn't she end the interview w/ a comment to the effect of 'what if this woman is lying'?

Anyone have a link to the article I'm talking about?

digbeta said...

I too believe that any case with MERIT should be sent to the courts but this case has NO MERIT.

So in this case the 88 are saying that I can accuse any one of them for stealing my car and the case would have to go to trial? Even if there's no hard evidence, just my word? Interesting. Maybe someone should go to a restaurant where one of them frequents, follow them into the bathroom and then when they leave cry rape. After all I would have to "reject all attempts to try the case outside the courts".

As an afterthought, wouldn't the "presumption of innocence" have stopped this case from ever getting this far in the first place? The police might have had to investigate it completely if they had presumed innocence.

Anonymous said...

A simply superb dissection of the Group 88 (rump or the original) madness.

KC is sizzling!

Too hot to handle!

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Mark--

Forget about going to a restaurant and finding these mental midgets.

People of their ilk don't show up unless Duke University or someone else is picking up the tab.

LOL!

Debrah

Anonymous said...

9:33 am,

Sorry for the error and thank you for pointing out the credit problem with "Senseless." It was fixed.

FODU

Anonymous said...

Hello fellow worshipers of DIW... Isn't there a meeting scheduled today for the NC State Bar? Are they going to come out with additional charges, ones that occured since April?
Will Nifong be knifonged by his peers?

Bet this will be a whitewash...

Anonymous said...

You know,

If you really thought that the campus was awash in sexual violence and racism, you might do something besides sign a stupid petition every nine months.

Anonymous said...

There's been some comment in this thread and one or two others about how the 88/87 (or Duke as their employer/poster of their rant) aren't liable for their statements. The commenters don't seem to have read the lawsuit against Kim Curtis and Duke: two of the allegations are intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Keep in mind that the original 88 statement came in the context of demonstrations with banners carrying words like "castrate", the LAX players having to go through gauntlets on the way to class, and threats to allow the New Black Panthers on campus to extract confessions from the players. The 88 statement in effect endorsed some unspecified part of all this, and the LAX parents eventually decided the players should be taken off campus. The 88 statements would be an indication of Duke's apparent endorsement of the threats against the players. The statement by the 87 can certainly be interpreted as saying "we meant it the first time." KC is right, the 88/87 need a new attorney.

Anonymous said...

If one wants to get to the root of the Group of 88 problem, he should read Dr. Willian L. Anderson's blog, "Racial Diversity and Elite Educational Institutions, Duke's Meltdown."

In the name of diversity, universities have created touchy-feely disciplines and lowered their standards for professors in these disciplines. The problem is that these professors are too far on the left, not so much with respect to their political views but rather with respect to their positions on the bell curve.

In many cases, the cirricula of these disciplines are based on strident screams of racism or sexism. Without them these programs could not exist.

Anonymous said...

Esquire (12:04AM)---

What I always like about your posts is their logic and reason---(well, except for your penchant to excuse blatant black racism on occasion)---but your Dulcinea reference is a real stretch.

It is commendable, in your eloquent way, that you attempt to elevate this base fiasco of a case; however, Dulcinea refers to someone possessing an "elegant sweetness". Precious? Come on.

Today, referencing Dulcinea implies hopeless devotion. Neither Mike Nifong nor Crystal Gail Mangum own the roles you wish to assign them.

Nifong's "protection" of Mangum was not chivalry, but blatant and sadistic self-interest.

And Mangum has none of the attributes of Dulcinea--in character or physique.

To wit: On stage, the role of Dulcinea has been played by such women as Sophia Loren and Vanessa Williams.

Your embellishment was very generous indeed.

:>)

Debrah

Anonymous said...

To 12:00PM--

Agreed. Bill Anderson is excellent.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

I wonder how BOT President Steel is going to get this Group of 88 story off the national television....cancel the season???

My great Dad wrote this last Spring and I hope someone picks up on it as we review the gross rush to judgment:

Consider that under Coach Pressler, the Duke Lacrosse team has had a 100% graduation rate. This year, 60% are on the Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Honor roll (3.0 gpr or better). Among Duke athletic teams, lacrosse academic performance is one of the best. Twenty-seven lacrosse players share 12.6 scholarships; the other twenty pay full tuition. Many graduated from public schools. This is not the record of an "out-of-control bunch of hooligans".

Anonymous said...

Ann Coulter has a great column about this case--yet again--over at Jewish World Review.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Dear 12:16PM---

You really should submit your post--exactly as written--to the News & Observer.

It makes a clear mockery out of the destructive shenanigans of Karla Holloway and Wahneema Lubiano--head Group 88 screamers.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Speaking of punch lines actually geared for Attorneys...






A truck driver would amuse himself by running over Group Of 88 members he would see walking down the side of the road. Every time he would see a Group Of 88 member walking along the road, he would swerve to hit him, and there would be a loud "THUMP" and then he would swerve back onto the road.

One day, as the truck driver was driving along he saw a priest hitchhiking. He thought he would do a good turn and pulled the truck over.

He asked the priest, "Where are you going, Father?"

"I'm going to the church 5 miles down the road," replied the priest.

"No problem, Father! I'll give you a lift. Climb in the truck." The happy priest climbed into the passenger seat and the truck driver continued down the road.

Suddenly the truck driver saw a Group Of 88 member walking down the road and instinctively he swerved to hit him. But then he remembered there was a priest in the truck with him, so at the last minute he swerved back away, narrowly missing the Group Of 88 member.

However even though he was certain he missed the Group Of 88 member, he still heard a loud "THUD". Not understanding where the noise came from he glanced in his mirrors and when he didn't see anything, he turned to the priest and said, "I'm sorry Father. I almost hit that Group Of 88 member."

"That's okay, my son", replied the priest. "I got him with the door!"

Anonymous said...

The thing to keep in mind is that many of these "studies" departments do not cover academic disciplines, at least in their historical sense. Instead, they are propaganda mills for teachers who enjoy the prestige and high salaries of elite places like Duke -- but do not have to do the kind of rigorous work that people in other departments have to do.

Compare the scholarly work of the people in AA studies at Duke versus what K.C. has done in the past. (Yes, he had a good academic reputation long before this Dukie business came out.) And KC teaches on a 4-3 schedule, as opposed to the 2-2, 2-1, or 1-1 (or even 1-0) schedules of a lot of these faux scholars.

Thanx, Debrah, and 12:03.

Anonymous said...

7:56
In the third statement from the Group of 88, their lawyer will assert that the demonstration in front of 610 Buchanan was designed to bring attention to a rodent infestation or other significant violation of Durham's building codes.

8:32 amac- do you really think the Group of 88 wants to stop recieving hate mail? This legitimizes their "struggle". Plus it helps keep them in a cushy job. In the same way that a minister or priest needs evil to maintain his employment, so do the 88 need to propagate the idea that something is wrong so that their particular 'cure' remains salient in the pseudo-intellectual marketplace.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

9:35 anon
10:19 bill anderson

On the question of whether potential defamation liability attaches to the G88's original Statement, and several and various statements contemporaneous and subsequent comments (both orally a la slander, and in some form of a "writing" (e.g., durable, including media like CDs) a la libel in connection with the Statment, and derivatively to the rump G88, I have to disagree that these profs are in the clear.

While US defamation law in general is certainly much less protective of those alleging they've been defamed than is, for example, Britain's, the following will elucidate some plausible scenarios about how this may all go down:

There is no question that the facial elements of libel (addressing the Statement alone)have been met by the original G88 statement viz

- communication of a statement in a durable form such as a writing;
- that (for purposes of the analysis to this case) exposes an individual or individuals or an entity (such as the Duke LAX team)to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule, or to injure him in his business or profession;
- which statement has been published (the wider the publication, the greater liability potential).

Clearly all the elements to libel have been met.

The countervailing problem to an action against the G88 (and now rump G88) going forward has to do with defenses to libel they can claim

First Amendment protection; these profs will doubtless claim if sued that their statements are protected by the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

As profs at an academic institution, and relevantly for analysis here, a well-known, elite institution, there is an argument at least to be made that their Statement (and the sundry public comments various made by G88'ers and their Duke-based academic brethren sounding in libel if "written" a la put in a durable medium--including e.g., CDs, or slander if "oral" a la put in a fleeting medium like unrecorded speech) is protected speech because a la newspapers and other media organs, they should be held to a higher standard of protection for potentially defamatory comments they may put in the public square (publish), which higher standard would require their comments to have been "rendered with intentional malice to the object of ridicule or contempt"; often a tough hurdle, although the statments made here are so malicious that it is a hurdle that just may be breached.

Question to our audience: does anyone know if there is case law giving academics a protective right to essentially defame individuals (unless purposeful malice to the object of criticism is proved), similar to--or at least a "lite" version of--MSM protection.

Absent that right, G88 unfortunatley have other potential defenses; but relative to that right alone, the nature of their comments may be construed as intentionally malicious to LAX as a team, making them liable anyway.

The other recourse for the G88 as a potential defense is to claim that the LAX team was "a public figure" at the time their original Statement and after-comments were published. While it's fairly common knowledge that during a political rally one can air with impunity lots of nasty stuff, particularly against public figures like Bush, the LAX team did not cut a typical "public figure" cloth at the time of the Statement. And that they can be said to be a public figure primarily only because of the calumny that was visited upon them to my mind vexes the question of whether they should be denied liability protection for the reason that public hatred, and public hatred alone, makes them a "public figure."

Of course the G88 will doubtless claim as well that their statements should be protected as "free assembly" speech made in the context of political rallies and therefore protected speech, notwithstanding any personal defamations they may utter.

Doubtless many overwrought Bush-haters (and I for the record and not a Bush fan) do indeed say--typically by way of placards or banners--"Fuck Bush," or "Bush is a Murderer," or my personal favorite, aired by women (at least in the technical sense) only, "Stay Off My Bush" (allusions to the abortion debate colorfully adding to the potpourri of issues which attend any so-called anti-war rally).

As for the G88, the fact that they layered any criticisms of LAX with the usual lefty bromides about "shining a light on the atrocious issue of 'white-skinned privilege' sexual assault" (or whatever it is they blathered) may potentially protect their LAX speech assaults vis a vis claiming it was all "political speech."

All of this aside, to wreck the day of the G88 (if not their lives, which would be nice), litigants only have to get any defamation suit against any or all G88 or rump G88 members past the inevitable summary judgment motion which will be filed to dismiss it.

As lawyers in the audience know, a lawsuit technically should go forward unless the suit is predicated on facts which, even if true, could not even hypothetically result in liability to the defendant. The best that G88 can hope for is that one of the affirmative defenses they could raise as outlined above would serve somehow as a bar in a summary judgment hearing to get the case dismissed. Ain't gonna happen in my opinion.

Sadly, their affirmative defenses, to the extent that they have some plausibility, lower the potential settlement value of the case, and here I get to pound the drum I've pounded on other posts: Let's all push for the potential litigants to refuse settlement offers from Duke Admin, who I still believe will pratically-speaking anyway indemnify the G88, and now rump G88, by trying to get any lawsuits against them merged into one or a few cases that then Duke Admin would offer millions for to settle, to reduce the negative publicity to Duke overall.

Just getting this case in front of a jury will cost any defendants 5 or 6-figure defense bills (the caveat that Duke Admin. will likely try to cover them anyway). Even if defendants prevail at trial, there will be a national forum, potentially widely viewed, showing the outrageous venom that spills from G88ers and their hangers-on.

Anonymous said...

The "Con-cheesy Enchilada" comically opines-----

".....most of us would like to see the good in people....."

You don't say? Try extending that sentiment and apply it to yourself.....and don't just "like to see" some good.....actually "be good".

That can start by having enough respect for yourself not to creep in like a scared skunk the way that poster "Duke09Parent" has done incessantly....leaving your odor of attack smut.

Next time you want to insult someone because you disagree with their pov, have the decency to post who exactly you are so that we may fully probe the topic like adults.

I would ask that KC monitor the tactics of those such as you and "Duke09Parent".

If both of you have children, I hope that you have not allowed your examples of under-the-table cowardice to taint their lives as well.

Most Sincerely....not taking your BS......

Debrah

M. Simon said...

I think there is some merit to defamation of character.

However, I'm an engineer.

Why can't this be about servos and NAND gates? LOL.

Probbly because only a few geeks like me would be interested.

Anonymous said...

12:53 Debrah

Please go away!

Emachines

Anonymous said...

Bill Anderson 12:29PM--

Your points are, of course, the absolute truth; however, it is almost impossible to get those points in print--even in just a letter--to the N & O.

The media aid this madness at every turn.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

These people have gone from "The dog ate my homework" to "The cat ate my homework."

Anonymous said...

To 12:57PM---

You will be long dead and buried before that will ever happen.

Learn to live with it, oh liberal-double-standard-expectant-scum.

Keep in mind that it has been trolls like you, "cochise's enchilada", and "duke09parent" who are on the attack.

I have only responded to unprovoked attacks by you...as I will continue to do.

Shuuuush! ......I'll let you in on a little secret: I enjoy the hell out of watching alleged adults have a meltdown in response to my written word.

The power of it all! LOL!!!

Envy and hatred such as your trio exude is eclipsed only by another group of rabid Leftists----The Duke Group 88 (Rump and all).

ROTFLM-tits-O !!!

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Can anyone defend Black women with impunity?
by ALTON H. MADDOX JR.

"Nifong did not indict those three Duke lacrosse players. A grand jury in Durham County, North Carolina indicted them. CBS should target the grand jury and review the grand jury minutes before recruiting a lynch mob for Nifong.

Yeah, CBS shoulda done that...wait, there are no minutes!

james conrad said...

lol, oh the drama

Newyorkstateofmind said...

12:08 pm Debrah said in response to Md. Esq. analogizing Dulcinea to CGM:

"And Mangum has none of the attributes of Dulcinea--in character or physique.

To wit: On stage, the role of Dulcinea has been played by such women as Sophia Loren and Vanessa Williams.

Your embellishment was very generous indeed."

The first thought to come to mind is wholehearted agreement (including with the entirety of your comments from which I excerpted that quote), not least because, to paraphrase LLyod Bentsen, "I've seen Sophia Loren on TV [can't in fact say I've had the pleasure of meeting her], and Precious, you're no [or to put it less charitably not in a 1000 reincarnations could you ever even possibly approach being) Sophia Loren."

On the other hand, Esq. means this allusion only in the broadest, vaguest sense I believe--much poetic, if not particularly pleasant--poetic license was employed to draw the parallel.

Unfortunately got to blog off now to attend some meetings. Good "seeing" you on this thread Debrah.

Anonymous said...

What is going on at Duke? I can't send my son there because he will be persecuted by pot-bangers and the faculty. I can't send my daughter there because she will be raped and beaten by hordes of out-of-control jocks.
ALl I can say is that the situation is LoOnEy and the faculty at Duke are kooks!

Anonymous said...

You know Debrah, it might be better to say:

ROTFLMTO !!!

Then your viewers can choose whether it's:

ROTFLM-tail-O

or

ROTFLM-...

kcjohnson9 said...

Please avoid personal attacks. As we know, the new tactic of Cash Michaels and of the Group of 88/87 is to pick out the single most inflammatory clause in any comment thread and then claim that it reflects the entire thread.

NY State of Mind's comment is a fascinating one. I know that at least one of the 88 consulted a lawyer and received almost an identical response; I'd be amazed if more of the 88 haven't done so as well.

Anonymous said...

KC... Re:

Wahneema Lubiano told the N&O that “people can’t imagine that the woman could have made a false rape allegation.” She is living in a fantasy world built around her opinions.

Reference the following article and supporting studies from: http://www.hisside.com/3_21_04.htm

For 16 years former Colorado prosecutor Craig Silverman was known for his zealous prosecution of rapists--prosecutions which have resulted in thousands of years of prison time for those convicted. Yet he is also critical of what he calls the "politically correct victims advocate's view" held by many Colorado prosecutors of "always believe the woman." He says:

"During my time as a prosecutor who made case filing decisions, I was amazed to see all the false rape allegations that were made to the Denver Police Department. It was remarkable and surprising to me. You would have to see it to believe it. Any honest veteran sex assault investigator will tell you that rape is one of the most falsely reported crimes that there is. A command officer in the Denver Police sex assaults unit recently told me he placed the false rape numbers at approximately 45 percent."

Several studies show that false rape allegations are a serious problem. For example, in an Air Force study of 556 rape accusations, in 27 percent of the cases the accusers admitted, either just before taking a polygraph test or after failing one, that they had lied. An independent review later examined the claims and concluded that 60% of the 556 rape claims were false. Two studies discussed by researcher Eugene Kanin put the rate of false allegations between 41% and 50%.

AMac said...

Perhaps off-topic, but interesting:

Duke Professor Orin Starn wrote "Fast, Loose, and Mean in the Blogosphere" for the printed version of the 1/17/06 Herald Sun’s Forum.

As of this writing, it's readable on the LieStoppers board, timestamped Jan 17 2007, 05:21 PM. Fair use excerpt:

The most prolific lacrosse blogger is K.C. Johnson, a Brooklyn College history professor with plenty of spare time and a worshipful following...
Johnson is a good storyteller who employs the lacrosse controversy as a great moral parable of reason and civilization threatened by the dark horses of...
But Johnson’s Edward Gibbon-length postings are shot through with factual errors.
Just one of many examples: Duke’s African and African American studies program has five full-time faculty. Johnson reports it as 15, a number that better serves his Tolkienesque yarn-spinner’s desire to paint the program as a menacing Orthanc of grim radical power...


I did two Google searches. First

"full time" faculty "African American studies" site:durhamwonderland.blogspot.com

24 results, with Creating Wahneema's World from 12/12/06 the only relevant hit. Quote: "Take, for example, the African-American Studies program-recently elevated to department status. As of now, the program has 15 full-time faculty, out of the 471 tenured or tenure-track arts and sciences faculty at Duke."

Next

core faculty "African American studies" site:durhamwonderland.blogspot.com

16 results, with The Board Takes its Stand from 12/2/06 the only relevant hit. Quote: "The Board formally elevated the African and African American Studies (AAAS) Program from a program to an academic department. The student-to-professor ratio in the new department is stunningly low: with 15 core faculty members, the program has a mere 33 majors."

Primary source for AAAS faculty composition at duke.edu. As of today, the list comprised 1 interim director, 12 asst., assoc., reseach, and full professors, and 1 visiting professor (14 total; 2 profs recently left Duke).

In other words, the article's only instance "of many examples" to show how Johnson's blog is "shot through with factual errors" is one substitution of the term full-time for the word core in describing the composition of the AAAS department's faculty.

Somehow, Academician Starn and Editor-in-Chief Ashley neglected to provide the backstory or the hyperlinks that would have allowed the Herald-Sun's readers to see this key assertion in context.

Darned four layers of editors.

A copy of Johnson's response to the Herald-Sun is farther down on the same LieStoppers board, timestamped Jan 17 2007, 06:04 PM.

Anonymous said...

I was in a program for super smarties at Yale with Dick Brodhead. Even then he seemed aloof from the rest of us, detached in class and totally focused on achievement. He apparently did very good work. I read a piece by him a few years ago, and it was just brilliant.

I've been following this train wreck with fascination and have evolved from a feeling that both sides were animals to increasing sympathy with the 3 accused, who have joined a long line of Americans who have had their lives ruined by prosecutors.

However, the Duke story is interesting, and I think Duke is really screwed. I suspect that Brodhead was trying to change Duke the way that Freedman changed Dartmouth --from a school that emphasized sports and business/professional success to a school of the very first rank that creative people and scholars would feel at home at. As we get to be a more knowledge based society, and as Duke would compete with the best schools in other regions, this is a logical step.

My guess is that he thought of this incident as a chance to transform Duke in the direction he and the trustees want it to go --to be more Yale-like, to be sure, but Yale is a great university (for all its ills) and Dick's job is to make Duke great(er). If a higher percentage of kids who would qualify for YHP went to Duke, most people would consider that a positive thing. Otherwise, hiring Brodhead would have made no sense at all.

However, there is a distinction between intellectual excellence and intellectual attitude. Too many liberals fail to make that distinction (if they did so consistently, presumably they would become conservatives.)

It is hard to think of anyone who is not dismayed by this sordid tale --jocks and goodfellows --thoughtful potential scholars --people concerned with individual rights and autonomy --even new leftists. Duke will of course survive this scandal fine, but any thoughts of either moving up in the rankings or consolidating its existing strengths and identities will be impossible for some time to come.

Realistically speaking, it is very difficult for a univerisity to move its status up beyond its chronoligical age of founding and its accumulated history. It requires tons of money and great leadership. I am sorry for Duke's loss, Duke's shame in all this. But as a Christian, a conservative, an American and a lover of freedom, I am delighted that the prinicple that has caused this ship to founder was not a little accident, but the bedrock of Americans respecting individual rights, even for drunken, stripper-hiring jocks.

All of you who have not been indifferent to the truth and the innocence of these young men deserve to stand proud.

Anonymous said...

These alleged professors show such a startling disregard for fact as to call into question whether or not the fields they represent indeed are worthy of being called scholarly.

And that may well be the case. We have blissfully accepted such things as "feminist studies" and "black studies" over the years, as if such terms somehow gave scholarly value to what all too often is the lunatic rantings of some zealot.

Perhaps these departments should be shut down, and the resulting economic savings diverted to more rational pursuits....perhaps another LaCrosse field or two.

My Native American ancestors always liked that game....LOL

Anonymous said...

6:57 says I'm not Dukie material. Chip (if I may call you Chip), I don't visit this site to brag, so I'm not going to argue my "worthiness" to Duke. What did I post that so upset you? Could it be my prediction that your expensive degree HAS ALREADY been devalued by the likes of Brodhead and Holloway? Sucker!

Bill Anderson: Good work on today's article on the Bell Curve problem at elite institutions. Everyone should read it. Bill, could you email it to Brodhead, Gee, and the humpty rumpies?

Vitruvius: your "stand on the history of Greece, Magna Carta..." bothered me because you failed to give any credit to the great cultural contributions of Japan and China. Do you know that there are ZERO full professors teaching anything related to Japanese culture at Duke? That's a tragedy and a travesty.

Amac: You lament the dearth of "close analysis" skills among AAAS faculty. You win my "euphemism of the week" award. LOL Methinks, kind sir, you're alluding to what psychometricians refer to as g.

Roman Polanski

Anonymous said...

Holy Smokes! Even by the standards of Alton H. Maddox Jr., this is some serious rhetoric :



"This term [scandal] should have no relationship to a prosecutor seeking justice for a sexually abused woman of African ancestry."

"To be sure, a prosecutor charging white, privileged males for the sexual abuse of a Black woman is unprecedented."

"Durham District Attorney Michael Nifong is a traitor to the history and precepts of white supremacy."

"In four hundred years, no white man has ever gone to prison for raping a Black woman."

"In only one other case, in American jurisprudence, has an attorney been destroyed amid a criminal proceeding.

"Only two attorneys in the history of American jurisprudence have ever sought to secure justice for Black females raped by white men."

"Blacks demonstrated in front of CBS headquarters for weeks while this criminal enterprise was engaging in media defamation against a fifteen-year-old girl [Tawana Brawley], a victim of white terrorism and sexual abuse."

"These players are certainly not choirboys and they are, at least, presumptive racists."

"These players engaged in identity theft to secure the presence of two Black strippers for a KKK-type rally."

"The escort service was never told that two Black females would have to perform before a white mob of drunken, racist hooligans. This is criminal fraud."

"The use of the word “nigger” to degrade a Black person is, in itself, an assault. This lewd atmosphere reeked of white terrorism and gave rise to sundry hate crimes."

"Of the two methods of proof, circumstantial evidence is the strongest. No need exists for direct evidence in this case."

"The complaining witness’ purportedly inconsistent statements are a reflection of problems of class and race in this society."

"Sharpton was behaving the way any Black person is expected to behave in a white supremacist system."

"Anyone who seeks to protect a Black female victim had better prepare for a life of poverty."

Anonymous said...

Alton Maddox was one of the main players in the Tawana Brawley case, and he ultimately was disbarred, but for billing problems, not the Brawley case.

I have noticed that the black press is far more willing to go with outright lies than are most publications, although Amsterdam News has had a better reputation than, say, the Wilmington Journal. Reading this junk from Maddox does not surprise me in the least.

By the way, he was a defendant in the Pagones case, and Maddox (and Al Sharpton) lost and lost big.

Anonymous said...

"New York State of Mind"--

Hi, dear wordsmith!

Of course the sexy "Esquire" was using a generous license--poetic and dramatic license galore!

I hadn't read all the other responses he had gotten before I posted mine; however, my main point is that the dreams of Don Quixote about Dulcinea were born of unadulterated chivalry.

Nothing about the motivations of Nifong remotely compare.

Good to see you as well.

:>)

Debrah

Anonymous said...

There is an article in the Herald-Sun that speaks of Victoria Peterson's relationship to Durham politics.
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-810195.cfm

Anonymous said...

A serious question :


Alton H. Maddox Jr., like Cash Michaels, universally uses a lower case "w" in the word white but an upper case "B" in the work Black.

What does this mean and how prevalent is this usage?

Anonymous said...

2:09

It's prevalent

What it means is that he values the specialness of black people--thus the caps

white people, to most blacks, are generic losers

Get it?

Anonymous said...

!:35PM--

LIS! :>)

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Debrah,

You have actually posted a time or two without a racist rant. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Anonymous said...

A newspaper in Maine comes out against Nifong. This is part of the national narrative starting to turn ("60 Minutes" was the biggest, but now local media is starting to spread the word and play catch up).

The media is playing catch-up at this point. But as the reality of the situation emerges in public consciousness the group of 88 will have done serious damage to Duke's reputation. Their legacy will have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with Duke's declining applications for admission and increasing legal bills...

Anonymous said...

Anon 1:53

You left out his plea for donations at the end of the article....victimhood truly is a multi-billion dollar business, and the three largest entreupreneurs are Jackson, Sharpton and Maddox.

Anonymous said...

I know this is off topic, but Ive read where people are saying the Fa said at first she was raped by 20 people in the bathroom. If I remember she stated 1st that 20 people raped her in the house . The bathroom was not mentioned yet. It was only later that she make it more believable to state 4 people raped her in the bathroom behind closed doors making it more believable. ok I feel better now .Im done.

Anonymous said...

Newyorkstateofmind 12:50:

Concerning your remarks on possible suits.

I’m not a lawyer but I work daily with releases and statements from corporations and non profits. In your wildest dreams you could not imagine how careful companies are about even the most mundane press release (or other corporate statement). There have been times when I’ve been on the phone with lawyers at a corporation literally screaming: “I’m on a deadline and I need this thing today. You’ve had this 6 paragraph thing for 2 weeks, for God’s sake.”

The company is afraid of having any representative say anything that could cause problems.

The reason I mention that is that, I would think, that any lawsuit involving the 88 would probably be directed at Duke (deep pockets and bad publicity shy) while naming the 88 also. That’s akin to the kid suing Duke and the teacher for the failing grade because he played lacrosse. Duke is liable because the teacher was acting within her assigned role at Duke

One could easily argue that Duke, by failing to control the statements (the ad and subsequent), contributed to a climate that brought real harm to the 3 accused. Since a large part of an academic’s role is to write, and publish about myriad things, the statements can be interpreted as within there scope of employment. The broad range of comments and writings that academics are encouraged to make, are not tied to their field of “expertise”, meaning that people, with a phd in English, are encouraged to publish on other things. This can be substantiated by looking at some of the articles, etc by some of the nutcases in the 88. Indeed, things like Black Studies and Women’s studies, are often fronts for publishing leftwing propaganda, having nothing to do with the writer’s area of expertise – with the blessing of the school (employer).

Any sense of “academic freedom” is wholly a construct within Duke (and other schools). If Duke is unable, or unwilling, to control the actions of its employees, and those actions result in harm to others, Duke’s on the hook. The same would apply to General Motors.

Again, I don’t think a lawsuit would focus on straight libel or slander. It would focus on Duke, through its employees, contributing to the climate of “get someone, get anyone”. That encouraged the unscrupulous DA since Duke, through a substantial number of employees, expressed a willingness to go along. The result was great harm to the 3 accused.

Of course, the attorneys’ for the kids would make pdfs of all complaints available to the press. They might hold press conferences. Their real PR strength would be the parents going on TV. The longer Duke held out, the more mud would be thrown.

Then again, the kids’ lawyers could approach Duke about a settlement in lieu of suit. In this case, Duke might bite.

Anonymous said...

Can you imagine how exciting it must be to be a history undergrad at Brooklyn and know you're getting KC as a prof? Sign me up.

Oh, and Esquire, a comment on a post yesterday about community colleges ... I attended a private catholic university and two state schools (one in Penn., the other in Calif.) and the two best professors I ever had were at Moorpark Community College in California, one in philospohy/theology and the other in english (altghough two Univ. history profs did teach me how to appreciate and read Barbara Tuchman). Don't be so hard on the JC/CC profs, there are some jewels out there.

Anonymous said...

7:52 Narcissists have serious problems making an apology. It's seriously incompatible with their self image.

And of course, they hate to let go of their victim status.

Anonymous said...

KC:

Interesting nugget on page 2 of the Duke Chronicle's Faculty letter aims to clarify '88' ad

Acting on behalf of the signatories, Plesser submitted a draft of the letter to The Chronicle as an ad last week. The Chronicle offered to run the letter on the condition that the authors accepted certain editorial changes to wording that posed legal risks for the newspaper. Plesser and his fellow signatories ultimately rejected The Chronicle's offer.

In an e-mail to The Chronicle, Laurie Shannon, associate professor of English, criticized the newspaper for not giving due weight to faculty members' right to freedom of expression.

Writing in another e-mail, Kenneth Surin, professor of literature and religion and critical theory, said the paper's "censorship" of the ad was "very disturbing."

Anonymous said...

"It's as if the Administration and the Hard Left prefer the status quo. That lonely, scared faculty should continue to face the burden of reading each and every disparaging email from the hordes of anonymous racist psychopathic hegemons that lurk beyond the ivied walls.

I am not sure why that would be."

It's obvious why that would be for the Hard Left - it justifies their continued existence and power. Anyone who's surprised they'd do something that in the long run makes race relations worse just doesn't understand the game - job security.

What I don't get is what the administration gets from going along with this - are they just intimidated?

Anonymous said...

If you wish to do a comparison, I have the CVs for K.C. and Karla Holloway. K.C.'s cover real-live issues and history. Holloway has pieces like "My Tongue is in My Friend's Mouth" and stuff like that.

K.C.:

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/
history/johnson/cv.htm

Karla Holloway:

http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/AAAS/
faculty/karla.holloway/
publications


I would urge you to get a sense of the research that K.C.'s material requires, versus what Holloway does. It will give you a sense of who is the real scholar, and who is a fraud.

Anonymous said...

"Does anyone else find it odd that a group with more than enough English professors among them can't write a simple page without being 'misunderstood'? "

Sadly, no.

Anonymous said...

Nice page on the Duke Lacrosse Case at 60minutes.yahoo.com

60 Minutes @ Yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

Ooops, I see that you have noticed the Chronicle posts! :>)

I also meant to add - did the original 'Listening' ad undergo the same sort of Chronicle editing that they mention for Op-Ed submissions? Or did they just take their money and run the ad?

Anonymous said...

If you don’t like long comments, pass on to the next. I append a copy of a letter to Peter Lange, Provost of Duke University.

Dear Provost Lange,
What is rapidly coming to be called the “Duke Rape Hoax” has attracted national and even international attention. It has become a public matter through our national and regional newspapers and, especially, though intense discussions on the Internet. Some Duke administrators, and several Duke faculty, acting individually and in concert, have made public statements about the case. Certainly it is of great relevance to the world of American higher education, the world in which I have made a long career. Under these circumstances I do not regard myself as intruding on other people’s private business in writing to you.
I write to you because until recently I saw you as one of the few heroes of this affair. That was on the basis of your public response to the public letter of Huston Baker and on your film. I am sure you know the film to which I refer. If by any chance you have not viewed it, you can find it easily under a search for “Youtube Duke Potbangers Protest II”. Yes, the “Duke Potbangers Protest” proved so popular that, as with “Rocky” and “The Godfather”, a sequel was required. In this film you play a role made familiar by numerous grade-B Westerns: that of the courageous, high-minded, but eventually ineffectual sheriff who stands in front of the jail and tries to lecture a well-liquored lynch mob on the meaning of the Bill of Rights. Of course you were standing in front of your own house, and the lynching in progress was only metaphorical. I was very impressed both by what you said and by what you didn’t say. You said regarding the allegations of rape made against some of your students that the matter was very serious but that you could make no statement concerning its substance until the police investigation had established the basic facts. You did not in so many words say that you presumed the accused innocent, but you resolutely declined to state or imply their guilt. It appears that your stance was regarded as disappointing, insincere, evasive, and legalistic by those numerous potbangers unencumbered by your prudential hesitations, but I admired it. What you did not say was also important. You refused to answer the question of what you would do “if this were your daughter.” The question was ambiguous, but I presumed you felt as I do. If my daughter were raped—or, much worse, if she were a recidivist unwed mother, a flagrant liar, a substance-abuser, and a part-time whore--my feelings would be nobody’s business but my own.
But I am disappointed by your latest public pronouncement, the lengthy letter in which you speak, in a rather diffuse manner, about several issues: your earlier silence, your role as a defender of the Duke faculty, the uses and abuses of “free speech”, and the ideas of a community of learning. The world now knows a great deal more about this case than it did when you made “Potbanger II”. The accused students are no longer even charged with rape. The district attorney who brought the charge and then withdrew it has now himself withdrawn in disgrace after admitting professional improprieties so gross as to bring down upon his head a rare disciplinary tribunal. Ancillary charges of sexual misconduct are still technically within “the system,” but a presumption of innocence once demanded by legal decency is now so ratified by known facts in the public domain as to make the very survival of the “case”, let alone the possibility of its successful prosecution, a most remote possibility. The “case” has always been brain-dead. It was kept alive only by the artificial life-support of suspect political ambition on the one hand and a numbing political correctness on the other. Why do you not, right now, make a strong statement in defense of your students—as opposed to defending precisely those faculty whose recklessness and ideological prejudices have done so much to prolong their torment?
The “free speech” rights of your faculty have not been abridged or threatened. A Duke faculty member can, and apparently often does, say any damned thing that comes into her mind. I am truly sorry if any of them have had to deal with unsolicited emails of an offensive kind. But these are after all grown-ups. I get offensive emails all the time, inviting me to send money to Nigerian go-betweens or to buy a potion that will increase the size of my paltry membrum virile. I just throw them in the trash and move on. Eighty-eight of your faculty published a joint letter that in context necessarily had the consequence of heaping opprobrium upon several of your own students who, as is now obvious, are themselves the victims of a dangerous hoax. That first joint letter manifestly supported the position taken by the potbangers gathered in front your house. One of those people—a passionate young woman who, I presume, must be a Duke student—directly addressed the accused players. What she said, to the applause of other potbangers, was this: you have more to fear from the indignation of this community than you do from legal penalties you may face. Now the legal penalties they then faced were roughly thirty years in prison. To be promised—and she did use the word “promise”—that the Duke community itself would deal with them more harshly than that would by most sane people be regarded as a very serious threat.
The “Group of 88” gave public thanks to that young woman and others like her for “speaking out”. For a document that claimed to be “listening” it made a great deal of noise. Perhaps we can call it an instance of paper-banging. I am no lawyer—indeed I claim to be an honest man—but it seems to me that the document was encouraging a lynch mob, or at the very least advocating the subversion of the fairness, civility, sweetness, and light that characterize your version of an academic community. Now comes a “Group of 87” with an effort to explain away the earlier inflammatory letter. Do you, Provost Lange, do you believe it is possible for any intelligent person to read the manifesto of the “Group of 88” and to see in it the benign generalizations and platitudes that the “Group of 87” claims form its essence: a boilerplate denunciation of “racism” and “sexual violence” having no connection whatsoever with a specific, local, and by then world-famous allegation of racist rape?
I remember a fine vignette from the Watergate hearings, when our great North Carolinian Sam Ervin was sparring with one President Nixon’s odious henchmen, who was trying through verbal gymnastics to evade the clear sense of a legal document. How did Ervin know it meant what he said it meant? “Because I can understand the English language,” answered Senator Ervin, who had, alas, been schooled too early to enjoy the delights of deconstructionism. “It’s my mother tongue”. It is absurd to suggest that the “free speech” rights of either group are being challenged by those who draw attention to the folly of what the documents say. If it were against the law to be an idiot, we could have no government, no open blogs, and, apparently, no great universities. The faculty signators can enjoy such superiority as the fool has for the knave.
I am actually less concerned than are many of my fellow hooligan bloggers with this particular “case”. These young men, though criminally abused, need fear no criminal penalty. Injustice so obviously based in an aberrant local political culture cannot survive the wide scrutiny this “case” has received. Sacco and Vanzetti and the Gastonia Strike “murderers” would have gone free had the Internet existed in their day. The case against the Scottsboro Boys would have been laughed out of court within the first five minutes. My own parochial concern is the disrepute that the Duke Rape Hoax has already brought upon American higher education. The principal issue, and the one the administrator of this blog has kept an unwavering focus, is justice. But if I were the provost Duke I would also be worried about some of the very bad press that has dripped, like some malodorous and suspect liquid, through the interstices of this discussion. Readers of “Durham in Wonderland”, few of whom are professionals in higher education or seem to know much about it, will have incidentally learned the following facts or legitimate inferences.
>A significant number of prominent Duke faculty prejudicially despise many of their own students on account of their race and socio-economic background.
>Sexual violence is very common at Duke University—according to a group of faculty leaders.
>The same source laments that grotesque racists acts directed against black members of the Duke faculty and student body are very numerous.
>If you are a professor of “cultural studies” at Duke most of your “recent publications” have not yet appeared in print.
>Large numbers of Duke students, and apparently even larger numbers of Duke alumni and parents, think that boorish drunken parties featuring hired sex workers are just a fine and dandy form of undergraduate recreation.
> The average Duke undergraduate is more likely to have studied “American Psycho” than “Paradise Lost.”
>The political spectrum among your proudly “diverse” faculty runs the gamut all the way from A to B.
>A “distinguished” Duke professor of English writes prose of a quality that would remand him to a remedial composition course in most state universities.
>A Duke professor can with impunity discriminate against a student for purely ideological reasons.
>The most practical written guide for a senior administrator at Duke is Tom Wolfe’s “Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.”
>Your average suburban soccer mom, shade-tree lawyer, or disgruntled alumnus—the groups apparently most numerously represented on this blog—has articulated more common ethical sense than the entire Duke Board of Trustees.

Please, Provost Lange. You obviously are a most intelligent person or you wouldn’t be where you are today. You are obviously highly capable, or you wouldn’t be a provost. For “capable” I might by conjecture substitute the adjective “ambitious”. It’s not impossible that some bright college presidency awaits you, providing that you don’t join the lacrosse players as a victim of this hoax. I have absolutely nothing against you except the hideous color of your house, and I try to rise above such things. You seem a very likeable guy. Unlike your boss, you have some human warmth. You are cool. A provost in a baseball cap—that’s cool. So please, Provost Lange, whether for the sake of your own career, for the sake of Duke, for the sake of American higher education, or even for the sake of the Gipper—do the right thing!

Yours sincerely,

H.B.

Anonymous said...

Debrah @12:53 pm &1:05 pm:

"... to creep in like a scared skunk the way that poster "Duke09Parent" has done incessantly....leaving your odor of attack smut."

I might be proud that you attack me personally. I'm not surprised you admire Ann Coulter.

My recall is that I have challenged you repeatedly on your placing this case on a liberal/conservative scale, while many others besides me have pointed out that it doesn't fit. But if you have been among the very few posters who have said the black race is across the board inferior to the white race, I probably challenged that as well.

I adopted this handle identity when I first started posting on this case over at FODU. I've been more active than good sense dictates, so I have hardly been "creeping" around.

Wikipedia defines "Troll" as a person who is deliberately inflammatory on the Internet in order to provoke a vehement response from other users. Look in the mirror dear.

Liestoppers' board has a function which allows posters to send emails directly to each other. I am there and have created an email account for this case. If you wish to direct more vituperation my way and not clutter up this board with it, fire away.

Anonymous said...

"Even if liable, it would be really bad PR for the 3 to sue sideline commentators"

Why? If they're outraged innocents, how is it bad PR for them to sue anyone and everyone who slandered them?

Effective is another story, of course.

Anonymous said...

I just read the NY Post for Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007. On the POSTOPINION page, John Podhoretz writes a scathing critique of the G88 and their letters entitled "Orwell University"... subheading: "Duke profs' P.C. travesty". There is also a picture of Collin Finnerty "Railroaded: Duke student Collin Finnerty". Sorry that I don't know how to link this article to this blog. Maybe someone else can.

Anonymous said...

To 2:18PM---

Did KC's request open up a new avenue for you? To come back as "Anonymous" once again?

Sweet.

Listen, I sympathize with some of you who are dyed-in-the-wool Liberals, yet support the lacrosse players as any intelligent person would.

It must sting each time you have to claim the same ideology as those who have railroaded The Duke 3 for almost a year....as they still salivate for a pound of flesh.

Your little barbs are like feathery admissions that you ache everyday because all the world has seen---in bold relief---just how dangerous and diseased a portion of the Democrat Liberal faction is.

But don't dispair. You can always vent your impotence by throwing little barbs at posters (me) who continually tell the truth.....no matter whose feathers are ruffled.

Poor man or woman....or in between. Which ever you are.

You must feel quite like a lion without a Christian.

Debrah Correll

Anonymous said...

To "duke09parent"--

I would urge you to take your own advice.

Nothing from me was ever posted to you until you began your demarche. Try to stay away from obfuscation.

That's what the Leftists continue to use to railroad Collin, Reade, and David.

Bye!

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Thanks, KC, John Bruce at 12:01, and NY State of Mind at 12:50 for your comments on the possible legal liability of the Group of 88/87. This is anonymous at 9:35. I don't know anything about North Carolina law. Just based on my general legal knowledge, it's hard to imagine that a claim based on the theories that have been mentioned (intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress, and libel) could succeed. Of course, even a lousy case has some settlement value. I guess the plaintiffs' hope is that the University will offer some substantial amount to make the case go away early. If the claims are litigated, I think the correct legal outcome would be a judgment for the defendants.

Anonymous said...

Debrah:

"vent your impotence"? Girlie, you're just not very intelligent, and you can't write your way out of a parking ticket.

There is a link above that addresses the narcissistic personality. You might recognize a few things about yourself.

Are you on medication?

Anonymous said...

Podhoretz' Post Article

AMac said...

H.B. 2:52pm --

Here is a link for the video you discuss in your comment, YouTube's Duke Potbangers Protest II.

Before moving to 'chat' with Provost Lange, the potbangers had been at the house rented by the co-captains. Here is a link for that segment, YouTube's Duke Potbangers Protest I.

Given the shame coming down on them for their rush-to-judgement and ready issuance of threats, I doubt the potbanging YouTuber will keep these videos up much longer. Enjoy em while you can.

H.B., drop me a line if you wish at
amac-2007@usa dot net

Anonymous said...

So they'll be sued for ... what? For being PC? That may be irritating, but if it's legally actionable, the courts are going to get tied up for decades to come.

Anonymous said...

I've got "duke09parent" and "anonymous 3:13 PM" 3 to 2 to crush Debrah....any takers?

Anonymous said...

Hey Debrah, you fine divine Sistah,

It be Karla, honey. I agree with you. I find myself wanting to "vent my impotence" all over the hateful honkies that post on this site--Cedarford, Polanski, KC Johnson--the whole lot of them. They're scum, because they hide their racism with incisive writing and scientific references.

Debrah, you, on the other hand, are a breath of fresh air. An unrepentant honkie racist! My whole career depends on the courage of people like you.

Keep up the fine work, sistah.

Peace out.

Karla Holloway, Ph.D.

Anonymous said...

I'd bet a lot of money that some people from the Herald Sun show up here ever so often.
No one but hardened partisans or ones who can't take the truth would post 3:19, 3:13 and a few others.
Love her or hate her Debrah is spot-on.
And she's also a babe.

Anonymous said...

Hey Karla. Have a blessed day.
Solid.

hehehe

Anonymous said...

Now Karla you don't have to vent your impotence. At your age, menopause is enough of a problem.
Jus' chill, fine sista.
Solid?

Anonymous said...

The potbangers videos are great, and they tell us just what a bunch of idiots these people really are. Of course, few of them care that they were wrong or that they falsely accused others of crimes.

I was impressed that the Duke provost stood up to the potbangers and protesters. By the way, who were the older women who were so vocal? And who produced the first video, which did not use "alleged," but rather declared that Crystal was raped and beaten for move than a half hour?

If this is what an "elite" university produces, then I am glad to be associated with a lower-tier university where at least some common sense might prevail. Apparently, there is very little of that at Duke.

Anonymous said...

For 3:13pm--Why don't you explain for us your point-of-view? It sure doesn't take any brains for the infantile attacks you use.
What about Debrah makes you spend so much time on her? Wait, I'll answer that.
She writes really well and has lots of spunk. I find her fascinating.
Personal attackers like you on the other hand are an embarrassment. Try taking a look at the behavior of the Group88. That would be you.

Brad from CT

Anonymous said...

Keep Vid can help you save videos from YouTube for posterity.

We would not want certain videos to just vanish, would we now?

Anonymous said...

I think the group of "hatey-hate" has had far too much attention,especially since that's what they were looking for anyway when they came out with a statement to begin with? They certainly weren't looking for justice, otherwise they would have reserved judgement for a later date. They were looking for a pat on the back for their Nifongesque self righteousness
I think this blog is best when details of the case are being intelligently discussed and not wasted on the group of hatey-hate

Anonymous said...

Sometime before the December flurry of events we experienced a long stretch of no news or progress on the case, and that gave rise to internal squabbling among us supporter of the Defendants. It appears to be happening again. I encourage everyone to avoid it.

My last post was in defense of being compared to a skunk (not even as dignified as Baker's "farm animal"). I really don't think I've engaged in ad hominem attacks, but if I have I apologize. Engaging, challenging, and even attacking IDEAS expressed here is fair game in my book, and I will keep doing that unless KC (whose blog this is) suggests I shouldn't.

Anonymous said...

dukeparent--So what do we do about people like 3:13 and 3:19? They have no identification and use ad hominem. Everyone has a stake in this case and we come from all points of the spectrum.
Forget about politics. Anyone who says that Debrah isn't intelligent and not a good writer is basically on the kindergarten level.
And all this because she tells it like it is. There is no longer a taboo on that one.

Brad from CT

Anonymous said...

Naacp Duke briefing live on CNN web site now 4:36 pm

Anonymous said...

Too many people fail to see the irony in an ad signed by English professors having to be pulled and twice clarified (Op-Ed piece and CYA letter).

Playing more on the Rump pun, in failing to cover their tales, they have failed to cover their tails.

Anonymous said...

To anonymous at 3:07, here is what Wikipedia says about intentional infliction of emotional distress: Some general factors that will pursuade that the conduct was extreme and outrageous: (1) there was a pattern of conduct, not just an isolated incident; (2) the plaintiff was vulnerable and the defendant knew it; (3) the defendant was in a position of power; (4) racial epithets were used; and (5) the defendant owed the plaintiff a fiduciary duty.

I think we have all this in the Duke case and with the 88. The 87 simply reinforce a continuing pattern of conduct. One of my concerns about Duke's behavior in this case is that it did owe the lacrosse players a fiduciary duty -- to keep them safe on campus -- but it was plain that the parents had to step in and remove them at a certain point.

I also suspect that many of the families' public statements have been made with an eye to establishing genuine emotional distress.

Anonymous said...

Brad,

Unless KC were to hire someone to monitor the board constantly and delete posts, ad hominem attacks will occur from time to time. The worst trolls are like "theman" and the only thing to do is ignore them because they get joy from reactions.

Debrah's writing ability is fine (if a bit hyperbolic for my taste). But I dispute that "she tells it like it is." She tells her view of things, which often differs markedly from mine. But we are united in the belief that this case is a hoax, that Nifong pursued it purely for his own political advancement, and that the remaining charges against these young men should be dismissed at the earliest opportunity.

Anonymous said...

d at 4:57 was me.

AMac said...

duke09parent 4:57pm --

I agree that there's no point in getting riled by comments in a forum like this. There's no knowing what a poster's motive really is.

It wouldn't shock me if some of the more offensive remarks were left by people whose real sympathies lie with the anti-due-process/"something-happened" crowd, hoping to get at KC Johnson by tarring his readership.

Any commenter who goes to the trouble of "choosing an identity" does other readers a courtesy by letting them see connections within and between threads. So my hat's off even to the trollish individual (not Deb) whom you mentioned.

While high-traffic blog comments will never benefit from four layers of editors (heh), hopefully commenters of goodwill will focus on ideas, and stay away from ad hominem attacks. Etc.

Anonymous said...

John Bruce --

This is anonymous 3:07 and 9:35. Your comment prompted me to do a little quick and dirty research. A recent NC case involving a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) is Watson v. Dixon, which the state Court of Appeals decided in 1998. (The case citation is 502 S.E.2d 15.)

The Watson court states the standard for IIED:

"A claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress exists 'when a defendant's "conduct exceeds all bounds usually tolerated by decent society" and the conduct "causes mental distress of a very serious kind."' . . . In order to make out a prima facie showing for intentional infliction of emotional distress, the plaintiff must show the following: (1) that defendant engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct, (2) which was intended to cause and did cause (3) severe emotional distress. . . . 'The tort may also exist where defendant's actions indicate a reckless indifference to the likelihood that they will cause severe emotional distress.'"

The plaintiff in Watson succeeded in her claim of IIED. She was suing a co-worker (and their employer, which as it happens was Duke Univ.) for the co-worker's harassment. The court summarized the factual background as follows, which provides an idea of what IIED consists of in actual practice:

"Watson and Dixon were both employed with Duke in the Sterile Processing Department of the Medical Center, when Watson began to experience difficulty with Dixon's harassing behavior. His behavior consisted of crank telephone calls, rubbing his body against Watson, touching her breasts, confining Watson to a room against her will, drawing a picture of her body depicting it with a penis, making obscene comments about her, scaring Watson in an area where rapes had occurred, and making scary comments about her long drive home on dark roadways. This conduct occurred during a period of seven or eight months (from approximately August 1991 to late March 1992), during which plaintiff experienced bouts of crying, vomiting, and inability to sleep, until finally suffering a nervous breakdown. Watson has been treated for almost two years by Dr. Bonny Gregory, a psychiatrist, who has diagnosed her with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder."

As noted above, for a claim of IIED to succeed, the defendant must have engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct that caused severe emotional distress. Assuming that the plaintiffs can show that the Group of 88's emissions (as opposed to the actions of the prosecutor and of fellow students) caused them severe emotional distress, the difficulty I see will be establishing that the Group's statements were extereme and outrageous, "exceed[ing] all bounds usually tolerated by decent society."

What the Group did was publish two statements. They did not touch the plaintiffs or make any physically threatening gestures toward them. As I recall, what they published did not mention the plaintiffs by name. The statements did not contain any outrageous comments, directed at the plaintiffs or otherwise -- no name calling, specific insults, or disclosure of private information. Also, the statements did not specifically incite others to acts of violence against the plaintiffs. The first statement approved of past protests, but it did not expressly encourage people to continue to do the same.

Courts tend to set the bar high for what conduct will constitute IIED. They don't want people to be tying up the legal system as a result of the normal rough and tumble discourse in a free society.

One final point (and my apologies for the length of this), "fiduciary duty" is a legal term of art. As far as I am aware, professors or administration of a university do not owe a fiduciary duty to students.

This is all not to deny that the Group of 88's emissions are disgusting. I just don't see much of a claim there.

-- Lawyer J

Anonymous said...

Brad from CT and anonymous 4:57 are Debrah--how pathetic!

How do I know? Elementary, Watson.

The author is stupid and illiterate, 2 of Debrah's principal trademarks.

"Brad from CT" at 4:35 contributes these 2 whoppers: 1) points of the spectrum, and 2) like it is. Folks, this is pure Debbie.

1. "Points of the spectrum": Debrah, with a low IQ, obviously never studied physics. Anyone who has, knows that wave-length goes with "spectrum"

2. More indicative of her underclass IQ is "Brad from CT's" 4:35 "like it is." A 1st-grader could tell you that "as it is" is grammatical.

Poor Debrah is out of her league. Perhaps she can find a forum at NCCU.com

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know what happened at the NAACP news conference today? Was it the national organization, or the NC branch of the NAACP?

Anonymous said...

Brad in Connecticut---

Thanks. You are obviously a man of taste and style!

You know, it's unfortunate that we sometimes must point out from where the anti-Duke lacrosse camp hails; however, I confess to you that I am a registered Democrat--pro-choice--socially progressive in most ways. I just don't vote for many of the Dems anymore. Just doesn't make financial sense.

It's best, though, to allow the disgruntled ones to vent and feel that they are attacking a conservative. LOL! They feel better afterward.

I hope Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney gets the nomination for the Pubs. Obama might make a good Dem rival. Who knows how that will pan out?

About the attacks from 3:13 and 3:19. There have been a few trailing along on each thread. I am pretty sure who it is. Just take a look at the few posters who use a colon ( : ) after the name of the poster he addresses. Check it out.

It's one or two regular posters who deposit these attacks anonymously so as not to be identified with a hidden agenda.....and the childish side of their character.

Hilarious, no?

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Anyone read John Podhoretz's column in today's NY Post? It was quite splendid. He estimates that fully 1/9 of Duke's faculty signed the Listening Statement.

The low IQ is defining Duke's reputation.

Isn't that special?

Anonymous said...

To 6:13PM--

Hi little buddy!

(aka) RP...(aka).....Roman Polanski.....(aka).....JC.....(aka)....John Clyne.

You really must stop projecting your methods onto others.

1) Posting about medications

2) NCCU

3) Silly drivel which always harks back to the thread where I leveled you.

Poor, poor RP can't let it go.

How's that Sybill act working for you?

Don't project your mental problems onto Brad in Connecticut. Don't you have an occupation?

This website seems to be it for you, dear troubled man. Try to relax and let it go.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

John Podhoretz is stupendous.

He used to write for National Review.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

2:28pm Anon:

"I know this is off topic, but Ive read where people are saying the Fa said at first she was raped by 20 people in the bathroom."

I think the '20 rapists' had its genesis in a 3/14 Duke Univ PD report filed by DUPD Officer Christopher Day. It was in what might be called the intoduction to the report, and he didn't talk to the AV, he was dispatched to check out the house at ~3am on Mar 14. Some have said that he overheard someone else saying that, and may have misunderstood what was said.

News reports at the very beginning of the situation referred to her saying that she had danced for '20 men' at a house, which may have been the source of what was (apparently) a misunderstanding.

Anonymous said...

KC and Bill, two great posts. Keep it up :)

Anonymous said...

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070118/OPINION/701180406/1030

Anonymous said...


Duke case a sorry example of political correctness

Anonymous said...

Personal attack on KC in op-ed!"

Anonymous said...

OK. That's it.

Everyone must bombard the H-S op-ed pages with letters cutting the creep Orin Starn into little bits.

This is war!

Anonymous said...

Debrah,

I posted a couple of times today from work. I thought we had an agreement to ignore each other.

Obviously, you make enemies and have it in for me for whatever reason.

Here's the thing, Debrah: I don't know what you're writing about, nor do I have the time to go back in the thread.

Yours sincerely,

Roman Polanski

Anonymous said...

Just shot off a letter now. Important to note just where KC retrieved his information.

"AAAS has 15 core faculty members."

Christ! Orin is right!

Assuming that "core" faculty members are full time proves KC's "desire to paint the program as a menacing Orthanc of grim radical power and intolerance"

When you think you can't hear any more bullshit from these professors, they just keep throwing it at you...

Anonymous said...

Oh no, not again.

The little Orin Starn urchin strikes again. This one is tame compared to the one Bob Ashley directed their staff to publish several months ago---(I received inside info that Ashley ordered Starn's columns to be printed....even though they are almost twice the length of most others)---in which Starn spent the whole time dissing Duke athletics.

Now it's the blogs.

Isn't this superfluous cretin supposed to be on sabbatical....or something?

I can't believe it when Ashley says with a straight face that their editorial staff is balanced.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

DUKE CHRONICLLE


Faculty letter aims to clarify '88' ad
Meg Bourdillon
Posted: 1/18/07
A group of approximately 90 faculty members calling themselves "Concerned Duke Faculty" posted an open letter addressed to the University community online Tuesday.

In the letter, the signatories affirmed their support for the authors of an ad published in The Chronicle in April 2006 titled "What Does a Social Disaster Sound Like?" which highlighted concerns brought to light by the lacrosse incident about racism and sexism on campus.

The signatories of the recent letter stated that the original ad has been widely misinterpreted in discussions about the lacrosse case and the University.

"We stand by the claim that issues of race and sexual violence on campus are real, and we join the ad's call to all of us at Duke to do something about this," the authors of the open letter wrote.

By yesterday afternoon, 90 professors and lecturing fellows appeared on the list of signatories to which the letter links. Of them, 64 were among the 88 signers of the ad printed in April.

"I think that another letter has been needed for months," said Ronen Plesser, associate professor of physics, who signed both the letter and the ad. "What held it up was that it's a complicated thing to do, and nobody wanted to get started."

Plesser said the timing of the letter's publication was unrelated to recent developments in the legal case against three members of the 2005-2006 men's lacrosse team.

He noted that the letter's authors began circulating drafts around the time of Winter Break and have been trying for some time to publish the article in local venues.

"This is not an organized effort," Plesser said. "My personal hope is that this will be the basis for a conversation on campus... a conversation that will eventually lead to some understanding."

Elizabeth Clark, John Carlisle Kilgo professor of religion and one of the recently published letter's co-authors, said she signed the letter to show she supports efforts for change on campus.

"When the situation becomes such that honored members of the faculty are being attacked on blogs in very personal ways, I think it's perhaps time to say that we join in... the struggle against racism and sexism at Duke," said Clark, who was not among the 88 who signed the original ad.

Twenty-four of those who signed the April ad are not currently listed among the "Concerned Faculty." Among them is miriam cooke, professor of Asian and African languages and literature, who does not capitalize her name. She said she signed an earlier version of the recent letter, however, and continued to support its contents.

"Each one of us has received messages that run the spectrum of polite requests to demur... to rude, aggressive, threatening letters," said cooke, referring to the 88 faculty who signed the April ad. "I hope that will stop."

Several of the other signatories of the April ad who did not sign the recent letter no longer work at the University.

The letter appears on an independent website, http://concerneddukefaculty.org.

Plesser explained that he would have preferred not to publish the letter on the Internet.

"We were unable to find a venue locally first. We tried," Plesser said.

Acting on behalf of the signatories, Plesser submitted a draft of the letter to The Chronicle as an ad last week. The Chronicle offered to run the letter on the condition that the authors accepted certain editorial changes to wording that posed legal risks for the newspaper. Plesser and his fellow signatories ultimately rejected The Chronicle's offer.

In an e-mail to The Chronicle, Laurie Shannon, associate professor of English, criticized the newspaper for not giving due weight to faculty members' right to freedom of expression.

Writing in another e-mail, Kenneth Surin, professor of literature and religion and critical theory, said the paper's "censorship" of the ad was "very disturbing."

The Chronicle has customarily reviewed ads of this nature and required advertisers to make changes.

"What The Chronicle has to say about why it made its choice-that's the paper's decision," Plesser said.

M. Simon said...

Anon 6:13PM,

It could be Fraunhofer Lines.

Those are "points" in a spectrum. AS any studenrt of physics would know.

M. Simon said...

Man it is getting to be like Palestinian territory here.

They can't get their hands on Israelis so they go after each other.

Chill folks. Or not.

Blogging is a blood sport.

Anonymous said...

I think it's perhaps time to say that we join in... the struggle against racism and sexism at Duke," said Clark, who was not among the 88 who signed the original ad.

Not be able to see the grotesque racism and sexism that has been directed at the Duke lacrosse players shows near-total blindness. On sexism, this sort of crap may be part of the reason why there's now 30% more females graduating from college than males. That's a huge structural problem that faculty should start taking seriously.

Anonymous said...

Hee hee. So Starn has struck back at the many racist idiots who comment on this page. And then he has called KC Johnson on his failure to basic research.

I'm sure he's quaking in his boots that you have declared war on him!

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