Saturday, January 20, 2007

Ten--and More--Questions for the (Rump) Group of 88

In a recent Duke Chronicle article, Group of 88 member Ronen Plesser maintained that the new “clarifying” statement would form a “basis for a conversation on campus . . . a conversation that will eventually lead to some understanding.”

In that light, ten questions for the (Rump) Group of 88:

1.) In your new statement, you decried an atmosphere that allowed “sexual violence to be so prevalent on campus.” What statistical evidence do you have to substantiate that assertion?

2.) Given your claim that Duke has an atmosphere that allows “sexual violence to be so prevalent on campus,” would you recommend that female students accepted to the Class of 2011 attend Duke? If so, how could you support their entering an environment that you have publicly described as so dangerous?

3.) To what specific acts/cases of “racism and sexual violence” that occurred on the Duke campus before the lacrosse team incident does your statement refer? Could you spell out what individual or collective action you took in those cases?

4.) In your statement, you wrote, “We do not endorse every demonstration that took place at the time.” Could you say which demonstrations you did not support, and why you did not support them? Why did you not spell this matter out in your statement?

5.) Do you agree with the late March assertion of your colleague and fellow signatory, Bill Chafe, that the whites who lynched Emmett Till provided an appropriate historical context through which to interpret the actions of the lacrosse players?

6.) Do you agree with the claim of your colleague and fellow signatory, Wahneema Lubiano, who told the N&O that “people can’t imagine that the woman could have made a false rape allegation”?

7.) Do you agree with the claim of your colleague and fellow signatory, Karla Holloway, that the lacrosse case could only be “assessed through a metric of race and gender. White innocence means black guilt”? And do you think Professor Holloway acted properly when she passed on fifth-hand unsubstantiated gossip about Duke students--gossip that appeared in the press, coincidentally, just hours before your "clarifying" statement saw the light of day?

8.) In your statement, you wrote, “The ad has been read as a comment on the alleged rape.” Since the ad discussed “what happened to this young woman” and contained several quotes from alleged Duke students discussing the alleged rape, did the ad’s primary author, Professor Lubiano, misinterpret your sentiments in the language she used and the quotations she selected?

9.) In your statement, you wrote, “We think the ad’s authors were right to give voice to the students quoted, whose suffering is real.” Could you spell out what individual or collective action you took in the cases of other Duke students “whose suffering is real”—such as, for example, Duke lacrosse players who were harassed on campus last spring, or Duke students whose voter registration effort outside the football stadium was improperly shut down this fall? Is the “suffering” of some Duke students more important to you than that of others?

10.) Do you believe that Mike Nifong acted properly when he went to the grand jury on April 17 to seek indictments against Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty?

In addition to commenting, I invite readers to ask their own questions of the (rump) Group of 88 in the comment section. I'll be amending this post throughout the day to include the best additional questions in the main text.

Some added questions, from the comment section, with more to come:

1.) Does race and class require automatic judgements or are we to be judged as individuals?

2.) Do you believe the initial statement has caused harm to Duke?

3.) Will you document the methodology used to obtain a representative cross section of campus opinion for the listening statement?

4.) If you believe that exculpatory DNA results should have had no impact on how professors viewed the lacrosse case, what is your attitude toward the release from prison of numerous Black inmates based on similar results (Project Innocence)?

5.) With respect to the Listening Ad quotation that “I can’t help but think about the different attention given to what has happened from what it would have been if the guys had been not just black but participating in a different sport, like football, something that’s not so upscale,” what impact do you think the January 2006 Virginia Union University/University of Richmond rape case, detailed here, has on that view?

6.) You have just been transported back to April 2006, and you have been handed the original Group of 88 statement in draft form, with a chance to revise it so that it will avoid generating accusations of prejudgment or other misperceptions. Please re-issue the statement in its entirety, reflecting all such revisions.

7.) Would you be willing to sign a statement, such as that of the Econ Professors, that all students, including lacrosse players and other student athletes are welcome in your classes?

8.) Do you agree with John Kenneth Galbraith's opinion that "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof"?

9.) The lacrosse case revealed the students and paying parents have a significant lack of protection of their interests as both customers and new members of the Duke community. News that Duke supported police singling out Duke students for arrests they would not make on Durham residents. News of alleged grade retaliation on accused students or other forms of in-class harassment. News that one prominent professor, Houston Baker, demanded summary expulsion from school based on group membership. In response to such problems, do you favor a stronger student union and council, so that the student body may be better able to defend itself?

10.) If you, as educators, wrote a statement which was as you claim misunderstood by every person who read it, does this fact not pose significant questions as to your competence in guiding young minds? Have a similar proportion of your students left your classes also totally misunderstanding what you taught them?

11.) Do you believe that professors have an obligation to speak out on behalf of due process, as defined by the Constitution and subsequent jurisprudence, when you see due process rights publicly abridged?

12.) Are there certain groups or individuals who stand accused of crime against whom it is appropriate to lend your voice in heightening public condemnation?

13.) In your statement, you contended that sexual violence is “prevalent” on the Duke campus. Are you familiar with the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of the word PREVALENT as “most extensively used or practiced; generally accepted; of frequent occurrence; extensively existing; in general use”?

14.) Could you spell out what individual or collective action you have undertaken since issuing the first statement to rectify the sexist and racist culture on campus, other than issusing another statement?

15.) Since you are college professors and some teach English, are you embarrassed that your first statement was so widely misinterpreted?

16.) Regarding one of the anonymous statements from an alleged Duke student in your first ad, have any of you approached the Duke police force to ask if they have a policy of slowing down when they see a Black man on campus? Have any of you experienced or observed this phenomenon?

17.) Does the racist culture on the Duke campus extend to religious views? For example, are Muslims, Jews, or other religious groups treated unfairly?

18.) Many of you have been at Duke for many years; some of you have been or are in positions of administrative authority. When did you first notice the sexist and racist culture on campus, and what actions did you take to remedy it?

19.) In your original statement, you explicitly thanked people for not waiting. The fundamental question is what was not worthy of being awaited. Time for reason to assist emotion? Time for evidence to be gathered and assessed? Time for a defense to be made? If you were so attuned to due process, why did you fail to mention it in your April 6 statement?

20.) In addition to Cathy Davidson, who and how many of the ad's signatories have been advised by legal counsel of the potential civil liability they each face for the publication of the Ad based on the content that they pretend has been misread?

21.) If you believe this alleged white on black rape is symptomatic of a larger culture of racism and sexual violence on campus, how do you reconcile this with the fact that the vast majority of interracial rapes involving whites and blacks are black on white?

22.) In your statement you claim to "stand firmly by the principle of the presumption of innocence." What then did you expect readers of the ad to infer from your reference to "what happened to this young woman"? Given that she had accused members of the Duke lacrosse team of rape, isn't that the obvious inference, carrying with it implied guilt of some members of the lacrosse team?

23.) Do you agree with the claim of your colleague and fellow signatory, Karla Holloway, that "sports reinforces exactly those behaviors of entitlement which have been and can be so abusive to women and girls and those 'othered' by their sports' history of membership"? Please state your view of the relative threat of abuse toward women posed by team sports compared with the threat posed by rap music.

24.) Have you ever taught any of the 46 lacrosse players who were targeted by Mike Nifong? Did their behavior in your class conform to the stereotype that Nifong and the media offered last spring? If not, why did you not speak out publicly to set the record straight about their character; or just to demand that the be treated according to the same procedures accorded to all other Durham residents, and spelled out by the ethics canons of the North Carolina State Bar?

25.) Your recent statement makes no reference whatsoever to departments or programs at Duke University. Department affiliations of the signers of this statement are not even given. This is in striking contrast to the original ad/listening statement specifically listing 15 Duke University Departments and programs that had signed on. Why are there no departments or programs signing onto this statement? Has the original ad, with its apparent sanction by 15 Duke departments and programs, possibly implicated the university in making prejudicial statement against defendants -- who are incidentally its own students?

And, the extra credit question, for amusement:

If a stripper is coming at you from NCCU at 40mph, and Defendant Nifong is coming at you from downtown Durham at 80mph, and you have already done the Elmostafa to Wachovia to Burger joint to Dorm room time-travel-while-talking-on-your-cellphone race, how many lies will it take for you to continue to remain under suspicion of rape/sexual assault/kidnapping?

Alas, the two Math professors from the Group of 88 did not sign the "clarifying" statement.

299 comments:

1 – 200 of 299   Newer›   Newest»
Anonymous said...

The Duke professors can't answer the questions.

Anonymous said...

If "white innocence means black guilt" do you believe that DA Nifong is innocent?

M. Simon said...

I believe the demonstration not supported was the Three Card Monte demonstration.

However, with no supporting evidence that is just a guess.

M. Simon said...

Are there any objective standards by which people can be judged?

Does race and class require automatic judgements or are we to be judged as individuals?

Anonymous said...

Do you believe the initial statement has caused harm to Duke?

Anonymous said...

The Group of 88 shows classic fool's logic:

They may be wrong, but they are never in doubt.

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

Anonymous said...

Do you believe grade retaliation is an appropriate response when confronted with having a white male athlete in your class?

Anonymous said...

Do you regret signing the initial statement?

Anonymous said...

What action will you take against the students such as Serena Sebring and Rann Bar-On who organized the protests and the Durham responds listserve.

Since the listening statement was intended to bring about an open dialoge about the atmosphere on campus do you approve of your own student (Serena Sebring) censoring the list serve.

Will you document the methodology used to obtain a representative cross section of campus opinion for the listening statement.

Will outside organizers such as Manju Rajendran be welcome to speak at Duke as they have in the past?

Anonymous said...

People claiming to have been misunderstood often say that their comments have been "taken out of context". Never, ever have I heard of a group having the effrontery to insist that their words must be taken out of context in order to be correctly understood.

Buchanan street was the context, and that damn ad was an intentionally inflammatory rush to judgment.

Period.

There is just no way to hide that, "Listeners".

Anonymous said...

Question for KC

Do you realize by posting at midnight you have through a Pavlovian type of conditioning disturbed the sleeping patterns of many people.

Anonymous said...

Is the following statement TRUE or FALSE?

Sexual violence occurs in a culture sick with white supremacy and racism; heterosexism and homophobia; patriarchy, sexism, and transphobia; and poverty and capitalism. These systems all interact and overlap to create a culture of violence that must be changed. We must dismantle these systems and work to prevent violence if we hope to end it.

Anonymous said...

If a stripper is coming at you from NCCU at 40mph, and Defendant Nifong is coming at you from downtown Durham at 80mph, and you have already done the Elmostafa to Wachovia to Burger joint to Dorm room time-travel-while-talking-on-your-cellphone race, how many lies will it take for you to continue to remain under suspicion of rape/sexual assault/kidnapping?

extra credit: how many times will fact-based reasoning be called racism when a black victim is involved?

Anonymous said...

KC,

Do you have a likk to the Listening Statement.

I'm pointing to center field.

RP

Anonymous said...

Typo...Professor Ronen Plesser.

M. Simon said...

KC,

I eagerly await midnight. (11PM Central or as I prefer 0500z).

Anonymous said...

TO KC: I think you should amend your question 10 so that it explicitly refers to the DNA test results, which were given to DA Nifong BEFORE he took the case to the Grand Jury and sought a rape indictment.

gk

Anonymous said...

Did any of the Group of 88 organize or participate in the candlelight vigil or potbangers demonstration?

Anonymous said...

To each member of the 88,87 groups -

In 10 year, your grandchild will be able to Google your name and the first pages of entries will deal with the Group of 88 and (Rump) Group of 87. Each entry will detail history's hindsighted judgment of this singularly incendiary act. You can imagine this judgment won't be kind.

Is this the legacy you intended to leave for your grandchildren?

Anonymous said...

Zulu or UTC?

Anonymous said...

Do you agree with the statements from and actions of the New Black Panther Party while they marched to the Duke Campus, demonstrated on the University owned property on Buchanan Street and attended court proceedings? If not, why not speak out about those insensitive comments and inappropriate actions rather than spending two months trying to clairify, defend and recast your previous letter and ad--if it was, as you contend justified then and now?

Anonymous said...

JLS says...

Excellent point post Professor Johnson and it makes its point well. Since I doubt we will see answers to Professor Johnson's questions, I am not bothering with adding to them.

I guess I could speculat whether:

1. The rump Gang of 88 is too weak minded to answer Professor Johnson's question?

2. or Professor Johnson's question are unanswerable period?

3. or does the rump Gang of 88 know their answers would reveal them to be even more outlandish Marxist than most already think they are?

I think 3 might be the case. If they really gave the answer they believe, the Duke alums might double the pressure to get rid of them and reform the hiring practices at Duke.

Anonymous said...

With respect to the Listening Ad quotation that “I can’t help but think about the different attention given to what has happened from what it would have been if the guys had been not just black but participating in a different sport, like football, something that’s not so upscale”, what impact do you think the January 2006 Virginia Union University/University of Richmond rape case, detailed at

http://timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?c=MGArticle&cid=1137836062037&pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&path=!news&s=1045855934842

, has on that view.

Anonymous said...

The 88 think they may not always be right, but they are never wrong. Not so....

M. Simon said...

1243AM,

Did you mean Coordinated UNiversal Time?

I'm an old mil type. I like Zulu Time.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know why the Duke Chronicle did not agree to run the (Rump) Group of 88's most recent ad/letter? What editorial comments/changes did they require which the (Rump) Group subsequently rejected? Just curious.

Anonymous said...

11. Did you all make sure your house insurance was paid before making your original statement?

Anonymous said...

You have just been transported back to April 2006, and you have been handed the original Group of 88 statement in draft form, with a chance to revise it so that it will avoid generating accusations of prejudgment or other misperceptions. Please re-issue the statement in its entirety, reflecting all such revisions.

Chicago said...

Keep challenging them KC. With each challenge they get more ridiculous. The best they could come up with was that you did not know the exact number of staff members in AA studies (you must have confused it with the amount of students who major in that).I am still waiting for one of them to apologize or at very least call out Nifong. They can not hide the fact that their ad helped enable Nifong to move forward with false indictments. They gave Nifong a vote of confidence.

Chicago said...

Here is my question. Group of 88 members, be honest, did you vote for Nifong?

Chicago said...

G88-Can you provide proof that you really did receive threats? Keep in mind critism is not a threat.

Anonymous said...

Wow. Check this out from, of all places, Pasadena, CA:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/190uejex.asp

The author tears the Group of 88 apart.

-Esq-

M. Simon said...

www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/190uejex.asp

*

Anonymous said...

Duke has decided to use the lemons to make lemonade

http://tinyurl.com/239qnh

Title HOOK-UP CULTURE AT DUKE
Department WOMENST
Course Number 2007 Spring 150
Section Number 04
Primary Instructor Allison,Anne
Primary Instructor Weiss,Margot D
Permission required? N



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prerequisites
None, although a previous course in Cultural Anthropology would be helpful.
Synopsis of course content
What is “hook-up culture”? What does it have to do with power and difference? Is the concept useful for framing gendered, raced, classed, and sexualized experiences at Duke?

This course, designed as a direct result of events last year on campus, will give students a unique opportunity to examine and reflect upon gendered/ sexualized life at Duke in relation to contemporary life in the U.S. We will ask:
how has the history of university attendance in the US (in terms of race, class, and gender) impacted campus culture? Are new technologies changing intimate or familial relationships between people? How are distinctions between “at home” and “at work” (or public and private) linked to new kinds of subjectivity and sociality? How do particular bodies gain value in contemporary commodity culture? And finally, what does the lacrosse scandal tell us about power, difference, and raced, classed, gendered and sexed normativity in the US?

Each course unit will include theoretical readings that contextualize Duke campus culture within these larger US cultural and economic formations, emphasizing the ways that “hooking-up” at Duke must be understood in relation to larger intersections of sex, gender, power, and capital. To this end, in addition to theoretical readings, we will also devote a substantial portion of the class to both case studies (drawn from popular media, film, or ethnography) and to Duke-focused student ethnographic research projects.

The goal of the course is two-fold: 1) to understand “hooking-up” at Duke in terms of larger frameworks of race, capitalism/consumerism, class, lifestyle, identity, (hetero)normativity, and power, and 2) to enable students to
critically assess both the nature of Duke hook-ups and the institutional setting of Duke itself.
Exams
None.
Term Papers
Final ethnographic paper/project: students will work on this project throughout
the semester.
Additional Information
Contact margot.weiss@duke.edu or anne.allison@duke.edu for more
information.

Anonymous said...

I have noticed the seeming coincidence between the number of Listening Ad signers and the reported total of black faculty members in Spring 2006 -- 88. Did the ad's authors originally intend that the ad would be signed only by black faculty, as if to provide some statement of racial solidarity and unity? We know that not all of the signers were black, and not all were faculty. Were the signatures of staff and non-black faculty solicited to reach that "magic" number?

Anonymous said...

If those professors were forced to honestly answer those questions,then they would have been skewered and slow roasted. Sharp questions KC.

Evan G

Anonymous said...

LOL to the 12:36

Evan G

Anonymous said...

12. Will any of you write a book entitled "Cruel Enough to Steal My Rights - Global Man Hating and the US Legal Body, or 'They Done Taken my Lacrosse Stick, Freedom and Reputation Away?'"

You can add that to such winners as "Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity."

Yes, oh mighty (not really) Duke Humanities Department (particularly Karla Holloway), I mock your hypocricy.

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

Anonymous said...

Regarding the Weekly Standard article, I thought the author used the theme of "metanarratives" very effectively and I found the title of the piece "Duke's Tenured Vigilantes" succinct and brutal.

Anonymous said...

Would you be willing to sign a statement, such as the Econ Professors, that all students, including lacrosse players and other student athletes are welcome in your classes?

Anonymous said...

1. If the situation is so sexually incendiary shouldn't the National Guard be called out to curb the violence and restore order on campus.
2. Wouldn't a campus curfew help?
3. Maybe issuing guns to women on campus?
4. Or guard dogs?
5. Up north we're for any (& all) prophylactic measures to curb sexual misconduct.

Anonymous said...

Duke parents and alumni, the onus is on you. You pay the bills...do you want to continue subsidizing the post-modern, neo-Marxist hooey that leads to the attempted lynching of three innocent boys, who were guilty of being white, male, and moneyed?

If a professor in the astronomy department was teaching that the world was flat, would you keep him on in the interest of intellectual diversity?

Where are the adults?

Anonymous said...

KC - With all due respect, why bother with the 88 anymore ?

Every kid on campus, excluding AA and Women'd study "majors", have dismissed them as well as the Culture Initiative.

They've discredited themselves to any other reasonable person through loopiness of that muddy "clarification".

Let's let any civil claims against specific the faculty play out - and avoid giving these knuckleheads this attention - which just makes them heroes within their world.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link, MS

To whom it may concern:

re the Listening Statement: In lines 2 and 4 you misspelled "every day," which are, of course, an adjective and noun, respectively. Your incorrect spelling was the adjectival "everyday." Wouldn't you agree that a major grammatical error of this sort relects the affirmative action status of the Listening Statement's principal author, Professor Lubiano?

Why didn't you write a listening statement when a black male raped a white female student?

In the third paragraph of the Listening Statement, you write: "These students are shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman and to themselves." With respect to the "young woman," are you referring to Crystal Gail Mangum--the woman who had 5 distinct strands of male DNA dripping out of her rectum, none belonging to any lacrosse player?

Do AAAS professors and their narrowly focused pedagogy foment antiwhite racism and antimale bigotry?

re Listning Statement: In the fourth line you refer to a "disaster." What disaster? Crystal Mangum's vicious character assassination of three innocent young men?

When Reade, Collin, and David are completely vindicated, will you support a criminal investigation into Crystal Mangum's filing a false police report?

Do you now believe that it was incredibly stupid to write and distribute the Listening Statement in light of recent developments?

Are academically weak professors specializing in race and gender studies invested, emotionally and intellectually, in propogating the idea that white men are primarily responsible for most of what ails society?

Yours sincerely,

James Francis Clyne

Vitruvius said...

Here are some questions I'd like to ask them, though I'm not sure if any of them are great candidates for your list, Professor Johnson.

Do you agree with Sir Wilfrid Laurier's opinion that "Experience has established that institutions, which at the outset were useful, often end by becoming intolerable abuses owing to the simple fact that everything around them has changed and they have not."?

Do you agree with H. L. Mencken's opinion that "Of all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and fit a coat seems to me an admirable man, and by the same token a university professor who knows little or nothing of the thing he presumes to teach seems to me to be a fraud and a rascal."?

Do you agree with Aldous Huxley's opinion that "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."?

Do you agree with John Kenneth Galbraith's opinion that "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."?

Do you agree with H. G. Wells' opinion that "Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo."?

Do you agree with Ramsey Clark's opinion that "A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you."?

Do you agree with Thomas Jefferson's opinion that "Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."?

Do you agree with John Stuart Mill's opinion that "Persecution has always succeeded, save where the heretics were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted."?

Do you agree with Ronald Regan's opinion that "You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."?

Do you agree with James Madison's opinion that "There are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."?

Do you agree with George Bernard Shaw's opinion that "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."?

Do you agree with Walter Williams' opinion that "When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," I'm sure that he didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless there is a majority vote in Congress."?

Do you agree with Confucius's opinion that "When words lose their meaning, people will lose their liberty."?

Do you agree with John Wayne's opinion that "Life is tough. Life is tougher if you're stupid."?

Anonymous said...

JLS says...

Esq, Thanks for the link to the Weekly Standard article. It was very interesting.

If any one else goes to read it skim through the summary of the time line of events in the case. The meat of the article is on page 2 where the author take apart the press bias and the gang of 88 quote by quote and metanarrative by metanarrative.

Anonymous said...

go 1:51

Loved it

RP

Anonymous said...

The lastest statement read in part "We reject all attempts to try the case outside the courts, and stand firmly by the principle of the presumption of innocence" but why were many of the protests in front of the lax house (that some of the 88/87ers partcipated in)? Stated differently, if your original statemet was about broader social issues such as gender and race why were the protests in front of the lax house or did you approve of ANY the demonstrations in front/on the lawn of the lax house?

M. Simon said...

James Francis Clyne,

A long time ago (in blog years) I used to post unclicable links which the blog host at Winds of Change was kind enough to convert, but it annoyed him - because I was too lazy to learn the right form - now that I know it by heart I'm doing penance. And, I'm not even Catholic. LOL.

Anonymous said...

Have the Group of 88 consulted an attorney yet?

Anonymous said...

Do you agree that NO DNA from any lax player was found on the accuser?

Do you agree that the DA should have turned over all exculpatory evidence?

Do you agree that the DA’s early statements prejudged the case?

Do you agree the line up utilized by the DA was fair/consistent with standard procedure?

Do you agree that NO racist statements have been atributated to the 3 accused?

Anonymous said...

MS,

FYI:JF Clyne is my real name.

RP

Anonymous said...

MS,

How do you learn to provide links?

I have to grow up

RP

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

well done, Cedarford

very good questions

RP

Anonymous said...

2 more questions:

Suppose a white stripper had made similar allegations against 3 black-male basketball players. Would you have issued the Listening Statement? Whom would you have listened to--the white woman, or the black men?

Jim Clyne

Alan said...

Who died and made tenured academics immune to intellectual accountability? Specifically, how is it possible that your April proclamation speaks of 'what happened to this young woman' and endorses (without qualification) the protests, and now you tell us you did not endorse the protests without qualification and you were not speaking about 'what happened to this young woman'? What is the tenured academic academic jargon for lying about the content of a statement and do you endorse that practice?

Anonymous said...

OK! Remember, your meta-answer must be in the form of a meta-question!
Our category is: Infamous AA studies English professors who used to write for the TV sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

The answer is: Dr Karla Holloway

Who said "Despite the damaging logic that associates the credibility of a socio-cultural context to the outcome of the legal process, we will find that even as the accusations that might be legally processed are confined to a courtroom, the cultural and social issues excavated in this upheaval linger."

(And thanks for the link, JF Cline!)

Anonymous said...

Michael Gustafson's latest must read:

http://www.xanga.com/DukeEgr93/564177291/im-concerned-too.html

Sorry, left my html cheat sheet at work.

Anonymous said...

Vitruvius, you slay me. KC must include this appropos gem:

"Do you agree with John Kenneth Galbraith's opinion that "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."?"

The image that invokes is priceless.

dl

Anonymous said...

Prof. Gustafson eviscerates the Rump 87's latest. Can't argue his bonafides as he's in the midst of it all...

dl

Sarah D said...

I think a question to ask is, if you, as educators, wrote a statement which was as you claim misunderstood by every person who read it, does this not pose significant questions as to your competence in guiding young minds?

have a similar proportion of your students left your classes also totally misunderstanding what you taught them?

Anonymous said...

KC,
Great job as usual, although I suspect (actually I am quite sure) that you will not receive any official or even unofficial response from this group of closed-minded ideologues.

However, you have clearly gotten them rattled! I have no doubt that many of them are reading your blog every day! I had to laugh at the Duke Chronicle article published last Friday (1/12/07).

The front page article was titled "Admins uphold free speech in time of "Attack."' It goes on to describe a CLOSED meeting of the faculty with Provost Peter Lange and President Brodhead. It was clear from paragraph two of the article that the main topic of conversation was the "criticisms of faculty on blogs."

Translation: You are driving them up the wall! Maybe you can drive them up the wall and over into some other university where their actions will not be under such scrutiny.

PS RE the ellipses in their second letter published last week. How much fun would it have been to be a fly on the wall to hear them discuss the framing of the second letter!

"Hey guys, in the original letter we stated, 'To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, THANK YOU FOR NOT WAITING and for making yourselves heard.'"

Yeah we might just want to leave that THANK YOU FOR NOT WAITING part out. Just to try to maintain the fiction that we believe in presumption of innocence. Probably no one will notice."

HAR DE HAR

Anonymous said...

Beside Duke University, there is another school which plays a dominant part in this travesty, as well as in two other egregious miscarriages of justice. Has anyone noticed that Mike Nifong, Roy Cooper, Judge Titus and Judge Stephens are all graduates of UNC-CH Law School. Note that Roy Cooper is the Attorney General who decided to retry the Alan Gell case notwithstanding ineluctable exculpatory evidence which had been wrongfully withheld by the prosecution in the first trial.

And speaking of Alan Gell, the Attorney General at the time was Mike Easley, now governor. Guess where he attended law school -- YES, UNC-CH.

Judge Henry E. Frye, the North Carolina Supreme Court judge who wrote the opinion first denying Gell a retrial -- also received his JD from UNC-CH.

Consider also the prosecutorial misconduct in the Terence Garner case. A confession by another man -- first name also Terrence -- was excluded at trial. The prosecutor was UNC-CH graduate, Tom Lock. The presiding judge was Knox Jenkins and one of the appellate court Judges was Linda McGee. Both received JDs from UNC-CH. Tom Lock was rewarded for his outstanding conduct in the Garner case with a judgeship.

A quick review of the cirriculum at UNC-CH indicates that Professional Responsibility IS a required course of the Law School. Amazing!

So what is it? Do we have an incestuous little cesspool of jurisprudence in North Carolina where prosecution has become a sport and each player watches the others' six o'clock? Or, is there a culture at UNC-CH which imbues its graduates with a megalomaniacal disregard for justice and the freedom of innocent men for their own personal gain?

Given Roy Cooper's stellar performance in deciding to retry the Alan Gell case in which the jury took less than 3 hours to acquit, is there any hope that he will decide to dismiss the charges against the Duke Three?

I was not able to find any background on Jim Coman or Mary Winstead. It may not bode well the the Duke Three if their legal careers also hail from UNC-CH. Who were the members of State Bar who slapped the wrists of Debra Graves and David Hoke, the first prosecutors in the Gell case, and where did they attend law school?

Now wonder the criminal justice system in North Carolina is squirming to crawl back under its rock. Evil cannot exist in the light of day.

Mike in Nevada

Anonymous said...

Are you sure about Easley? It's been reported elsewhere that he attended law school at NCCU.

Anonymous said...

When the lacrosse coach and faculty member was fired, you had nothing to say about that.

Do you regret that?

Anonymous said...

For the Gang of 88:

When the lacrosse coach was fired, you said nothing, do you regret that?

Anonymous said...

KC,

I think we need to compose a listening statement of our own, addressed to Richard Brodhead.

Dear Dickie,

Have you given any thought to the insurance biz?

I'm sure the Duke Chronicle would publish it--or The Onion.

RP

Anonymous said...

Do you believe the 14th Amendment applies to white people?

Do you believe you have an obligation to speak out CLEARLY on behalf of due process, as defined by the Constitution and subsequent jurisprudence, when you see due process rights publicly abridged?

Do you believe your perceptions of who has power and misuses it can be mistaken? Who, if anyone, has had power and misused it in this case?

Compare this case to the Scottsboro case. What parallels and distinctions do you see? Is this comparison useful in analyzing historical touchpoints in race relations?

Observer

YaTadK said...

Must everyone's every action be viewed in the context of, and identified with, his/her race/class/gender/sexual orientation? Is the Duke LaCrosse case a poor young black woman accusing three rich white young men? Or is it simply a case of one person making (false) accusations again three people? Shouldn't we judge individuals and not use the prejudices and preconceptions associated with their demographic characteristics?

Anonymous said...

A couple of months ago, I wrote the Weekly Standard to ask if they were interested in an article that would deal primarily with the Duke faculty and the lacrosse case. While I never heard from them, I am glad to see the magazine doing this story. (I was not familiar with the term "metanarratives," but it really did fit here.)

Anyway, Charlotte Allen did a better job than I ever could have done, and I think it was a marvelous article. Unless I missed it, however, she did not include Holloway's statement on "white innocence means black guilt." That would have fit well with the theme of her article.

It seems to me that Duke is coming to a full-scale meltdown, yet most of the faculty is sane. One can see what happens when a few loose cannons are permitted to fire at will.

By the way, Kim Curtis signed this new statement, and there are pictures of her at rallies, and she left a bit of a paper trail. My guess is that there is much, much more to her role in this whole thing.

Zombie said...

Have any of the Group of 88 had jobs outside of academia?

I think their biggest surprise was to be questioned. Who has ever held them accountable for the way they teach or act? They are not scientist when submitting a paper for a peer review publication have to make sure that their methods are unimpeachable. They write whatever they want, and if you dare to disagree, you are ignorant, racist, or a bigot. Like a toddler that has been allowed to throw temper tantrums, with no consequence, they expected no retaliation this time either.

And without the Internet, very few of us here would have even heard of this story. We are the ones challenging them now. We, who would never have entered their very closed circles, have brought them to task and they are furious. They have never needed logic, or even the “golden-rule” to explain anything they have done before and cannot understand why, now, they must be held accountable.

Anonymous said...

To Ms. Kim Curtis: Pretend you are a mother (real mothers don't do what you did). Your child attends a classic, elite university because he's very smart and can play lacrosse. You get the call that your son has been charged with rape and kidnapping of a dancer (we'll leave out the word stripper-for-hire). Please, tell me, will you sign this type of statement again, because, of course, he's a lacrosse player at an elite school and we ALL know accusers (especially a stripper, sorry, dancer who has 2 kids) could never lie? Now, Ms. Curtis, how do you think the mothers of Dave, Reide, and Collin feel?

qgirl232, Sanford,NC

Anonymous said...

At what point does an ideological group leave the realm of being angry and enter into the realm of hatred? When does the emotion of anger cease to be focused on an individual and begin to become a way of thinking used as a weapon to prejudge large groups? Do you think your group has crossed those lines?

Great questions KC. I only wish we would get some answers but gollum doesn't usually come out into the light.

Anonymous said...

Continued...

To the extent you believe you have any obligation to speak out clearly on behalf of due process when you see constitutional rights publicly violated, does that obligation attach regardless of the race, creed, religion, gender, class, etc., of the parties involved?

If you feel you do not have an obligation to speak out when due process rights are abridged publicly, what obligation do you believe you have to refrain from lending what could be interpreted easily as verbal or written support for the violation of those rights by others?

Are there certain groups or individuals who stand accused of crime against whom it is appropriate to lend your voice in heightening public condemnation?

Observer

Anonymous said...

QUESTION:

1) Do you think Reverse Racism, Reverse Sexism etc. exists as a human condition ?

2) Do you think this exists at Duke ?

Anonymous said...

I think the criticism of the Group of 88 has been unduly harsh, and talk of lawsuits is utterly insane. If the Group of 88 can be sued for that statement, then imagine what the Group of 88 could do to KC over any minute disagreement of fact or interpretation. Suing the Group of 88 would be political correctness of the most extreme nature -- a bold-faced move to silence opposing opinion.

That said, I think this is a fair list of questions. If I'd signed the original statement, I would be going out of my way to distance myself from Baker, Holloway and company. Davidson, at least, recognized that some protestors went overboard and regrets that this happened.

At least, most of the questions are fair. As KC said, even one sexual assault is too many. And many in the group would take the reasonable position that they aim to stop sexual assault before it happens by changing attitudes toward women.

Duke has always had some agitation over objectification of women. I'm sure a lot of people find it silly. But I'd maintain it's a good thing in general to have some concern over it. And perhaps that's one reason why sexual assault is so much less common at Duke than it is elsewhere.

We can all agree that's a good thing, right?

Unrelated -- the Baltimore Sun talks to some angry Duke parents in today's paper. It seems a little one-sided to me. No one answers the question of why most of the team is still at Duke if it's such a rotten place. But Coleman, hero to many here, says a few things in defense of Brodhead that KC, at least, may find reasonable.

Those of you who are here simply because you spend most of your free time trying to make "liberals" miserable, of course, will now be lumping Coleman together with the G88.

Anonymous said...

My question:

1) Does the G88 believe that there can be racism and sexism perpetrated against whites and males?

2) As for strippers: If hiring a female stripper is meant to subjugate her, does hiring a male stripper garner the same response? If not, why?

Anonymous said...

KC:

In keeping with your refrain:

"If you believe that exculpatory DNA results should be ignored in the lacrosse case, what is your attitude toward the release from prison of numerous Black inmates based on similar results (Project Innocence)?"

Anonymous said...

Anon 8:23:
I think the criticism of the Group of 88 has been unduly harsh, and talk of lawsuits is utterly insane. If the Group of 88 can be sued for that statement, then imagine what the Group of 88 could do to KC over any minute disagreement of fact or interpretation. Suing the Group of 88 would be political correctness of the most extreme nature -- a bold-faced move to silence opposing opinion.
Unduly harsh? The only people who think the criticism of the G88 are the G88 themselves. There’s something called “responsibility.” Something the G88 make a living in trying to pass onto others. Their words, not misinterpreted by others – maybe misspoken in the first place, were a premature conviction of these athletes because the lacrosse team was mostly white and presumptively rich. Furthermore, at a time when tensions were high on campus, the ad’s timing was meant to fuel those ‘students into making a collective noise.’ The collective noises heard were potbangers and calls for castration. The G88 enabled such hate. KC was not the only person to ‘misinterpret’ that statement. And at least KC has been honorable enough to give citations as to what he’s talking about, unlike the G88. We’re still waiting to hear about the racism and sexism that plague the Duke campus, and why those issues shouldn’t trump a perspective students desire to go to Duke.

That said, I think this is a fair list of questions. If I'd signed the original statement, I would be going out of my way to distance myself from Baker, Holloway and company. Davidson, at least, recognized that some protestors went overboard and regrets that this happened.
All of this from a statement that the public misread?

Unrelated -- the Baltimore Sun talks to some angry Duke parents in today's paper. It seems a little one-sided to me. No one answers the question of why most of the team is still at Duke if it's such a rotten place. But Coleman, hero to many here, says a few things in defense of Brodhead that KC, at least, may find reasonable.
The question as to why the lacrosse team didn’t transfer was answered a while ago. At the time (June) tensions were still high. Some of the lacrosse team members had after graduation work offers rescinded. Other universities would not accept lacrosse team transfers. Syracuse refused, Maryland refused, and UVA refused them, outright. Furthermore, many of these students are on scholarship (yeah, I know…but they’re rich and white) and even if they got accepted into another school, may have not been able to afford to pay the tuition, let alone not be able to play lacrosse.

Those of you who are here simply because you spend most of your free time trying to make "liberals" miserable, of course, will now be lumping Coleman together with the G88.
Lastly, I don’t think the motive is to make liberals feel miserable. We all know that liberals don’t read that which doesn’t agree with them (joke ---kinda). I think many of us are disgusted at how liberals get a pass for unacceptable behavior. This Duke case has been a posterchild for that. Liberals are like rebels without a cause, and when they found this one, they were on it like moths to a flame. But this turned out to be a hoax, and instead of saying “we were dupped” they are squirming to come up with some issue they can salvage from it. Sexism? Nope. Racism? Nope. Privilege? Nope.

Anonymous said...

KC, this thread has been pretty much of a failure in terms of supplying you with supplementary questions for the Group of Eighty-Seven. So let me actually supply not one but three, the third coming in the mode of a bonus pop quiz for the several literature professors among the group.

The first is a purely scholarly question. Are you familiar with the Oxford dictionary’s definition of the word PREVALENT as “most extensively used or practiced; generally accepted; of frequent occurrence; extensively existing; in general use”?

Next comes a question in moral philosophy. How does one justify continuing to accept a paycheck from an institution in which vicious racism and sexual violence are prevalent?

Finally let's play "Stump the Rump." Here is the bonus question: What character, in what classic work of English literature, says “in a rather scornful tone" that "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less?"

Anonymous said...

You asked for "statistical evidence" in #1. I don't know if this is a familiar concept to the Group of 87/88. Words and terms like "evidence", "statistics",
"studies", "empirical", "proof",
"sampling", "sample size", "validation", "significance","p-value", "appropriate study design" etc. really intimidate these people since they snoozed through research methodology and statistics classes in grad school (or avoided them altogether).

You probably should have provided examples and a detailed explanation of what is appropriate for valid, high quality social sciences research.

SAVANT

Anonymous said...

5:25
Your post incorrectly states that NC governor Easley was a UNC law school product. According to his web site, he received his undergraduate from UNC, but received his law degree from NCCU in 1975.

Easley BIO

Anonymous said...

"President Brodhead made it clear he was prepared to take some pretty strong actions," Burness said in reply. "I don't believe he put pressure on them. The pressure came from the knowledge he was prepared to take that pretty strong action."

Pressure:
..."a constraining or compelling force or influence"
..."harassment; oppression"

Wow?

Liberal:
..."free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant"
..."open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc."
..."favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression"

I guess the Gang of 88 and theri supporters aren't classic liberals. These cats have co-opted the language. Up means down and down means up. Everything is a shade of gray...

Doublespeak is doublespeak.

This is disgraceful.

Anonymous said...

KC:

Your questions are real ki_k-_ss questions.

Excellent.

p.s.
fill in "c" and "a" to blanks above.

Anonymous said...

8:23
"Those of you who are here simply because you spend most of your free time trying to make "liberals" miserable, of course, will now be lumping Coleman together with the G88."

Not necessary, many do a pretty good job of it themselves.

Anonymous said...

Anon 8:50 -

Their words, not misinterpreted by others – maybe misspoken in the first place, were a premature conviction of these athletes because the lacrosse team was mostly white and presumptively rich.

I've been reading here for months, and I still disagree. The statement was a naive overstatement of racial issues at Duke, but not a premature conviction of the athletes. You all at this blog have convinced yourself that it was, but I'm not sure how many people outside of here believe the same.

Remember -- the statement had little impact. You may see elsewhere some comments that no one really even knew about it until KC and others raised a big stink about it. (And sure, using it in a change-of-venue argument called attention to it as well.)

Furthermore, at a time when tensions were high on campus, the ad’s timing was meant to fuel those ‘students into making a collective noise.’ The collective noises heard were potbangers and calls for castration.

Davidson has specifically said (I believe it was in an e-mail that a commenter posted here) that the "castration" poster left her aghast. But the funny thing is that people here weren't inclined to cut her any slack.

I think this is why the G88 people don't want to answer KC's questions. They know that there's nothing they can say to placate the mob at this point.

If someone in the G88 came out tomorrow and said, "I agree with the Econ department, and I'm sorry for the ad's timing and tone," what would be the response here?

All this from a statement the public misread?

I'd distance myself from Holloway and Baker because they, unlike Davidson, are showing no signs of sympathy toward the wrongly accused students.

The question as to why the lacrosse team didn’t transfer was answered a while ago.

Answered on this blog, perhaps. But this blog is selective in what it cites. The Seligmann and Finnerty families have said kind words about Duke in the media. And I'm sure the team hasn't forgotten the support it received from many in the Duke community. Remember the women's team and its wristbands? That might inspire me to come back.

Liberals are like rebels without a cause, and when they found this one, they were on it like moths to a flame. But this turned out to be a hoax, and instead of saying “we were dupped” they are squirming to come up with some issue they can salvage from it. Sexism? Nope. Racism? Nope. Privilege? Nope.

This part, I agree with. (Not the part about "liberals not reading" -- if Duke is as liberal as people are saying here, then surely liberals read, yes?)

Many Duke students and faculty members want to be sensitive to issues of racism, sexism and privilege. That's a noble ideal, I'm sure we'd all agree. Some people harness it in noble ways. Particularly when it comes to "privilege" -- Duke students are driven to give back to the community, and it's a wonderful thing. But some get a little silly about it, spotting racism, sexism and elitism where it does not exist.

This isn't new. It's happened as long as I can remember in the 20 years or so since I first started paying attention to Duke. It can be irritating. But it's a mostly harmless aftereffect borne of a noble intent.

Duke has had some racism in its past. It's gone now, in large part because people spoke up about it. Remember that when judging the G88. They overreacted. They're not evil.

And I'll repeat -- harassing and suing the G88 is political correctness of the worst sort. It is intimidation of an opposing point of view, a point of view that's borne out of legitimate concern for one's fellow man.

That doesn't mean they're above criticism, and I'm saddened that some of them are acting that way. But keep it reasonable, and maybe when this has all died down by the end of the semester, you'll get a reasonable response.

Peace out.

Anonymous said...

9:19 again here -- In the spirit of coming up with more questions and of showing all of you that I'm basically on your side despite the overzealous prosecution against the G88, I'll add a question for KC:

"On a typical night at 1 a.m., would you feel safer walking the main quad on West Campus or down the main street of a typical U.S. city?"

I'd say "typical U.S. city" rather than "Durham" because the point isn't about Durham itself. The point is that Duke is a pretty safe place. Within reason, of course -- you wouldn't leave an open bag of jewelry in an unlocked car on the fringe of campus -- but it's about as safe a place as you'll find in this country.

Anonymous said...

Do you really, really wish people would stop thinking that what you wrote was meant specifically, and start thinking that it was all just meant generally... and also stop thinking you are a bunch of embarrassing weasels, because that is just uh, racism of the worst sort?

Anonymous said...

I've been reading here for months, and I still disagree. The statement was a naive overstatement of racial issues at Duke, but not a premature conviction of the athletes. You all at this blog have convinced yourself that it was, but I'm not sure how many people outside of here believe the same.

Remember -- the statement had little impact. You may see elsewhere some comments that no one really even knew about it until KC and others raised a big stink about it. (And sure, using it in a change-of-venue argument called attention to it as well.)

If someone places a bomb, and the bomb explodes but does nothing OR it doesn’t detonate at all, does that make them less responsible for a crime? No. Whether the ad had impact does not erase its intent nor does it change the context in which it was written. The context was clear. There were students carrying ‘castrate’ signs and banging drums and pots outside of the lacrosse player’s home. The ad ‘thanked’ those students. The words of the ad mean very little without the context of its environment. Furthermore, outside of this statement, certain professors went on to publicly denounce the lacrosse players.

Davidson has specifically said (I believe it was in an e-mail that a commenter posted here) that the "castration" poster left her aghast. But the funny thing is that people here weren't inclined to cut her any slack.

I think this is why the G88 people don't want to answer KC's questions. They know that there's nothing they can say to placate the mob at this point.

If someone in the G88 came out tomorrow and said, "I agree with the Econ department, and I'm sorry for the ad's timing and tone," what would be the response here?

Did it leave her ‘aghast’ enough to write commentary denouncing such behavior? No. And while I don’t believe this audience would allow a G88 to just say “my bad” and move on, I believe everyone here would first thank them for the courage to admit a mistake. No one here is saying that mistakes can’t be made, but don’t insult our intelligence. Explain how that mistake was made. Everyone has to fall on their sword sometimes. But you first have to admit there was a mistake!! This G88 would be a non-issue right now if they’d just stated as much.

Answered on this blog, perhaps. But this blog is selective in what it cites. The Seligmann and Finnerty families have said kind words about Duke in the media. And I'm sure the team hasn't forgotten the support it received from many in the Duke community. Remember the women's team and its wristbands? That might inspire me to come back.
Both families stated that they could not envision sending their children back to Duke. And their words were not very kind on the 60 Minutes interview.
Duke has had some racism in its past. It's gone now, in large part because people spoke up about it. Remember that when judging the G88. They overreacted. They're not evil.

And I'll repeat -- harassing and suing the G88 is political correctness of the worst sort. It is intimidation of an opposing point of view, a point of view that's borne out of legitimate concern for one's fellow man.

I do believe this group is …well, evil is a strong word. But I believe they are hypocrites and truly do not believe in anything they teach. They allow their agendas to trump common sense and decency. And when there is no agenda in play, they doctor one up. These people don’t believe in freedom, they believe in totalitarianism on their terms. Suing this group is warranted, even if a win is not attainable. There need to be repercussions for baiting. These aren’t students, these are professors who are supposed to set an example. They need to be forced to explain themselves, and maybe, hopefully a civil trial will achieve that.

Anonymous said...

Questions for the profs, from someone with only 3 degrees.

1) If the stripper was willing to have the 3 innocent men serve up to 30 years each in jail on the basis of her false accusations, do you support her serving 90 years in jail for making false statements to police?

2) If the DA was willing to have them serve 30 years each, do you support calling for 90 years jail for him?

Anonymous said...

More questions:

1. What have you done to since issuing the first statement to rectify the sexist and racist culture on campus other than issusing another statement?

2. What did you think about the DPD officers who attacked a Black worker in Raleigh and used racial slurs? Did you consider issuing another statement?

3. How did you gather signatures for both statements? Did you send the proposed statement to all Duke professors or just selected professors?

4. What do you think of the DPD policy of agressively seeking out Duke students?

5. Did any of you attempt to discuss the statements made by some of the students to help them deal with the issues? For example, one students stated that when men put their hands on her she begins to question herself. Did anyone speack to this young woman to tell her she needs to work on her self esteem and that when a man touches her in any way she does not like, she should look him in the eye and tell him to remove his hands from her immediately. (This young woman needs some help.)

6. Does your group of signatories comminicate regularly or meet to discuss continued responses or how to improve the culture at Duke?

7. Since you are college professors and some teach English, are you embarassed that your first statement was so widely misinterpreted? I am a professional writer and if my work is not clear, I don't get paid.

8. Has anyone approached the Duke police force to ask if they have a policy of slowing down when they see a Black man on campus? Have any of you experienced or observed this?

9. Does the racist culture on the Duke campus extend to religious views? For example, are Muslims, Jews, or other religious groups treated unfairly?

10. Do yo think collegiate sports add to or detract from the overall culture on campus?

11. Have any administrators appraoched any of you to discuss the first or second statements?

12. Have any of you ever brought the sexist and racist culture at Duke to the attention of Duke adminsitrators prior to the first statement and if so, what was the response?

13. Have any of you ever been the victim of the sexist and racist culture at Duke?

14. Many of you have been at Duke for many years. When did you first notice the sexist and racist culture and what actions did you take?

15. If it's so bad at Duke, why don't you leave?

Anonymous said...

A point I have seldom seen raised is that these are mostly academics in the humanities, which means that they are professionals in the use of language. Davidson for instance has a chair in English.

Is Davidson so incompetent at her chosen work that she can not recognize ambiguity? Is she so unskilled at her chosen work that she is unaware of the rhetorical power of ambiguity?

They were explicitly thanking people for not waiting. The FUNDAMENTAL question is WHAT was NOT worthy of being awaited. Time for reason to assist emotion? Time for evidence to be gathered and assessed? Time for a defense to be made?

If they were so attuned to due process, why did they fail to mention it? Do all 88 need remedial English?

I have no sympathy with people whose profession requires them to use the written word if they complain that their texts are so unclear as to be open to the interpretation that they were, literally but in a politically correct way of course, inciting a lynch mob.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Forgot to sign comment about remedial English

JeffM

Anonymous said...

The person who said there were no good questions offered is a liar. Early in the thread there were 2 kick-ass lists from Cedarford and Clyne.

Everyone should read them. They are devastating.

Anonymous said...

In addition to Cathy Davidson, who and how many of the ad's signatories have been advised by legal counsel of the potential civil liability they each face for the publication of the Ad based on the content that they pretend has been misread?

Anonymous said...

When a member of "your community" is arrested or indicted, you at minimum "HOPE it is not true.

Without the facts, you can only fall back to hope: either that the charges are true, or that they are false.

Having chosen the latter, how can the 88 claim any role in determining the "culture" of a community they abandonded ?

TW

Anonymous said...

This case is captivating because, among other things, the sheer volume and magnitude of stunningly bizzare behavior from supposedly intelligent people in responsible positions. A shocker in a sea of shockers:

How did 50+ members of the G'88 get two dozen non-members to actually endorse the Rump '87 statement? Was coersion used or did you catch them in a weak moment? Were they impaired by drug or alcohol use? How long did you look for the 88th member before deciding to finally publish the statement?

Anonymous said...

Note: I originally posted this under the NAACP post by mistake>


Question for Group of 88.

If you believe this alleged white on black rape is symptomatic of a larger culture of racism and sexual violence on campus, how do you reconcile this with the fact that the vast majority of interracial rapes involving whites and blacks are black on white?

Doesn't the totallity of ALL interracial rape - overwhelmingly black on white - say more about the larger culture than one heavily exploited alleged rape?

Anonymous said...

KC Johnson's second question really highlights the hypocrisy underlying both the original and "clarifying" statements. If the situation at Duke is so bad for women and non-white males, why do women and non-white males (most of whom could obtain positions at other prestigious universities) accept positions on the Duke faculty and how could women and non-white males think that it was appropriate to encourage women and non-white males (most of whom could obtain admission to other prestigious universiteis) to attend Duke?

Anonymous said...

The question about would you recommend females attending Duke considering it is such a dangerous atmosphere was PURE GENIUS.

The 88 make Duke sould like Constantinople circa 1453.

Anonymous said...

re 9:58, ooops

should have been

"Having chosen the [former], how can the 88 claim any role in determining the "culture" of a community they abandonded ?

Anonymous said...

To the 88/87... I'm sure that most of you are well acquainted with NCCU (if not connected with, being just a few miles away).

How do you compare Duke & NCCU in violence, racism, sexism, under age drinking, illicit sex, and attitudes toward justice?

Honest answers only please.

MGM

Anonymous said...

4 black men killed my white cousin becaue he was white, does this make things better for whatever has happened to blacks in the past?

Anonymous said...

"Misread" is the wrong term. It's not the text of the ad that's the problem. It's the environment into which it was thrown.

This discussion would be much better off if ALL parties -- the G88, KC and everyone here -- would realize that.

Anonymous said...

How do you compare Duke & NCCU in violence, racism, sexism, under age drinking, illicit sex, and attitudes toward justice?

Let's not make this about Duke vs. NCCU. At some point, you folks with no ties to Duke or Durham need to ask yourself why you're trying to drag everyone into the crossfire. Some of us from Duke have friends from NCCU, and we'd appreciate it if you wouldn't try to drive a wedge between us.

Besides, there's plenty of underage drinking and illicit sex at Duke. If not, do you think we would have gone there? :)

Duke Alum

Anonymous said...

Bill Anderson:

I see my suggested question at 8:28am re: Project Innocence made it to KC's list.

My apolgies to you, Bill - I should have attributed the question to you, rather than KC. You've made that point forcefully numerous times here and elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

QUESTION FOR THE GROUP: In your statement you claim to "stand firmly by the principle of the presumption of innocence." What then did you expect readers of the ad to infer from your reference to "what happened to this young woman"? Given that she had accused members of the Duke lacrosse team of rape, isn't that the obvious inference, carrying with it implied guilt of some members of the lacrosse team?

Anonymous said...

"In 1925, Junius Wilson, a seventeen-year-old, deaf and mute black man was accused of rape, castrated and remanded for incarceration at Goldsboro by a" lunacy jury." In 1993 the state of North Carolina apologized for having wrongly accused him "when the only thing amiss was his inability to speak and hear."
82 years later, in 2007, it would seem that the group of 88 would have a more educated ability with which to form their opinions of guilt. They are, however, no better equipped to judge than Junius Wilson's "lunacy jury" of 1925.

Anonymous said...

To 10:12

"It's not the text of the ad that's the problem. It's the environment into which it was thrown."

I am sorry, but I cannot disagree more strongly. What the text said was thank you for "not waiting." Of course, it is worse that this inflammatory comment was uttered in the midst of an emotional frenzy. But the comment is at least open to the interpretation that punishment should not wait for due process. It is the strong possibility that that is their true position that is disgusting.

If they did not intend that meaning, they should apologize and, as I said above, take a few courses in remedial English. If they did intend that meaning, they deserve nothing but the contempt and contumely they are receiving. Their failures to (1) provide a credible explanation of what they did mean, (2) leave their original ad in the plain light of day, and (3) exhibit any remorse for exacerbating rather calming hysteria seem to be reasonable grounds for concluding that they were cheerleaders for a lynching.

M. Simon said...

3:58AM,

im-concerned-too.html

*

Anonymous said...

10:34 was mine

I do not believe in anonymous comments.

JeffM

Anonymous said...

To the 88: I'm an older Duke alum but have followed the case very closely. If Duke is so horrible, why stay? You are all so esteemed and could easily find positions elsewhere--why not?

And also--do you feel a speaker such as Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh would have as much right to speak to students as Michael Moore or John Kerry? Isn't the college experience designed to teach students to look at all views and learn to make informed judgments and decisions?

M. Simon said...

rp 2:56AM,

HTML cheat sheet

Anonymous said...

10:19
"we'd appreciate it if you wouldn't try to drive a wedge between us"

The 88/87 have called out Duke as being an abhorrent hotbed of ills, due to the makeup of it's white, elitist student body. A fair question is to ask if Duke is worse off than a nearby university that does not share the same 'causative factors'.

From your reaction, you may have answered the original question yourself.

Anonymous said...

My question to the Rump Group:

"[S]ports reinforces exactly those behaviors of entitlement which have been and can be so abusive to women and girls and those 'othered' by their sports' history of membership,"

-Karla Holloway

Please state your view of the relative threat of abuse toward women posed by team sports compared with the threat posed by rap music.

Anonymous said...

k.c...10:43...we have a winner!

Anonymous said...

k.c...10:43...we have a winner!

Anonymous said...

Sebastian says......

Good job Cedarford re: 3:06am. One has to wonder why Brodhead can do nothing but watch.
There's a good letter in the N&O today by Debrah Correll.

M. Simon said...

8:23AM,

I AM a liberal.

I believe in INDIVIDUAL rights.

I believe in self government.

I believe rights are granted to the government by the people.

Neighborhood Retail Alliance said...

The real interesting question here is whether the group believes that the principles of American jurisprudence need to be re-codified so that the presumption of innocence should only be applied to certain protected clases of people. The logical conclusion of this obviously rhetorical question is that justice will be reduced to the very power matrix that these academics abhor. This is precisely what Coleman understands. It is the Stalinist mindset (read Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance for a wonderful window into this perverted and dangerous worldview)that reduces justice to the "meta-narrative" of the regime's ideology.

Anonymous said...

I am sorry, but I cannot disagree more strongly. What the text said was thank you for "not waiting." Of course, it is worse that this inflammatory comment was uttered in the midst of an emotional frenzy. But the comment is at least open to the interpretation that punishment should not wait for due process. It is the strong possibility that that is their true position that is disgusting.

That's baloney, and deep down, you all realize this.

You have to be deluding yourself -- willfully or otherwise -- to not see a difference between reacting with horror to an alleged crime and the alleged racial comments made at the time to calling for the suspension of due process.

Some people commenting on this blog are doing all the things they accuse the G88 of doing -- rushing to judgment, failing to listen to all the facts and ascribing motive to people they haven't even bleeping met and don't know a damn thing about.

How you all sleep at night is beyond me.

M. Simon said...

Do you believe strippers have a right to earn a living stripping?

Should black strippers entertain white customers?

Anonymous said...

The " Listening Statement" contained this :

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

The latest statement contains this :

" The ad thanked the students speaking individually and...the protesters making collective noise."

Please describe the process that led to the intentional omission .

Anonymous said...

I'll lay 10-1 odds that none of the signatories to either ad/statement attempt to answer these questions. Any takers? All proceeds to go to the legal defense fund for Colin, Reade and David.

dl

Anonymous said...

10:57am M. Simon:

"Should black strippers entertain white customers?"

And... "How often should said black strippers change their underwear (regardless of the race of their audience)?"

;>)

Chicago said...

When it comes to college sports, would you consider yourself a Duke fan? Do you root for the school who pays your income? I am not saying you have to, even if you work there, but I am just curious? Is this rooting limited to basketball?

Chicago said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

To 10:56

I sleep just fine at nights.

You see, I have read the ad. It was signed by, among others, a full professor of English. What it says is "thank you for not waiting." Not waiting for what?

That is not expressing horror; that is encouraging action. There is nothing in the ad noting that the "alleged crime" was merely alleged. (In fact, can anyone sane be horrified by a mere allegation?) One can be horrified by a crime. But that implies that the one horrified believes a crime happened. In their minds, they had already convicted on the basis of gender and race. In short, they were not awaiting due process, but calling for action in advance of due process. If that is not what they meant, they should be apologizing abjectly for their utter incompetence in making their point clear.

Quite frankly, I do believe crimes happened, the first being by a woman who falsely accused three men of a vicious crime and thereby inflicted terrible pain and considerable cost upon those men and their families. You, the 88, and the 87 seem quite comfortable with that particular crime. So I am not much moved by the selective "horror" felt by these self-annointed but inarticulate "people of conscience."

JeffM

Anonymous said...

Dear Groups of 88 and 87:
If racism and sexism did not exist in our society, what you do for a living?

Anonymous said...

Pertaining to absolutely nothing on this thread, but funny as hell nonetheless:

I just saw someone refer to Crystal's cousin as...

Dr. Jakke/Mr. Clyde

Hilarious.

Anonymous said...

The second statement attempts to blame readers of the first statement for its content. If it was widely misinterpreted, it was poorly written and unsubstantiated. It is NEVER, EVER the reader's fault for misinterpreting a document. It is the writer's fault. They should shut up now before it gets worse. They are afraid of law suits and they should be.

Anonymous said...

Must see!

"The RingMassa wonders whether justice will be done down tobacco road."
http://blip.tv/file/134411

(copy and paste url)

MTU '76

Anonymous said...

KC

In question #9 of the second group you mentioned Duke Police singling out students; that's actually the Durham Police, few students have any serious run ins with the Duke Police.

-CR

M. Simon said...

MTU 11:36AM,

blip.tv/file/134411

*

Anonymous said...

Have the 88/87 of you colluded to ensure no mea culpas over the original listening ad or this newer letter? Have there been any threats of recrimination or sanction, professionally or otherwise, to anyone who breaks from the fold?

Anonymous said...

These questions should be in a full page ad in next Sunday's N&O.

Title it:

Now we're listening and we're asking...

It would be picked up in all the mainstream press!

How about setting up an Paypal type account so we all can chip in and pay for it!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said: Some people commenting on this blog are doing all the things they accuse the G88 of doing -- rushing to judgment, failing to listen to all the facts and ascribing motive to people they haven't even bleeping met and don't know a damn thing about.

How you all sleep at night is beyond me.

Are you suggesting we are violating the due process rights of the Group of 88?

Are you or the Group of 88 accused of a crime? Is your liberty or that of the Groups of 88 threatened in some way?

Do we have a greater duty to the Group of 88 to refrain from comment than the Group had its own students?

We are responding to the Group's public comments with comments and questions of our own. This is a public conversation, which the Goup of 88 initiated. If the Group of 88 doesn't like public discussion, why make public comments which obviously invite comments and discussion?

As for ascribing motives to people we haven't met and don't know, you are right. Without the opportunity to meet and speak with these people, we are reduced to reading their writings and deducing their motives based on what they have written, surrounding circumstances, and other patterns of behavior. What method would you suggest we use for assessing motivation?

Some people who post and comment here HAVE had trouble sleeping at night. For months we have believed we were witnessing blatant violations of due process and probably crimes against the three defendants. The MSM, the public at large, and many members of Duke faculty and administration showed no signs they were aware of the issues. Now there are many signs that some members of the aforementioned groups have altered their views to reflect better the publicly disclosed evidence of the case. That does not seem to apply to the Group of 88, however. For them, these defendants seem invisible and their plight of no real concern. Despite that, I, for one, am relieved that prospects for justice in this case seem greatly improved, and as that has improved, so has my sleep!

Observer

P.S. I do not condone vicious e-mails or sentiments directed towards the Group of 88. But I certainly believe in the rights of all to question and comment on the points they have made. Surely, we can agree on that.

Anonymous said...

To KC and other academic legal eagles: from a non-lawyer/retired professor: I have a comment / question regarding question 24 which asks faculty to comment on the behavior of LAX players in the classes they taught. I have always been reluctant to release any specific information about a specific student without a release form signed by the student. There is a specific law relating to this and I have always heard it referred to as the Buckley amendment. Wouldn't professors be on thin ice commenting on the behavior of their past students? Hasn't this blog condemned specific professors for comments they made about students they taught? Of course, we all want specific professors to say nice things about their LAX students in the context of this case, but could this be contrary to the Buckley amendment? Tell me if I am on the wrong track about this issue.

Meme chose said...

You will never pin the faculty down by requesting them to make clear statements. It's like trying to nail jelly to the wall. Everything they have ever said, in their minds, means whatever they want it to mean right now, and is subject to complete reinterpretation five minutes from now.

The place to trip them up is in a court of law.

Anonymous said...

Lets deconstruct.

The alleged perpetrator(s) have no race, no social class, no binding 'group', neither male nor female.

The alleged victim(s) have no race, no social class, no binding 'group', neither male nor female.

Please add descriptors to the above that meet a requirement for calling out a 'social disaster'.

Please add descriptors to the above that make the civil rights of the alleged victim(s) higher than the rights of the alleged perpetrator(s).

Please add descriptors to the above where the group that the perpetrators belong to should be treated to collective punishment, without regard to individual participation in the event.

I could go on...

Anonymous said...

9:45 asks the rumps what they've done since the original statement to address the appalling racistsexistetceteracist atmosphere on their campus.

Their saintly presence does that, don't you see?

Anonymous said...

I would like the group of 88 to confront the campus crime statistics and then revise their notions of endemic racism and sexism on campus. The 'ism' professors generally stay away from numbers as a matter of course because they are "doing theory" - i.e. critical theory a type of discourse that does require evidence for one's views of the use of logic in one's arguments (hence the attacks on logic and to a certain sense mathematics becasue they are "Western" ways of knowing or phalogocentric systems of oppresion - you know -sensless jargon.) As awful as the Duke hoax has been, there may be a silver lining in that it may help expose other accademic frauds like the group of 88 who exist on many campuses. Maybe alums at Duke and other colleges will get wind of the utterly meaningless crap disguised as legitimate scholarship that is allowed on campus and stop giving.

Rodney King's Brain

Anonymous said...

KC- You should seriously consider submitting your first 10 questions to The Chronicle as an Op-Ed piece. If you frame it in terms of questions that are on every Duke student's mind right now, I think you might actually have a good shot at publication.

Anonymous said...

I would like to comment on the following question.

1.) Does race and class require automatic judgements or are we to be judged as individuals?

When I attended a required diversity class, the instructor (an asian american) stated that minorities see themselves as a member of a group (their race or ethnic background) while members of the majority see themselves as individuals. Therefore an accusation against a minority person is seen as an accusation against their entire race, not them as an individual (You are considered to be criticizing them solely because of their race, not because they did something as an individual).

Anonymous said...

For those with trouble sleeping, I suggest Ambien.

Anonymous said...

Group 88/87: Your recent statement makes no reference whatsoever to departments or programs at Duke University. Department affiations of the signers of this statement are not even given. This is in striking contrast to the original ad/listening statement specificaly listing 16 Duke University Departments and progrms that had signed on. Why are there no departments or programs signing onto this statement? Has the original ad, with its apparent sanction by 16 Duke departments and programs, possibly implicated the university in making prejudicial statement against defendants -- who are incidently its own students?

Anonymous said...

Do these lyrics from Bar-Kay's ring a bell?

We're here to move your soul
Just get on up, yeah
Everybody party, come on
Y'all, Let's get started, yeah

Shake your rump to the funk
Shake your rump to the funk
Shake your rump to the funk
Shake your rump to the funk

Anonymous said...

In my Army days, old-timers on the rifle range would say, "Lock and load one round of ball ammunition." The beauty of KC's commentary is that he loads one round and hits every time.

I have been associated with Duke University since 1973 as an employee, student, teacher in the continuing education program, and as an author. I can tell you the Duke campus is not a bastion of sexism or racism (though it does have a surfeit of Marxism).

Minority interests -- women's studies, for example -- cannot demand their legitimacy and share of Duke resources without straw men. The various isms provide nicely.

Fortunately, most Duke professors are professionals -- that is, they keep their isms out of the classroom. The ones who don't are doing enormous damage to Duke's reputation, so carefully cultivated since the halcyon days of Terry Sanford.

Duke deserves a better president than Dick Brodhead, who has been a major disappointment (though in hindsight many of us might say, no surprise there). Duke deserves a better board of trustees, one that speaks against the day and denounces the injustice being visited upon the lacrosse players. Duke deserves an opportunity to refurbish its standing as one of the nations's -- indeed, the world's -- elite universities.

What Duke does not deserve is an enemy within, faculty members who loathe the very source of their comfortable lives and the very students they are paid so handsomely to teach.

Anonymous said...

Have I had trouble sleeping?

Yes, last Spring, when I saw a young man named David Evans home on the weekends. He said he couldn't live in his house or stay in Durham on the weekends because he felt his life was in danger, and these psycho femi-nazis were surrounding his house, screaming and banging pots. He said he had been threatened, so he was home on the weekends. That made me really angry. He said his teachers were saying outrageous things to him as well, and that made me far angrier. A mob has no sense, but professors are expected to have some.

So, I had trouble sleeping. But then I got involved to add a voice to help him out, and now I sleep better. I will rest more comfortably when all charges against him and his friends/teammates are dismissed.

The real reason I post and follow KC, there you have it.

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

Anonymous said...

"How you all sleep at night..." outrageous. As several others have pointed out, had things gone very differently, had the evidence borne out these charges, that exact ad with that exact wording would right now be offered by the 88 as unmistakable proof that they had always been "on the side of the angels" -- IN THIS CASE. Nobody would be claiming ambiguity, or that they were misunderstood, or that they disapproved of some unspecified protests.

The 88 didn't wait; that was their mistake, and perhaps those among them with a conscience, or worried about consequences, have lost a little sleep.

Sadly, I'll wager that's all they ever lose over this. Should be much more.

Anonymous said...

Sorry for my crass posting about Ambien. It was directed at those supporting the 88 not those who supported the LAX players.

Guess I should watch what I say.

Anonymous said...

another question [KC, you need to have at least 1 question addressing the Crystal Mangum problem, including whether the G88 believes she should be seriously punished for her viciousness. I suggest including 1 I wrote that ended with "rectum"]

Question: To the extent that the Listening Statement was easily construed as an indictment of the 3 lacrosse players, did 1/9 of Duke faculty try to railroad their own students beacause of their sex and race? If this is true, should these professors be immediately dismissed from the Duke community?

RP

Anonymous said...

Where are the other 8/9 (excepting Messrs Wilson & Coleman)?.

Lee J. Cockrell said...

I second the motion that you submit this as an Op-Ed to the Chronicle.

I'm really looking forward to the responses to these questions, or lack thereof.

Anonymous said...

re: The Weekly Standard

That was a very hard-hitting article. It didn't cover all of the bases but covering all of the bases in an article is impossible as there's too much that's happened and quite a bit that continues this case.

I do wish that she would have credited the blogs which were the only strong media voice in that long stretch of summer and fall before 60 minutes cracked the tide.

Anonymous said...

KC, I believe I would frame the questions, in order to secure buy-in, with the following:

"Do you agree that the duty of understanding bound to a message always resides with the sender?"

As mentioned elsewhere, these are highly paid professional writers and speakers, are they not?

Anonymous said...

Absolutely, Lee, but wouldn't it be even more fun to pen our own Listening Statement, addressed directly to Brodhead?

RP

Anonymous said...

"Some people commenting on this blog are doing all the things they accuse the G88 of doing -- rushing to judgment, failing to listen to all the facts and ascribing motive to people they haven't even bleeping met and don't know a damn thing about.

How you all sleep at night is beyond me."


With people like KC manning the watch, we sleep much better.

This blog and most of the comments are a reaction to "rushing to judgment". The facts are laid bare. Please, if you have facts to offer, bring them. They will be treated with rigor, and if with merit, will stand with the rest of the facts.

If it looks like the preponderance of opinion on this blog represents a bias towards a lack of facts supporting the felony charges, balance with facts.

Currently, 3 men innocent of felony criminal charges are out on bail still facing those charges in a corrupt judicial system. Until the "Church of Justice" speaks, they are in harms way.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and the truth will set us free.

Anonymous said...

If KC chooses to run an ad I will contribute.

Anonymous said...

One way to raise funds for funding would be to create a pool with the winner selecting the correct dates that the Gang of 88 claim,

1. that THEY are the subjects of a witchhunt...

2. that the campus environment has become over run with McCarthyism...

3. that their workspace has become hostile...

4. Fill in the blank...

Anonymous said...

I've just read the additional questions KC posted. Think they are all good. If I could tweak a few for humor purposes--LOL--I thinks we's gots a documentations

RP

Anonymous said...

From a post-structuralist perspective, the 88 have no right to "privilege" their reading of the text of their ad. Their reading no more has a superior claim to validity than that of any other reader.

Of course, some of us have our doubts about post-structuralism, but I suspect many of the 88 are subscribers.

JeffM

Anonymous said...

1:59 excuse me, I left out "the ad"...funding the ad

Anonymous said...

KC Johnson

Shouldn't one of your questions acknowledge the lower standards in women's and black studies? It's my opinion that lack of intelligence, as much as sexism and racism, explains Professor Lubiano's silly screed.

Duke Mom

Anonymous said...

liestoppers has a link to the Weekly Standard article "Duke's Tenured Vigilantes"

Great

Anonymous said...


Did you mean Coordinated UNiversal Time?

I'm an old mil type. I like Zulu Time.



Ahhh, now I understand why they use that silly French acronym.

Anonymous said...

Tenured Victims. How can you beat that?

Duke's Tenured Vigilantes

"The week before, Brodhead had issued a "letter to the Duke community" that seemed to attempt to mollify the university's critics (including many alumni) who had criticized his peremptory actions against Finnerty and Seligmann. He described suspension as "not a disciplinary measure." Yet the letter seemed even more intent on placating the arts and sciences faculty, whom he described as victims of "blogs and emails" that attacked them "in highly repugnant and vicious terms." Brodhead described the sexual-assault allegations as having raised "troubling questions about sexual violence and racial subjugation." It was back to business as usual at Duke, back to the business of metanarratives."

M. Simon said...

KC,

Honored to have been included in your list.

Simon

M. Simon said...

2:25PM,

I was hoping some one would get it!

Props to you.

Anonymous said...

Could Duke have predicted, back in April, that its name would be dragged through the mud all through 2007?

Because the blogs are abuzz with activity about the Duke Gang of 88's scurrilous behavior, the MSM has to sign on. It can't help itself if it wants to stay relevant.

The simple fact is that the MSM is being led by the nose by (some) blogs.

Anonymous said...

"And finally, what does the lacrosse scandal tell us about power, difference, and raced, classed, gendered and sexed normativity in the US?"

Regarding the above excerpt from the course description of the course on the "hook-up culture" at Duke:

1) If one of my kids said that they were going to spend part of the $40K+/yr. cost of college on a course like this, I'd whup 'em upside the head, figuratively speaking of course. What a colossal waste of money and valuable college credits, as well as an insult to the rest of the academic community to attempt, with a straight face, to devote an entire course to this topic! It's a footnote at best in a larger discussion of things like situational ethics.

2) What does it say about a university that attempts to masquerade as "self-awareness" a blatantly undisguised attempt to feed off the unjust treatment of members of its own community for profit (as it costs any students enrolled in this course a portion of their tuition for the privilege of enrolling.) Talk about eating your own young. I thought human beings considered cannibalism to be taboo.

Anonymous said...

I guess now the Duke 88 will say even the Weekly Standard (article "Duke's Tenured Vigilantes") is out to get them.

What with the Weekly Standard actually citing the facts! How dare they.

Doesn't The Weekly Stanadard know that the Duke 88 are revisionists? The Duke 88 will not let the facts get in the way of a good lynching. Hey they even deleted the orginal Ad from the web servers.

And how bad is it, that a bunch of Duke profs can't get an Ad published in the school paper? You think that might make them wonder.

Anonymous said...

MS,

Extremely helpful link.

John Waters, of "Pink Flamingos" fame, is the only person I can think of--perhaps with the exception of the Coen brothers--to tell this story.

Now that the boys are on the cusp of full exoneration, the Duke rape hoax can finally be judged--as a comedy.

The Duke 88 are the schlimael; Duke parents and alumni are the schlimazel.

Are there any statisticians willing to compose a mathematical model representing the harm the Listening Statement, etc did to Duke's reputation?

RP

Michael said...

re: 12:54

[When I attended a required diversity class, the instructor (an asian american) stated that minorities see themselves as a member of a group (their race or ethnic background) while members of the majority see themselves as individuals. Therefore an accusation against a minority person is seen as an accusation against their entire race, not them as an individual (You are considered to be criticizing them solely because of their race, not because they did something as an individual).]

Perhaps true for some people in minority groups but I doubt that it is homogeneous.

Those that are successful probably want to associate their success with their personal achievements; not group achievements.

And those that are of the type to admit and learn from their mistakes do so in an individual way (as this is a somewhat rare attribute) instead considering it as "group healing".

I don't think that the race of the presenter is necessarily that big a deal. She was probably just trained using materials that anyone could teach from whether they believed it or not.

Anonymous said...

Does the following quote from Dr. Thomas Gold ring any bells? "Most men...can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven thread by thread into the fabric of their lives."

Anonymous said...

sorry, I misspelled "schlimiel"

Anonymous said...

I am posting this again because you people might want to "Holla at your boy."

http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-videos_20.html

The Duke Rape Case
by Hollaback TV

Comment by someone I know:
This should be required viewing in the mandatory Bill of Rights Sensitivity Training imposed as part of the sanctions against the Durham DA, PD, Mayor, Duke U prez, near 100 professors, untold students, Crystal, the State of NC, mainstream and alternative media fraudsters, and "community" "leaders" everywhere. Massafully done, message perfect.
— Ebony Bandera

MTU'76

Anonymous said...

"When I attended a required diversity class, the instructor (an asian american) stated that minorities see themselves as a member of a group (their race or ethnic background) while members of the majority see themselves as individuals. Therefore an accusation against a minority person is seen as an accusation against their entire race, not them as an individual (You are considered to be criticizing them solely because of their race, not because they did something as an individual)."

This is lame. Thankfully, everybody truly is different, and the statement "an accusation against a minority person is seen as an accusation against their entire race, not them as an individual" is an interesting opinion.

Please, world, do blame the individual for believing this hog-wash, but not the "entire race." Most people are just like you, and value their individuality.

The crap you end up hearing is the filtered whining of the evil and the weak.

Anonymous said...

Professor KC,

A poster, RP, suggested that you need to have a question concerning the prime mover in this charade, Crystal Mangum.

RP is 100% correct. The G88 wanted to convict our sons. Now that the truth's out, the fate of Mangum should be a question you submit for their consideration (thank you, Rod Serling).

Duke Law Grad

Anonymous said...

to 2:58pm.

"People occasionally stumble upon the truth, but generally pick themselves up and carry on".

Winston Churchill.

KC, As you are aware, your ten questions are ones in which you will never get a straight answer. Any of the multitude that the posters have offered will also sadly remain unanswered. I suspect the group of 88 will proffer some type of "contextual" response, however they will never truthfully answer your questions in a direct manner. Their arrogance, educational level and tenure has disabled their quest for the truth. Intellectual vanity prevents them from taking responsibility for their disingenuous and downright dishonest actions.

I suspect the only way to "force" the painful truth on these people is through civil action and the subsequent discovery process.


Orange Lazarus

Anonymous said...

Good point, Orange Lazarus

Perhaps someone from the 88 would be willing to debate KC Johnson?

You'd be amazed how easy it is to get stupid people to do your bidding--LOL

Anonymous said...

"John Waters, of "Pink Flamingos" fame, is the only person I can think of--perhaps with the exception of the Coen brothers--to tell this story.

RP 2:53pm"

I don't about using John Waters, Babs Divine is dead. Who would play Cathy Davidson ?

Anonymous said...

1:37 - That was not directed at you. It was directed to the G-88 supporters who created such a poisinous atmosphere at Duke, with their blessing, that a kid was forced to travel 300+ miles to enjoy physical safety.

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

Anonymous said...

What exactly are the members of the G88/87 supposed to say? "Whoops, we supported the criminals (Nifong/FA/DPD/Vigilantes) by mistake"? I think not.

Anonymous said...

RP - The word is schlemiel. Don't bother using a dictionary. Use a mirror.

Anonymous said...

If the Duke Lacrosse players were black and the stripper white, would you feel differently about this case?

Anonymous said...

What exactly are the members of the G88/87 supposed to say? "Whoops, we supported the criminals (Nifong/FA/DPD/Vigilantes) by mistake"? I think not.

3:33 PM "

Actually, that would be the brilliantly honest thing to do. Very Simple really. But as I said before their intellectual vanity won't allow them to say what every 5 year old knows. 88 cowards IMHO.

Orange Lazarus

Anonymous said...

The Baltimore Sun woke up, but with the slant of just blame Nifong, Duke was under pressure to throw its students under the bus:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/college/lacrosse/bal-te.sp.duke20jan20,0,161238.story?page=2&coll=bal-sports-headlines

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

BuddyOne said...

Can a parent justify the expense of a Duke education? How badly must you hate your child to send her/him to such place?

Anonymous said...

3:40 Orange

I was being sarcastic...of course they should just come out and say that.

Off Topic-

Is this new? Prosecutor in Duke Lacrosse Case Hires Well-known Lawyers:

"Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, who was taken off the high-profile case earlier this month, has retained Winston-Salem lawyers David Freedman and Dudley Witt. The attorneys, law partners for 18 years, are known for defending lawyers facing professional misconduct charges."

I did not know about Witt. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

The Baltimore Sun link

Players' parents turn anger at Duke

Anonymous said...

thanks for the erratum, 3:38

That snide mirror remark hurt my feelings.

Do you think you could make it to Manhattan to comfort me?

Perhaps we could get naked and have a sword fight?

RP

Anonymous said...

How do you reconcile your status as college professors, and the expectation of having the respect of your students with the belief that Reade Seligmann is the bogeyman?

No, seriously. If you REALLY believe Seligmann is capable of sexually assaulting a stripper while taking money out of an ATM on the other side of town, one assumes you think he's the bogeyman.

While I'm at it, do you check under your beds and in your closets for Seligmann too?

Anonymous said...

More DIW fun via the fabulous Wilmington Journal.

In an editorial they say they EXPECT the AG to be thorough. Yeah right!

First they start with an implied threat:

“And don’t worry. We’re paying absolutely no attention at all to all of those internet rumors about how your handling of the Duke case is really a shill for acting as if you’re really re-investigating, when in fact, you’re just going to stall for two months so that you won’t tee-off the African-American community.

We don’t believe that for a minute.

After all, as a Democrat, just like Mike Nifong, you need the Black vote for any future political aspirations.

Rumors are you want to dump this case faster than you can say “Joe Cheshire’s nose,” but you can’t do it too fast or else the “colored folks” will get mad and hold it against you.”

Yep! Don’t do what we tell you and we’ll ruin your career.

Next the brilliant editors at the WK pretend to know something about the law and show they know less than an average 15 year old in Civics class:

“You see, Mr. Attorney General, save for the three captains who lived at the house where that perverted, underage drunken Duke lacrosse team off-campus party took place, none of the other 30 or more players and/or guests who reportedly attended that soiree’ have ever given Durham police investigators or the Durham District Attorney’s Office a signed statement as to exactly what happened.”

It completely escapes them that most witnesses to incidents don’t give “signed statements”. But things get better:

“So surely all of these brave, upstanding, fine young leaders of tomorrow – many of whom engaged in, all together now, “a drunken, perverted party” where they peed off the patio and railed against two Black strippers because the players’ raucous behavior scared the daylights out of them – are relieved, and will now graciously, and willingly, sit down with SBI agents and, for the very first time in ten long months, actually truthfully tell what they saw and heard.

Under threat of obstructing justice, of course.”

These idiots don’t even know that there is NO legal requirement to EVER talk to the cops or any other investigator. The ONLY way to compel witness testimony is to subpoena them to a grand jury. That’s it! The ONLY way someone gets in trouble for “obstructing justice” is to lie to the cops.

Of course, we’ve already had a grand jury hearing that resulted in indictments. So to subpoena somebody, you’d have to come up with a whole new crime to investigate.

It hard to believe that these WJ clowns could be that stupid. If they are not that stupid, they’re setting up things for the future. They KNOW that the kids are not going to talk to the cops again. Nobody in their right mind would. The WJ might know that the AG knows that too. So they try to force his hand – under the “black vote” threat. They try to force him into having investigators request an interview with the other kids. The AG can then say that investigators tried to talk to the kids and they refused. There you go: “The kids are covering something up.”

They even want MORE “crime” investigated:

“You can’t play games with this, Mr. Cooper. Those boys must talk if you’re doing a full and transparent investigation. You have to be willing to also charge anyone else who may have committed a crime (like who went into the accuser’s bag and took the $400.00 in cash she was just paid? After careful and deliberate research of laws in at least 80 nations, including this one, we believe that that’s generally called a ROBBERY!!!”.

Maybe that’s the NEW CRIME that the WJ would want investigated through an empanelled grand jury. Then any kid would, under advice of counsel, simply invoke the 5th, again for good reason considering what happened to their 3 friends. That would be followed of a ”leak” of the grand jury hearing. Once again the WJ, Holloway, et al would scream “cover up”.

So we’re left with 2 possibilities. Either the WJ people are just total idiots or they’re trying to stoke the fires for more race baiting.

Anonymous said...

Link to WJ:

href="http://wilmingtonjournal.blackpressusa.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=75485&sID=34">Wilmington
Journal

Anonymous said...

3:32

re "who will play Cathy Davidson"

How about Quentin Tarantino, or John Goodman?

Cathy is an extremely erotic woman, like our dear Precious. Literally dripping with enthusiasm.

RP

Anonymous said...

I botched that link.

go to

wilmingtomjournal.com

Click on OpEd

Michael said...

re: 3:47

[Coleman suggested that the parents' anger might be better directed at Nifong.

"The question is, what was the obligation of the university when a district attorney is saying a gang rape occurred?" Coleman said. "He basically invited the public to condemn the whole team. I just think the university was in a difficult sort of place and had to be very careful and very measured."

While Brodhead has been singled out for criticism, some parents also fault 88 Duke faculty members who endorsed a petition in April challenging the university to explore racism and sexual assault.

Fogarty said the group used the lacrosse case "as a platform for their own agenda." Other parents have derided the 88 as "politically correct liberals."

But Coleman said: "I don't think the faculty members who basically expressed concern in that petition had to be liberal at all. If you believe what the prosecutor said happened, then conservatives or libertarians would have been concerned, too."]

It appears that Coleman is doing a little damage control for the University. It may be that he was quoted out of context. Personally I think that anyone that looked at the evidence that was out in mid-spring should have been able to determine that there was a high likelyhood that CGM's claims were false.

Those with the title "Professor" like the 88, should be in the crowd of the more discerning. Instead of the ostrich crowd.

Anonymous said...

The accuser has committed multiple criminal offenses. She has a history of serious mental health problems and a less than honorable discharge from the military. Is it inconceivable to you that when informed by police that she would be taken to a 24-hour lockup, such an individual would fabricate a story to avoid such a fate?

[The relevant quote, in the accuser's own words: "The Police came to Kroger and it was hard for me to talk and I couldn't walk. They (police) said I was drunk and they were going to put me in a 24 hours lockup. They took me to a place where there were 5-6 other police cars. I talked with an officer Jones and hold her what happened and she said she would get me help. They (police) took me from that place to Duke hospital."]

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