The Company He Keeps

The Duke Chronicle confirms the story first reported in the N&O: perennial fringe candidate Victoria Peterson is co-chair and founding member of Mike Nifong’s citizens’ committee. She met with Nifong before creating the organization; the district attorney told reporters, “I was very pleased. It made me feel good.” Highlighting Peterson’s penchant for peculiar pronouncements, blogger John in Carolina termed the development a “campaign disaster” for Nifong.

Two of Peterson’s actions in this case raise serious concerns about Nifong’s accepting her as co-chair of his citizens’ committee. On April 11, the day after defense attorneys revealed that the DNA tests that Nifong had promised would “immediately rule out any innocent persons" matched none of the lacrosse players, Peterson spoke out at a forum held on the NCCU campus. She offered a novel rationalization for the DNA results: Duke University hospital had “tampered with” the sample.

Peterson, of course, is entitled to any opinion she wants, no matter how bizarre. But law enforcement officials usually shy away from people who peddle wild conspiracy theories that undermine public confidence in the judicial system. It’s even rarer to see a district attorney express joy at such a figure co-chairing his citizens’ committee. Think back to the assertions of former White House press secretary Pierre Salinger after the TWA Flight 800 crash a decade ago. Can anyone imagine, in the following year’s New York City elections, Manhattan D.A. Robert Morganthau or mayoral candidate and former U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani terming themselves “very pleased” or saying it “made me feel good” to have a conspiracy theorist like Salinger running their campaign’s citizens’ committee?

Nifong’s acceptance of a prominent role for Peterson in his campaign seems to conflict with the state bar ethics committee’s assigning district attorneys “the responsibility of a minister of justice and not simply that of an advocate; the prosecutor's duty is to seek justice, not merely to convict.” Obviously, elected district attorneys always face tensions between their job’s political and legal requirements. But affiliating with a figure who publicly suggested a conspiracy by medical officials to alter evidence in a case he’s handling suggests that Nifong has abandoned all pretense of serving as “minister of justice.”

Peterson’s other signficant case-related event came on May 1, when she was one of two people to flank Malik Zulu Shabazz during his public appearance in Durham. The head of the New Black Panther Party demanded the immediate imprisonment of the accused lacrosse players. To return to the state bar’s ethics requirements, the guidelines say that the minister of justice “responsibility carries with it specific obligations to see that the defendant is accorded procedural justice.” It’s hard to see how any prosecutor who took that requirement seriously could welcome a co-chair of his citizens’ committee who gave her public backing to a demand for imprisonment even before a trial.

As with her speculation about DNA, Peterson has the right to associate with anyone she wants, no matter how reprehensible his views. But how could a “minister of justice” say it “made me feel good” to have a citizens’ committee co-chair that he knew also had publicly endorsed the head of an organization that both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center deem a hate group?

Nifong’s acceptance of Peterson as his citizens’ committee co-chair continues his pattern of inexplicable behavior toward the New Black Panthers. Two issues particularly stand out.

1. In his court hearing in May, Reade Seligmann received a death threat from a member of the New Black Panthers party, who sat directly behind him in the courtroom. What did Durham County’s “minister of justice” do? Nothing. (One observer even said he smiled.) To my knowledge, Nifong has never publicly condemned the death threat, much less promised to investigate it.

2. At a time when he was regularly refusing to speak with defense attorneys, Nifong accepted a call from Shabazz. Though he claimed to have used the occasion merely to urge Shabazz to “consider not coming,” the New Black Panther head asserted that two discussed the case at some length. It seems strange that Nifong would talk to Shabazz but refuse to meet before the indictment with Seligmann’s attorney, Kirk Osborn, to discuss what Osborn maintained was evidence to prove his client’s innocence. After all, Nifong had no obligation to speak to Shabazz, while the state bar’s ethics code mandated that he “not intentionally avoid pursuit of evidence merely because he or she believes it will damage the prosecutor's case or aid the accused.”

Nifong, of course, cannot control what Victoria Peterson says or does. But he can control whether he publicly welcomes the backing of a figure with such a record. Since he instead expressed joy at Peterson’s involvement in his campaign, it’s time for editorialists in North Carolina to start asking the district attorney some hard questions.

1. Will Nifong repudiate the DNA theories of his citizens’ committee co-chair?
2. Will Nifong explain how he could be “very pleased” to have a citizens’ committee co-chair who appeared on the platform when a hate group visited Durham?
3. Will Nifong, at long last, start serving as a “minister of justice” and publicly condemn a death threat that occurred as he stood not 20 feet away in the courtroom?

Race, Racism, and the Case

This case began with one unequivocally racist act: a lacrosse player, as part of a racially charged, post-party argument with Kim Roberts, shouting the n-word. In her interview with 60 Minutes, Roberts made clear she provoked the comment; she equally, and correctly, made clear that using the word was unacceptable in any circumstance. A second player, as was widely reported at the time, made the “cotton shirt” comment—a tasteless rip-off of a Chris Rock joke.

Since March 14, race and racism have played a consistent, and sometimes depressingly noticeable, role in this case. In the Wilmington Journal, Cash Michaels has frequently quoted from anonymous racist e-mails that he has received; on the Duke campus, Karla Holloway has claimed to have received similar e-mails. Anonymous e-mails of any type, it seems to me, should be criticized; racist emails are contemptible.

That said, I’ve received dozens of anonymous, race-baiting e-mails since starting this blog; I don’t consider those e-mails any more representative of the Group of 88’s thinking than I would consider anonymous racist e-mails to reflect the mindset of the Group’s critics.

Beyond the one lacrosse player and these anonymous e-mails, however, evidence of anti-black racism as applied to this case has been difficult to discern. In her controversial N&O op-ed, Cathy Davidson claimed that the Group of 88 reacted to racist statements defending the three players Mike Nifong ultimately targeted. She stated,

The ad said that we faculty were listening to the anguish of students who felt demeaned by racist and sexist remarks swirling around in the media and on the campus quad in the aftermath of what happened on March 13 in the lacrosse house.

The insults, at that time, were rampant. It was as if defending David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann necessitated reverting to pernicious stereotypes about African-Americans, especially poor black women.

I’ve spoken to dozens of people at Duke, and have received a consistent reaction: none are aware of any defenses, much less racist ones, of the three players between March 24 and April 6, when the Group of 88’s statement appeared. More broadly, I have struggled to find a record of anyone who was aggressively defending any of the lacrosse players “on the campus quad” between March 24 and April 6, much less anyone who was doing so by “reverting to pernicious stereotypes about African-American women.”

It is deeply unfortunate that Davidson elected to trivialize real instances of racism—of which there are far too many in American society—by seeming to invent episodes of racist behavior by Duke students to justify the Group of 88’s dubious conduct.

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Over the past ten months, we have witnessed public instances of racist behavior, most of which has passed unrebuked, certainly by people like the Group of 88.

1.) Double-standard racism.

Two examples:

i.) After welcoming to Durham the New Black Panthers, certified as a hate group by both the SPLC and the ADL, Victoria Peterson was personally celebrated by Mike Nifong after she signed on as chair of his “citizens’ committee.” To my knowledge, this action received no rebuke from any prominent Durham black leader, from the state NAACP, from the black press, or from a member of the Group of 88.

Imagine the opposite: an allegation of black-on-white crime prompted a visit from the KKK, and the chair of the DA’s “citizens’ committee” had shared the platform with the KKK Grand Dragon. Does anyone think Durham’s black leadership, the state NAACP, the black press, and the Group of 88 would have remained silent?

ii.) Karla Holloway, then-chair of the “race subgroup” of the Campus Culture Initiative, published an article condemning the women’s lacrosse players and suggesting that Nifong’s critics were arguing that “white innocence means black guilt.” Her remarks passed without rebuke from anyone at Duke, and she remained in her CCI position until last week, when she resigned to protest the lifting of Reade Seligmann’s and Collin Finnerty’s suspensions.

Imagine the opposite: after an allegation of black-on-white crime and a DA who engaged in the same type of misconduct that Nifong has, a right-of-center white professor tasked with improving “campus culture” published an article suggesting that the DA’s critics believed that “black innocence means white guilt.” Does anyone think the administration wouldn’t have immediately demanded the professor’s resignation as “race subgroup” chair?

2.) Conspiracy of silence.

Over the past several months, several Durham African-Americans of some prominence have made blatantly racist remarks. Last spring, NCCU student Chan Hall demanded that Duke students be prosecuted “whether it happened or not,” to provide “justice for things that happened in the past.” Just after the election, Nifong supporter and former Durham Democratic Party official Harris Johnson rejoiced that the result showed “that justice can’t be bought by a bunch of rich white boys from New York.” And later in November, Greg Childress, a member of the Herald-Sun editorial staff, wondered why people cared so much about innocent whites.

With Nifong himself so frequently resorting to race-baiting rhetoric, it’s little surprise that such remarks occurred in Durham. It is surprising, however, that, to my knowledge, no prominent Durham leader publicly distanced themselves from the comments. At NCCU, far from experiencing condemnation on campus, Hall was elected a junior-class senator this year, and was runner-up for Speaker of the NCCU Student Government. Cash Michaels published a piece explaining away Johnson’s comments. Durham mayor Bill Bell, City Manager Patrick Baker, NAACP “case monitor” Irving Joyner, and the African-American members of the Group of 88 all remained silent regarding the statements of Hall, Johnson, and Childress.

Does anyone believe that we would have seen such a reaction if a leading white member of Duke’s student government, a former GOP city official, and a white member of the H-S editorial staff had uttered the reverse of the Hall/Johnson/Childress comments?

3.) Unthinking racism.

A recent article by Gregory Kane on Black America Web illustrates the approach. In mocking terms, he described himself as unaffected by Nifong’s decision to drop the rape charges against the targeted Duke students. Kane was “compelled to write about how I’m so not feeling any sympathy for these guys. I say again, they got off easy.”

Why, says Kane? Because 23 years ago, a black man named Calvin Johnson was falsely accused of rape. Kane claims that no one in the media paid attention when Johnson was charged, or when an all-white jury in Georgia convicted him. (DNA tests—of the type, of course, that Nifong intentionally withheld in this case—set Johnson free.) Johnson spent 16 years in prison, Kane sneers, “while those poor, oppressed Duke lacrosse players have been walking around free on bail.”

“Those who continue to defend” the Duke players, concludes Johnson, “can holla at me after they’ve done 16 years on a jive humble charge.”

In other words: because black people in the South have been wrongly convicted in the past, it is wrong to worry if whites, or Asians, or Hispanics are railroaded for political reasons today. The contempt that Kane feels for the Duke students, just because of who they are, is palpable.

There’s no question that innocent people are wrongfully convicted as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. There’s also no question that those so affected are disproportionately poor and minorities.

If the abuses in the Calvin Johnson case—or any case handled by the Innocence Project—had come to light during or before the trial, would a media and popular outcry have been justified? According to Kane’s logic, no. Because innocent blacks have spent years or decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, others should experience the same fate. This line of argument is perverse.

Kane’s basic viewpoint has appeared with depressing frequency throughout this case. On Friday’s Paula Zahn broadcast, black talk show host Joe Madison asserted, “I’m not crying tears over these guys.” On campus, political science professor and Group of 88 member Paula McClaim—who had previously rationalized Nifong’s behavior and claimed that the administration’s approach to the lacrosse was “depressing and demoralizing for [African-American] faculty”—was asked over the summer whether she would speak out in favor of due process for the three players. Her one-word answer: “NO.”

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Remember, again, what occurred in this case: a prosecutor deliberately exploited racial tensions, and profited politically from doing so. On this day, of all days, that record should outrage everyone.

NPR: Our Side Is the Right Side

Yesterday’s post examined NPR’s one-sided handling of the lacrosse case between March 29, 2006 and the indictments of Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty. Today’s will focus on how NPR handled lacrosse matters from late April until the end of the case.

Two reporters dominated NPR’s coverage after the first two indictments: Juan Williams and Adam Hochberg.

For Morning Edition on April 26, 2006, Williams interviewed three students at NCCU, where, he said, “this story is what everyone’s talking about in class and around campus. The accuser [Crystal Mangum] goes to school here.”

Williams did not seem to consider it odd that neither he nor, it seems, any other reporter could ever find a student who had taken a class with Mangum, or a professor who had ever taught Mangum.

The three NCCU students provided Williams with a litany of extremist statements—which he featured without criticism or balance in his report.

In a comment eerily reminiscent of the one made a few days before by student government leader Chan Hall, senior Shauniste Duvance remarked that “people want to support her because, you know, she’s a black female and they want to see justice done . . . Nobody knows for a fact if she’s telling the truth or if she’s lying, but either way, people are like, we want to support her regardless of if she’s telling the truth or not.”

Junior Jerelly Dawson that “it’s kind of like a black against white thing, and then, just taking our own side. Like, kind of, you protect your family members, you’re not, don’t want to see what’s happening on the other side. You just want to keep that family kind of tight.”

Senior Anissa Holmes expressed the point in a different way: “The difference between NCCU versus Duke is white versus black. And wealthy versus, I don’t want to say poor, because, you know.”

Imagine how an NPR reporter would have responded to white Duke students publicly promising to stand by Reade Seligmann “regardless of if he’s telling the truth or not,” because “it’s kind of like a black against white thing.”

NPR returned to the case a week later, after the Coleman Committee report was released. The report made it perfectly clear that members of the team drank much too much. But, by May 1, 2006, this item had been repeatedly established, in print by the N&O, and over and over again on the cable news networks. The new revelations in the report centered on how a team portrayed as a bunch of racist, misogynist hooligans by much of the national media (including, of course, NPR) in fact consisted of good students who had strong support from women at Duke, no documented record of sexist or racist behavior, and a good record of community service.

Adam Hochberg, however, mentioned none of these items. His summary of the Coleman Committee’s findings: “Even before Duke lacrosse players held their raucous spring break party, the team had a disciplinary record that faculty leaders call deplorable. A month-long university investigation of the team found a pattern of misconduct dating back several years, involving property damage, theft, and other offenses, both on and around Duke’s Durham, North Carolina, campus.”

He did manage to concede that the report “gave something of a vote of confidence to Duke’s troubled lacrosse program.” In fact, the committee was unequivocal that the program should be restored.

Hochberg covered Dave Evans’ indictment by again terming the party as “raucous.” In a peculiar editorial judgment, his report also gave less airtime to Evans’ statement on the courthouse steps—a turning-point event in public perceptions of the case—than to the race-baiting remarks of Victoria Peterson.

In his piece, Hochberg introduced Peterson as “an activist in Durham’s black community,” neglecting to point out Peterson’s background as a homophobe, her public claim that Duke Hospital had tampered with the DNA evidence, her decision to welcome the New Black Panthers to Durham, or her publicly advocating burning down the lacrosse house. Would most NPR listeners have considered such behavior covered by the description “an activist in Durham’s black community”?

Meanwhile, throughout April into May, NPR all but ignored Kirk Osborn’s bombshell motion revealing Seligmann’s airtight alibi. It ignored the release of the lineup transcript showing that Nifong had ordered the police to violate their own procedures and confine the lineup to suspects. Defense motions showing that Mangum had changed her story many times likewise received no play.

But NPR did devote considerable attention to Kim Roberts, who sat down for a one-on-one interview with Juan Williams in a June 14, 2006 broadcast. Parts of the transcript read as if Williams, not Roberts, was actually recalling events from the party:

WILLIAMS: And you have called the escort service . . .

ROBERTS: Yep.

WILLIAMS: . . . say, “We’re here, everything’s cool.”

ROBERTS: Everything’s good, you know. We feel safe.

WILLIAMS: Okay, so, from the back of the house, the two of you go inside.

ROBERTS: Mm-hmm.

WILLIAMS: And are subjected to, like, racial stuff or lewd suggestions.

ROBERTS: Right.

WILLIAMS: Then you go out; you decide, I’m uncomfortable.

ROBERTS: Right.

WILLIAMS: And leave.

ROBERTS: Yep.

Williams never said exactly when the racial comments occurred—and the cagey Roberts didn’t offer any clarity—thereby leaving the false impression that the comments could have taken place while Seligmann (and Collin Finnerty) were still at the party.

The broadcast also highlighted Roberts’ temporary tilt toward Nifong: “I can never say that a rape did or did not occur; that’s for the courts to decide. I didn’t see it happen, you know. But what I can say is that there was opportunity and that it could have happened. You have to entertain the fact that it’s possible it didn’t, but it’s possible it did.”

At the end of the interview, Williams did mention that defense attorneys had filed a motion in which Roberts had termed the allegation a “crock.” But he didn’t ask Roberts about that remark. Nor did he ask her about—or even mention—the discrepancies between what Roberts told him in the interview and the versions of events presented in her official statement to police. Kirk Osborn had made the statement public well before Williams interviewed Roberts, so the NPR reporter could not credibly claim not to have seen it.

Between March 29 and May 15, the network ran 20 reports or interviews, almost all of which framed the case through the lens of race, class, and gender. Then, from July 12 through December 22—as Nifong’s case crumbled for all the world to see—NPR ignored events in Durham. On December 23, the day after Nifong dropped the rape charges, Scott Simon allowed that the accused players might well be innocent. But, he quickly added, they certainly were “boars and oafs.” He offered no grounds to substantiate his attack on Evans, Finnerty, and Seligmann.

It was not until December 28, 2006—the day the State Bar filed ethics charges against Nifong—that NPR interviewed anyone critical of Nifong’s behavior, when my colleague Stuart Taylor sat down with Melissa Block. People who received their news solely from NPR must have been mystified by the turn of events.

Even as the case wound down, the slant remained in place. On March 1, the network brought together three people to discuss the almost comically biased CCI report. The invited panel? CCI vice-chair Larry Moneta; CCI student member Trisha Bailey, and Group of 88 favorite Janet Reitman of Rolling Stone. Critics of the CCI—whether Student Government president Elliot Wolf, or Chronicle columnists Kristin Butler or Stephen Miller, or signatories to the Economics Department public letter—were not welcome. NPR listeners would never have known that a majority of the campus appeared to greet the report unfavorably.

Hochberg fittingly concluded NPR’s coverage of the case in his report on the post-exoneration press conference (which he described as “long” and “sometimes bitter”). Stated he, “Defense lawyers said the players are not proud of throwing the party, which included not only the strippers, but underage drinking, threats of violence, and an exchange of racial slurs.”

The comment was doubly inaccurate. Not only were no threats of violence that whole night, but Hochberg’s wording implied that the defense lawyers themselves had admitted that there were threats of violence at the party.

Asked for evidence to substantiate Hochberg’s claim, Andi Sporkin, NPR’s Vice President for Communications, replied, “Your use of the isolated soundbite does not include its context in the larger NPR News piece - which was, in fact, about the clearing of these false charges . . . NPR stands by Adam's report.”

There has been no public review by NPR of its coverage of the lacrosse case. Though the network has an ombudsman, the post has been vacant since last fall.

Hat tip: B.S.

Paula Zahn Cracks the Case

Paula Zahn Now [is] an issues-driven program offering live newsmaker interviews and meaningful discussion and analysis from an exclusive roster of contributors.
--CNN homepage

Throughout this case, I’ve tried to stay abreast of the major cable news programs that have provided coverage—the Abrams Report in the initial months, Hannity&Colmes and Greta more recently. Friday night, however, I watched “analysis” of Mike Nifong’s recusal from CNN’s Paula Zahn Now.

To discuss the event, Zahn invited Joe Madison, an African-American radio talk show host from Washington, D.C.; syndicated columnist Miguel Perez, whose website archive suggests that he specializes in immigration policy; and Michael Gross, whom the CNN transcript described as a “constitutional attorney.”

As far as I could determine, none of the three had previously commented in public on the case, nor was there anything in their background to suggest particular expertise on the matter.

The group produced a several-minutes discussion that made the Durham Herald-Sun look fair and balanced by comparison. Prosecutorial misconduct? The importance of due process and authorities following proper procedure? Concerns about making legal decisions for political reasons? The guests had no interest.

What did Zahn and her cohort talk about?

Madison informed viewers that “the bottom line is, something happened there.” Therefore, he continued, “I’m not crying tears over these guys.”

What occurred? “These white guys hired a black woman. You are going to tell me that, in—out in Duke [sic], you couldn’t have found a white stripper, a white prostitute? They were there—race was a factor.” (I heard the talk show host say “pretty white stripper” during the live broadcast, but the adjective didn’t appear in the transcript.)

Did Madison know that the captain asked for white dancers? Apparently not.

Did Zahn? Apparently not.

Had either been paying attention to the case since mid-April? Apparently not.

Zahn did, however, aggressively note that she would broadcast live from Durham on Tuesday, where she would be moderating a forum on race.

“Constitutional attorney” Gross provided even more outrageous commentary than did Madison. Yes, he conceded, the accuser had changed her story—but “Abner Louima’s story changed,” too. (Louima was the Haitian immigrant who was brutally assaulted by two New York City police officers.)

In Gross’ version of events, the players not only wanted black dancers—but they “hired a known prostitute for sex(!).” Apparently unaware of the latest batch of motions in the case or even Reade Seligmann’s public announcement of his minute-by-minute alibi in a May 1 motion, Gross asserted, “We haven’t heard from any of them as to what they did. We have only heard: I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me. I didn’t rape her.”

The “constitutional attorney” did express his concern that a “rush to judgment” had occurred—against the “one victim, who is all alone, who has got a lousy reputation.”

Compared to his fellow panelists, Perez seemed like a member of the Supreme Court bar. He admitted that many people seemed to think that Nifong based his actions on political motives, but downplayed the idea. “How could he take such a weak case, or a case that really wasn’t all together,” Perez mused, “and try to make political hay out of it?”

None of the panelists appeared aware that the case emerged several weeks before a hotly contested primary in which Nifong needed black votes. Zahn gave no evidence that she understood this issue either.

In a case where we’ve seen copious irresponsible media speculation, Zahn’s Friday program stood out. The CNN personality gave a forum to guests who clearly knew next to nothing about the case, and then allowed them to make misstatements of fact and outrageous comparisons while ignoring the unprecedented event of a DA’s forced recusal because of ethics allegations. Viewers might have expected this sort of “commentary” on March 29, when the Group of 88 started putting together its ad. But surely we can expect more now, as new facts have emerged.

Zahn had sparingly covered Duke matters for months, but she did feature several segments in the spring. At that time, she often welcomed the ready-to-slander Wendy Murphy, who complained in May about how people didn’t care “about the privacy rights of the Duke rape victim, who faced a subpoena by the defense team [that was] truly invasive. I guess we only care about privacy rights for criminals, huh?” The previous month, the former prosecutor (incorrectly) informed CNN viewers that Kim Roberts claimed the accuser “was stone-cold sober when they got there . . . I don’t think there’s any evidence that she was either drugged or under the influence of alcohol.” Zahn offered no correction.

CNN changes its format every six months or so, but in the network’s current approach, Zahn and Anderson Cooper (on two hours later) function as anchors, heavy on personal empathy and good looks, but light on overt editorializing, at least on controversial matters.

Yet, over and over again in the spring, Zahn sounded like a paid mouthpiece for Nifong’s office.

She regularly did whatever she could to frame discussions of the case in ways highly unfavorable to the players. For instance:

• On May 17, she spoke of “the Duke University rape case raising new concerns about college athletes, drinking, and now hazing.” In fact, the hazing case involved the women’s soccer team at Northwestern; even Nifong has never suggested that the Duke events were hazing.

• On April 21, Zahn celebrated Kim Roberts’ mercurial public remarks, contending that “what she is saying appears to back up the charge of rape.”

• A few days before, she played up the class angle. Commenting on the arrests of Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, Zahn informed viewers that the pair “came to Duke from upscale suburbs in [sic] New York City and elite private schools.”

• In mid-May, Zahn gushed at the laughably pro-Nifong judge Ron Stephens, who lectured attendees on courtroom decorum but allowed a New Black Panthers member who threatened Reade Seligmann to remain in court. “Quite a display there in the courtroom,” Zahn enthused, “from that no nonsense judge.”

A fierce critic of the defense attorneys, Zahn seems to have viewed her role as standing up for the “defenseless” accuser. On April 12, she detected what “seems to be a concerted effort by friends of the defense to continue to trash this alleged victim.”

The evidence? Because “you don’t hear her described as a student or as a mom,” but as “the stripper.” Zahn did not protest when Madison or Gross referred to the accuser as a prostitute by December; that they smeared the players seemed to satisfy her.

When the defense asked for the accuser’s medical records in late April, she opined, “It’s more clear than ever that the defense in the Duke rape case is going to continue to attack the credibility of the accuser. That comes as no surprise to anyone.” In a leading question to the eager to oblige Pam Bondi, Zahn inquired, “Is this just sliming the victim again?” (Zahn did not say why the person who once was the “alleged victim” was now clearly a “victim.”) The CNN host couldn’t figure out what such mental health records “could have to do . . . with her credibility today.”

In fact, as we know now, the request was wholly legitimate—Judge Smith turned over much of what was requested, under seal, last month.

Zahn also repeated the Nifong post-March 29 mantra that DNA wasn’t really important to the case. On April 24, she observed, “I know you don’t need it, necessarily, to convict . . . anybody. You have got tons . . . of people sitting in jail right now convicted for rape that never had a DNA match.” Or, as Nifong might have said, “the good old-fashioned way” is the way to go. (Zahn repeated this assertion frequently in her early broadcasts.)

Zahn’s most troubling performance came on April 17, when she blandly dismissed Joe Cheshire’s assertion that no assault occurred. Dripping with incredulity, the host wondered how Cheshire could “explain the woman’s injuries, particularly some of the internal injuries.” Zahn neither then nor thereafter clarified to which “internal injuries” she was referring.

“I want to know,” she lectured Cheshire, “why you think this woman, who you claim to know an awful lot about, would have made up this story . . . and turned her life upside down.” In fact, as we know now, the accuser “made up this story” as she was on the verge of being involuntarily committed.

After Cheshire’s video feed terminated, Zahn dismissed the attorney’s comments with an editorial remark of her own. “The DA,” Zahn assured CNN viewers, “would not be proceeding with this case if he didn’t believe that this alleged victim had been raped. There has been a lot of talk about the DNA evidence not being linked to any of the players. The DA has said repeatedly he has other evidence that will prove that this young woman was raped.”

This is the person who’s going to moderate a forum on race in Durham? Tuesday night, perhaps Duke students should make clear to Zahn that they expect higher journalistic standards when their classmates’ lives are at stake.

Curtis-gate

The scandal that could be called Duke’s “Curtis-gate” is showing signs of intensifying. First came the lawsuit filed by former lacrosse player Kyle Dowd, who offered a credible allegation of grade retaliation by the Group of 88 member. Then came revelation that last March, Curtis wrote that Dowd and the other lacrosse player in her class might have covered up a rape. Their grades plunged shortly thereafter. Now comes news that Curtis’ approach to judicial matters seems biased against any Duke student that failed to fit her race/class/gender worldview.

Last March, the Chronicle reported about threats of gang violence and at least one violent act toward Duke students. Two Duke seniors, one male, one female, claimed that NCCU students shouted at them and then knocked the male student unconscious when they were picking up food at the Cook Out Restaurant. The female student said the attackers shouted at her, “This is Central territory.”

The Duke Police and administration took this and other reports of threats seriously, and increased security off of East Campus.

Seems like a reasonable and appropriate response to an unfortunate incident. But Curtis was outraged. A friend of Curtis' passed along unverified rumors that the male Duke student had a reputation for getting into fights, while the female student regularly lied about such matters.

Curtis wanted “to underline the importance of the research on this student and of making it public.” (So much for FERPA regulations, apparently, which place severe limitations on what employees of a university can publicly say about their students’ on-campus behavior records.) “The community really should know” about the student’s background, Curtis continued, since “whatever we can do to stay true to facts and to avoid raising the temperature about black on white violence (and about lies in general) we really must do.”

She concluded, “A past such as this student has does not prove the incident was made up, but it certainly raises important questions the community should know about.”

Let’s compare and contrast. In the case of the lacrosse allegations, Curtis uncritically believed the accuser, a black female who allegedly attended NCCU, and suggested that her own students, white male athletes, were covering up a rape.

In the case of the Cook Out allegations, Curtis demanded “research” to impeach the accuser, a white male Duke student, in the hopes of exonerating the accused, black male NCCU students—with a goal of minimizing coverage of “black on white violence.”

The only common thread: whenever her own institution’s students were involved, Curtis went to whatever lengths possible to disbelieve them. I wonder how many Duke parents believe that when they write out their tuition checks, this is the kind of instructor for which they pay.

The professor’s behavior toward the other lacrosse player in Curtis’ spring 2006 class followed the same pattern—after she suggested, in writing, that he was part of a conspiracy to cover up rape, his grades plummeted. The player’s first paper was a B+. As with Dowd, the teammate’s second paper was due on April 5—after the allegations were made public, and, ominously, the same day that the McFadyen email was made public. This time, Curtis gave a grade of C- (the same grade that Dowd’s second paper received).

The third paper was due just after the New Black Panthers—certified as a hate group by both the SPLC and ADL—arrived on campus. They had announced that they planned “vigilante” justice, threatening to invade the dorms to force lacrosse players to say what the Panthers wanted to hear. Just like Dowd, Curtis gave him an F for the paper. He received a C- on the final grade—which prevented him from making the ACC Academic Honor Roll. Disappointed, the player asked to meet with Curtis, whose message amounted to “I don’t really care, all people have problems.”

A Duke student was driven off campus by a hate group, and a professor effectively responds, “So what?”

The players’ parents sent the three papers to the holder of a chair in Journalism in a prominent university He graded the first paper the same as Curtis (B+), but the second, post-accusation, a B+, not a C-. He said the third paper was the worst of the three (unlike Dowd’s), but clearly not an F.

Professor Curtis did not respond to a request from me for comment.

As a professor, there are few sins greater than grade retaliation (although making unfounded, written allegations that your students are accomplices to rape would clearly be worse than deliberately lowering their grades). In any case, this issue isn’t a hard one to understand. The grades of two of her students plunged after Curtis accused them, in writing, of being accomplices to rape—all while she was seeking “research” to impeach an accusation filed by another Duke student against NCCU students.

Perhaps Curtis would be happier teaching at NCCU?

Top 32 Countdown, I

As the blog winds down, I thought it might be worthwhile to recall the most outrageous quotes of the case. The countdown will culminate on Friday.

Today’s post features #32 through #25:

32) “Under my leadership, the District Attorney’s office is an institution of unquestioned integrity.”

--Mike Nifong, “Letter to Durham Voters,” fall 2006; in one of the many examples of doublespeak that emanated from the Nifong campaign.

--------

31) “Burn it down!”

--Nifong citizens committee co-chair Victoria Peterson, outside the lacrosse players’ house, during the New Black Panthers’ visit to Durham. Last week, Peterson was endorsed for City Council by the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.

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30) “Mr. Rosenberg said he did so because he was concerned with the prevalence of alcohol on campus and bothered by ‘affluent kids violating the law to get exploited women to take their clothes off when they could get as much hookup as they wanted from rich and attractive Duke coeds.’”

--Group of 88 member Alex Rosenberg, explaining why he signed the Group’s statement, as quoted by Eliana Johnson in the New York Sun, October 27, 2006. Rosenberg is currently director of the A.B. Duke Scholarship Program—to which, presumably, some of those “rich and attractive Duke coeds” apply.

---------

29) “There was phone calls being made between the detective and Nifong to determine if they would want us to do the work and if the price was right and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, back and forth.”

--Dr. Brian Meehan, in his State Bar deposition, explaining how his lab was hired to work on the highest-profile case in Durham history.

---------

28) “If I publish something like this . . . my voice won’t count for much in my world.”

--Group of 88 member Susan Thorne, explaining why she could not fulfill her commitment to a lacrosse player to publish a statement of regret about signing the Group of 88’s ad—and instead signed the January 2007 “clarifying” statement, whose signatories expressly refused to apologize for the Group of 88’s ad.

---------

27) “We had to stop those pictures [of the players practicing]. It doesn’t mean that it’s fair, but we had to stop it. It doesn’t necessarily mean I think it was right—it just had to be done.”

--Board of Trustees chairman Bob Steel, explaining to the New Yorker why Duke canceled the 2006 men’s lacrosse season.

---------

26) “Regardless of what happened inside of 610 N. Buchanan Blvd, the young men were hoping to consume something that they felt that a black woman uniquely possessed. If these young men did in fact rape, sodomize, rob, and beat this young women [sic], it wasn’t simply because she was a women [sic], but because she was a black woman.”

--Group of 88 member Mark Anthony (“thugniggaintellectual”) Neal, “analyzing” the case, April 13, 2006.

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

25) “I don’t feel I’m part of the problem. I feel that I have assisted in revealing the problem . . . Durham has some healing to do, and I need to be part of that healing process.”

--DA Mike Nifong, at his 2007 inauguration ceremony, January 2, 2007.

-----------

Tomorrow’s post: #24 through #17.

The Peterson-Burnette (and Cline, in 2012?) Slate

[Update, Tuesday, 10.28am: Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People-endorsed candidate Solomon Burnette writes in: "Many folks have seemingly problematic histories. perhaps you should ask where myself [sic] and Ms. Peterson stand on the issues critical to this election, doing yourself and your readers a service. issues relating to education, immigration, affordable housing, and unemployment are important in this election and i, for one, have a history of engaging these issues in Durham as an artist, activist, and an academic. Ad hominim [sic] attacks are often a way to avoid critical questions. Cheque [sic] out my platform at www.solomonburnette.com."

It seems to me that a conviction for robbing Duke students, plus a written call for race-based vigilante justice, goes well beyond a "seemingly problematic histor[y]"; indeed, as I pointed out in the post, such a "history" would be disqualifying for any political committee with a rudimentary sense of ethics. Nor am I clear how pointing out such a candidate's "problematic" background constitutes an "ad hominim [sic]" attack.

That said, if I were in Endorsee Burnette's shoes, I too would want to speak about immigration (a topic, obviously, on which the Durham City Council has no policy role) rather than my background of written vigilante threats against innocent people and criminal activity against members of the Durham community.]

The N&O continues its detailed—and deeply disturbing—explication of how “justice” is practiced by Durham County “minister of justice” Tracey Cline. Andy Curliss’ articles today reveal a district attorney abusing her office through over-charging (in the hopes of pressuring defendants to accept plea bargains) and taking exceedingly weak cases to court (in apparent fidelity to Cline’s conception of her job as a “victims’ rights” advocate).

Prosecutors around the country over-charge to obtain plea bargains, but the N&O’s reporting indicates that Cline has employed the practice in an unusually blatant (and ethically dubious) fashion. And regarding the idea of bringing people to trial whose cases long before should have been dismissed, Cline’s conduct has been even less defensible. An analysis by N&O reporters found that Durham’s conviction rate on felony trials is the lowest of the state’s ten largest counties. Perhaps that’s because of cases like the below:

Torico Edwards . . . was acquitted by a jury after 30 minutes of deliberation on charges he broke into a home and stole a necklace.

Jurors said it was clear Edwards was at a shopping mall at the time of the crime

"The prosecutor," said juror Jade Russell of Durham, "really didn't prove anything."

Forcing likely innocent defendants to go through the expense and emotional punishment of a trial to give the “victim” a sense of justice is not an appropriate use of the judicial system. But in Tracey Cline’s office, it’s par for the course.

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

Cline doesn’t come up for re-election till next year, but despite the record of unethical behavior laid bare by the N&O, she would seem to have little to worry regarding an endorsement from the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People. As demonstrated in the committee’s recent City Council endorsements, skin color appears to be the committee’s sole criterion. Indeed, by the standards of the Durham Committee’s 2011 endorsements for City Council, Tracey Cline is a paragon of reasonableness and justice.

In this year’s City Council races, even Durham’s resident savant of political correctness, (white) Council member Diane (Nifong ’06!) Catotti, couldn’t snatch the Committee on the Affairs of Black People’s endorsement. But two of the three choices distinguished themselves as extremists even among the ranks of extremists in the Durham of 2006-7.

Victoria Peterson, co-chair of Mike Nifong’s citizens’ committee, distinguished herself during the lacrosse case by (a) participating in a march organized by an ADL/SPLC-designated hate group, the New Black Panthers Party; (b) urging participants at this march to burn down the lacrosse captains’ house; and (c) personally threatening Mary Ellen Finnerty during Nifong’s ethics trial, resulting in Peterson’s ejection from the proceedings.

But those events only constituted Peterson’s highlights. She began the case by insinuating that Duke Hospital had conspired to produce false DNA results and ended it by marching with Nifong to jail, carrying a sign testifying to Nifong’s “goodness” and “integrity.” Peterson also crusaded for accused murderer Crystal Mangum, rudely interrupting the judge at pretrial hearings on Mangum’s arson charges.

(Peterson, I should note, spreads her hate around: talking about gays and lesbians, who she suggested are all cross-dressers, the Durham Committee’s endorsee claimed that as a result of the “gay lifestyle,” “many of them are infected with diseases,” and if “they are not infected with diseases . . . they will be, even women.” Despite the typically anti-gay views of North Carolina’s African-American community, these views are extreme.)

Imagine if, after an allegation of black-on-white crime prompted a visit from the KKK, a future City Council candidate had shared the platform with the KKK Grand Dragon. How, we might speculate, would the Durham Committee have reacted to one off its rival committees endorsing such a candidate?

Then there’s the Committee’s endorsement of Solomon Burnette, NCCU Class of 2007. That name should ring a bell to people who followed the case closely. Burnette came to NCCU after experience with the other side of the criminal justice system—he spent more than a year in jail, following a conviction for robbing two Duke students at gunpoint.

After the attorney general exonerated the three falsely accused players, an enraged Burnette took to the pages of the NCCU paper. In “Death to All Rapists,” Burnette issued an ill-concealed call for vigilante justice. “The ‘facts’ of the case,” proclaimed the Durham Committee endorsee, “should not matter to us because even if we are unsure of sexual assault, these supremacists have admitted to sexually, racially and politically denigrating these women.” Burnette’s analysis of the case: “White people still rape us and get away with it. The only deterrent to these legally, socially and economically validated supremacist actions is the fear of physical retribution.” The column subsequently vanished from the paper’s website, but remains available through the Wayback Machine.

Again, imagine the Durham Committee’s reaction if a political committee endorsed a white convicted robber who then had written an op-ed recommending vigilante justice against two black people?

Burnette and Peterson seem unlikely to win seats on the Council; even in Durham, the bigot vote doesn’t seem quite large enough to bring their candidacies over the top. But the fact that the Durham Committee endorsed them should permanently discredit the organization.

Black Panthers Welcome, Duke Students Not?

"As an institution we support free speech, and we will treat them like any other group," Duke Vice President for Public Affairs and Community Relations John Burness recently said.

He was speaking of the New Black Panthers Party.

Could it possibly be Duke's contention that leaders of an organization listed as a hate group by both the ADL and the SPLC can exercise their First Amendment rights on campus, but that the institution's own students cannot do so?

One of the few encouraging developments of the Duke lacrosse case has been the work of Duke Students for an Ethical Durham, a grassroots student organization committed to registering Duke students in time for the November election. According to its mission statement, the group seeks "to encourage students to fulfill their civic obligation to register and vote in Durham County." DSED has received favorable press coverage from the N&O, from Greta Van Susteren of FOX News, and from the AP. In recent weeks, DSED activists have gone "door-to-door" to register students. They have set up tables on campus. They have networked with their friends and classmates. And they have tried to sign up voters at Duke social events.

It seems as if most Duke students are dissatisfied with the status quo in Durham. How could they not be, given the police have an official policy of disproportionately punishing Duke students?

It appears, on the other hand, that the administration of Richard Brodhead and the Duke arts and sciences faculty are quite satisfied with Durham's current political leadership. After all, neither Brodhead nor any member of the arts and sciences faculty have publicly questioned any of the myriad procedural violations of D.A. Mike Nifong, while some Duke professors, such as the Group of 88, have acted to facilitate Nifong's efforts. But surely, an impartial observer would think, Duke as an institution must strongly endorse the right of its students to participate in the political system?

Guess again. Over the past few hours, I've learned from multiple sources of a potentially troubling situation at today's Duke football game. I have been told that DSED activists, along with members of Duke sports teams, were prevented from registering students at the stadium, for reasons that remain unclear.

[Updated, 12.01am: I have confirmed that Athletic Department officials prevented Duke lacrosse players from entering, or going near, the stadium with voter registration forms. I have reviewed, again, Duke's student code of conduct, an item on which I have previously written. While draconian in nature, it contains no provision that could justify preventing current Duke students, with valid ID's, from attempting to register other Duke students to vote in Durham.]

I'm unaware of any other Duke policy that would prevent students with valid Duke ID's from engaging in this activity. After all, credit card companies sign up students at Duke sporting events. Moreover, registering voters has a long association with the academy, dating from the 1960s, when college students sought to register African-American voters in the South.

Could it be that the Brodhead administration actually wants Nifong to prevail in November, and fears that Duke students might cast ballots for the Recall Nifong-Vote Cheek option? Nifong's career, obviously, hangs in the balance absent a trial--without his hung jury, the district attorney surely understands that the odds of the state bar's ethics committee disbarring him increase astronomically.

But Brodhead's fate, too, is tied to the district attorney's successful prosecution of this case. If the case is dismissed on procedural grounds or collapses of its own weight, even Duke's extraordinarily passive trustees will have to start asking hard questions as to why the administration did nothing to protest Nifong's procedural misconduct, even as the public voice of the institution's faculty actually facilitated Nifong's efforts.

[Updated, 1.26pm: John Burness has responded, for which I am grateful. He replies,

I learned of this issue last night and the answer is fairly straightforward. Apparently the students wanted to set up a voter registration mechanism in the stadium; While the athletics department permits a wide range of activities outside the stadium without prior approval, for reasons I am confident you can appreciate, it doesn't permit activities within the stadium without prior notice and approval. I was told the students, perhaps unaware of this, had made no such request and were thus turned away.

I know there are many voter registration activities underway at Duke, sponsored by students and in conformity with federal mandates to encourage such activities.

This response raises additional questions:

1. I have been told by several people involved with DSED that, in fact, they did obtain permission well beforehand.
2. It is my understanding that the players were not "turned away" from the stadium, but confronted by an Athletics Department official at the building where they congregated to pick up the registration form. If, of course, the players hadn't sought advance permission, I wonder how Athletics Department officials knew when and where the players would be picking up registration forms?
   
3. If, in fact, Duke now claims that it never gave permission, why (in light of Burness' own statement) did Duke officials not simply tell the players that they were free to gather signatures outside the stadium, but not inside it?

This item will be updated as additional information becomes available.

[Update, Tuesday, 12.22am: Statement (1) above is inaccurate: I have been told that the students never did obtain permission to set up a table inside the stadium. They asked for such permission: Duke officials cited a "p.r." and a precedent problem; and while never gave a firm no, didn't give permission, either. My apologies for the error.

DSED representatives did make several requests, however, and so seem to have supplied prior notice. It also is still unclear to me what rationale existed for stopping attempted registrations from outside the stadium. John Burness has promised to look into this issue for me; I have also emailed him with two additional questions, and will post on this issue as soon as I receive information back from him.]

The NIT of DIW

This week featured DIW’s version of March Madness, with brackets including the worst of: op-eds; Duke faculty publications; “news” articles; and soundbites. But, just as in the real March Madness, “bubble” selections exist—items that just missed the cut despite their impressive levels of vitriol, or their gleeful rush to judgment, or their indefensible analysis, or their blatant hypocrisy. Below, then, are the 16 selections for the case version of the NIT.

Soundbites

6) “Physical trauma. You’ve got possible vaginal, anal bruising and tearing. Torn clothing. Torn clothing indicates an attack. Contusions, which is a big word for bruises. Tears, broken nails, which we know we have in this case. She also said in the affidavit that she scratched one of the perpetrators’ on the arm. Look for DNA under that nail, people! Emotional trauma, change in her demeanor, the outcry she makes to the first person. That would be in the Kroeger parking lot.” Nancy Grace, in an April 5 broadcast of her Headline News program, detailing the evidence that she said already was on the books proving rape. Of all the items listed, the only ones that actually existed were “tears” and “change in her demeanor.” Everything else was invented by Grace.

5) “The police and the prosecutor will scrutinize this evidence in exquisite detail, and if they find something is askew, that something doesn't fit in the alibi evidence, they will not hesitate to charge Seligmann with yet another crime. That would be obstruction of justice.” cnnsi.com legal “analyst” Lester Munson, dismissing the revelation of Reade Seligmann’s airtight alibi. Liestoppers subsequently revealed that legal “analyst” Munson voluntarily surrendered his license to practice law in Illinois, facing ethics charges from the state bar.

4) “My initial thoughts were, ‘Wow, what a bunch of ignorant, pompous, misguided young ladies’ . . . It is this type of same condescending and arrogant mindset and sense of entitlement that led to the trans-Atlantic slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow, and ultimately to Washington Duke being one of the biggest tobacco tycoons in the South.” WNCU radio host (and Orin Starn invited guest) Hanif Omar, on the decision of the women’s lacrosse team to wear armbands expressing solidarity with the three players targeted by Mike Nifong.

3) “In the moment when the ad came out, I did not hear from one colleague that there was something wrong with the ad.” Group of 88 leader Wahneema Lubiano, unintentionally demonstrating the “groupthink” atmosphere prevalent among too many quarters of the Duke arts and sciences faculty.

2) “We had to stop those pictures [of the players practicing]. It doesn’t mean that it’s fair, but we had to stop it. It doesn’t necessarily mean I think it was right—it just had to be done.” Board of Trustees chairman Bob Steel, explaining to the New Yorker why the school canceled the lacrosse season.

1) “Burn it down.” Victoria Peterson, soon to be Nifong citizens’ committee co-chair, outside 610 N. Buchanan, during the New Black Panthers’ May campus rally.

Articles/Faculty Publications

4) Robert Bliwise, “Spring of Sorrows,” Duke Magazine, May/June 2006. The administration’s “official” version of the springtime events. Bliwise quoted from only one Duke student—an African-American male who, from all accounts, was not representative of student opinion as a whole. He then quoted from four Duke faculty members—Paul Haagen (appropriately, as chairman of the Academic Council) three of the most outspoken opponents of the lacrosse team (Houston Baker, Orin Starn, and Peter Wood).*

3) Wahneema Lubiano, “Whatever Happens, ... What People Are Asking Is That Something Change,” N&O, May 7, 2006. The Group of 88 leader demanded that Duke immediately institute “targeted teaching” (sounds eerily like a “re-education” program) to expose “the structures of racism and the not-so-hidden injuries of class entitlement in place at Duke and everywhere in this country, and without regard to banal and ordinary sexual harassment,” since “we don’t have to wait for working class or poorer students to be targeted by fraternity ‘theme’ parties or cross burnings on the quad or in dorm halls, or for sexual assaults to be attested by perfectly placed witnesses and indisputable evidence.”

2) Karla Holloway, mass e-mail, January 3, 2007. “I will share with you what I have not previously shared publicly . . . It is legally hearsay, but nevertheless speaks volumes to what I think are the intricacies of the event that deserve a legal hearing . . . So what does it mean to readmit students with an indictment for violent acts, without an internal investigation of our own regarding the event? I think it is a choice the institution has made. And it has led to my own that I cannot work in shared good faith at a time when principled conduct matters less than polls and parents pleas.” In her mass e-mail, sent to dozens of colleagues around campus, the then-chair of the CCI’s “race subgroup” passed along fifth-hand, unsubstantiated, slanderous gossip about Duke students. Some might wonder how such a figure could have a prominent position in a committee designed to produce a more tolerant Duke campus.

1) Houston Baker, e-mail, December 31, 2006. The mother of a former lacrosse player e-mailed former Group of 88 leader Baker (now at Vanderbilt) laying out the new developments in the case, and asking if he would reconsider his decision to sign the Group’s statement. His complete response:

LIES! You are just a provacateur [sic] on a happy New Years Eve trying to get credit for a scummy bunch of white males! You know you are in search of sympaathy [sic] for young white guys who beat up a gay man [sic] in Georgetown, get drunk in Durham, and lived like “a bunch of farm animals” near campus.

I really hope whoever sent this stupid farce of an email rots in .... umhappy [sic] new year to you ... and forgive me if your [sic] really are, quite sadly, mother of a “farm animal.”

Op-eds/Editorials

6) James Zou, “Do Not Vote,” Chronicle, October 20, 2006. After tepidly conceding that Nifong isn’t “the ideal district attorney to serve the Durham community,” Zou urged Duke students to respect “due political and judicial process” by not voting in the November election. He didn’t say in his column how many classes he had taken from Group of 88 members.

5) Claire Dines, “CNN’s ‘Journalism’ is a Fool’s Paradise,” Atlantic Free Press, January 19, 2007. An invited guest on Paula Zahn’s Duke-case special, Dines subsequently complained that she was on only one rather than several show segments—in an essay riddled with factual errors, thereby showing why she didn’t receive more airtime. She did, however, manage to produce one of the most (unintentionally) humorous lines of the case: “I appeared as not just a gullible fool, but even worse, a gullible fool with a feminist agenda.” Hard to argue with that analysis.

4) Lynne Duke, “The Duke Case’s Cruel Truth,” Washington Post, May 24, 2006. The opening sentence read like a bad romance novel rather than a serious legal analysis: “She was black, they were white, and race and sex were in the air.” The columnist then fantastically revealed “the brutal truth”: “It is that the Duke case is in some ways reminiscent of a black woman's vulnerability to a white man during the days of slavery, reconstruction and Jim Crow, when sex was used as a tool of racial domination.” She has subsequently stopped commenting on the case.

3) Al McSurely, “Defense of Lacrosse Team Overlooked Much,” N&O, June 3, 2006. The head of the NAACP’s Legal Redress Committee previewed his error-filled August “memorandum of law” in informing N&O readers that “within five minutes [of their arrival], the men threatened the women with racial and misogynist verbal assaults . . . Some men were caught with their macho entitlement views hanging out and, to save themselves, they have banned together to blame the survivor of their verbal assaults.” McSurely concluded his piece by incredibly asserting that “the NAACP stands for fair play for all parties . . . for justice and community.”

2) “Voters Divided on Lacrosse Case,” Herald-Sun, Nov. 9, 2006. “It appears,” the editorial conceded, “that many more voters than we suspected, and perhaps more than Nifong suspected, have taken issue with the way he has handled the case.” But then H-S editors, ignoring Nifong’s misconduct, asserted that “the best course for all concerned is to continue down the current path to trial. Then, in a truly astonishing statement, the editors asked readers to believe that they now have the interests of the accused players at heart. Since “an upcoming trial . . . is sure to draw major media attention, it would be better for the players to have an opportunity to prove their innocence at trial.”

1) Bob Ashley, “Has the Lacrosse Case Induced Insanity?,” Herald-Sun, July 23, 2006. In retrospect, this op-ed, penned by the H-S editor, served as the launching point of the paper’s decision to extend its editorial bias against the lacrosse players to the news division as well. After hailing the embarrassing op-ed of Andrew Cohen, Ashley insinuated that Nifong had strong evidence hidden in his files” “We’ve tried to consistently remind that all the facts aren’t out, and that the defense attorneys are releasing just what fragments of the total evidence they choose to make public.”

Of course, all the facts weren’t out—Nifong and Dr. Brian Meehan had made sure of that. But Editor Ashley and his ace reporter, John Stevenson, would be asleep at the switch on that story.

*--modified from original

Who Is Kim Brummell?

This post begins with a pop quiz: Which of the figures below published a plea for more widespread use of “DNA evidence,” to determine the outcome in cases where “the evidence is not clear showing innocence or guilt”?

1. Defense attorney Joseph Cheshire, in his letter demonstrating that Mike Nifong’s chief investigator, Linwood Wilson, had not read the discovery file.
2. Duke Law professor James Coleman, in his call for Nifong to step aside for a special prosecutor, to restore public faith in the process.
3. National Journal senior writer Stuart Taylor, in his column eviscerating Duff Wilson’s transparently slanted New York Times article.
4. The co-chair of Nifong’s citizens’ committee.

The answer: (4), Nifong citizens’ committee co-chair Kim Brummell, on page 23 of Reality Has Spoken (Conquering Books, 2005).

Some might consider it a mystery how a figure who so passionately attested to DNA’s significance could wind up co-chairing the citizens’ committee of a district attorney who appears to believe—provided you ignore his occasional affirmation to the court—that DNA can never “immediately rule out any innocent persons.” But Brummell is a woman of many mysteries. For instance:

• Where does she live?

A late August article in the N&O noted that Brummell was a registered voter in Granville County. And four Herald-Sun letters published over the summer all listed her residence as Oxford.

Yet after becoming associated with the Nifong Citizens’ Committee, Brummell started saying she was from Durham.

• What is her profession?

An August article by John Stevenson in Nifong’s house organ, the Durham Herald-Sun, claimed that Brummell is “a corporate security officer and writer.”

Yet the N&O described Brummell only as a “freelance writer.” And in her own amazon.com listing, she states, “I am currently working towards a degree in Criminal Justice and is [sic] in the process of optioning off and seeking a literary agent for my first screenplay that I have written. I have served five years in the US Army and is [sic] currently employed part-time with Federal Express.”

• Does she also write under the nom de plume, “Supporter of Justice”?

In late August, the Recall Nifong-Vote Cheek campaign received the following email:

Hi. If you all are about wanting a DA that is a protector and not a divider [sic]. What the heck you think Nifong is doing with this victim in this case? He’s protecting her rights as a victim. That’s what a DA does [sic]. If she was not pleased at the way he has handled this case, it would probably be dropped by NOW. Why vote for a person who don’t [sic] want the job? It’s no guarantee that Mike Easley not going to re-elect [sic] Nifong again. Have you all read at least some of those 1800 page [sic] documents? I think you might want to wait and take a look and then you probably will start blaming things on nuses [sic], doctors, investigators, etc...All these people makes [sic] a criminal case, not just the DA office. You people better wake up!

Signed,
Supporter of Justice

As RN-VC spokesperson Beth Brewer noted at the time, the email address for “Supporter of Justice” was “the same as the one used by Kim Denise Brummell when filing for her PAC.” It also, I discovered, is the same email used for Brummell’s PayPal account.

Are Brummell and “Supporter of Justice” one and the same person? Emails from both Brewer and me asking this question went unanswered.

Yet the [sic] factor suggests it is so. A recent 100-word letter in the Durham Herald-Sun from the citizens’ committee co-chair denounced “Duke University President Ricahr [sic] Brodhead.” Speaking of Ryan McFadyen, Brummell fumed, “The words he used in midst of sexual assault allegations are not to be taken lightly at all, nevertheless [sic] cute.” She added that the players’ allegedly “disrespectful behavior speaks for much divide [sic] itself.”

Perhaps in the future, Brummell might seek proofreading assistance from Alex Rosenberg, Wahneema Lubiano, or their Group of 88 colleagues—who, I’m sure, would gladly continue doing all they can to facilitate Nifong’s efforts.

Brummell joins the more widely known Victoria Peterson in heading up Nifong’s citizens’ committee. Since April, Peterson has attracted attention for suggesting that medical officials tampered with the DNA evidence. She then shared the platform with the leader of the New Black Panthers party, which both the SPLC and the ADL have branded a hate group. Previously, Peterson had expressed some novel views on homosexuality, such as her contention that if gays and lesbians “are not infected with diseases . . . they will be, even women.”

Brummell, for her part, has made no attempt to conceal the reason she’s backing Nifong. “If Mike Nifong was to lose the election,” she recently wrote, “there would be a slimmer chance of this [lacrosse] case going to trial.” Brummell hailed the district attorney as a “defiant prosecutor” who is focused on “bringing shame and humiliation to the privileged, while opening the public’s eyes to the underprivileged in what might stand as truth once he presents his case.”

Nifong’s reaction that a figure with such opinions was co-chairing his citizens’ committee: “I was very pleased. It made me feel good.” So spoke Durham County’s “minister of justice.”

By the way—it’s not all that mysterious how someone with Brummell’s views on DNA found her way to Nifong’s camp. In “The DNA Evidence,” Brummell four times stated that her position on the issue applied when “a black man” was the accused. Nifong’s targets, of course, are white.

May Events in the Case

As part of her A-Rod book tour, Selena Roberts offered misleading and outright false statements about her writings on the case. On Monday, I’ll be providing a comprehensive summary of the Roberts National Mendacity Tour.

[I should note that I previously suggested "some slanders are too outrageous even for Selena Roberts," and that Roberts had dropped her ludicrous claim that her rush-to-judgment columns were justified because the players placed "pornographic" photos of false accuser Crystal Mangum on the internet. It turns out that she has, remarkably, continued to make this allegation.]

Most in the MSM gave Roberts a pass—though she was forcefully challenged by Murray Chass and Jason Whitlock.

A Durham judge is planning a book, with one chapter on how the media ignored the many wonderful aspects of Mike Nifong’s record.

Nifong’s successor, Tracey Cline, continued her ethically challenged ways.

Why the Love decision is bad law.

Durham mayor Bill Bell forwarded a letter to President Richard Brodhead in which a local committee—which included two Duke professors—continued to cast aspersions on the lacrosse players' character, and suggested that Duke and Durham were the victims of the case. Both professors declined comment on their rationale for forwarding such an argument.

The Bell letter also put on the record—for what appears to be the first time—that the Duke and Durham police departments “shared” jurisdiction over 610 N. Buchanan. In the comment thread, commenter krddurham tracked down town/gown police policies from around the country, the specifics of which showed the unusual nature of the Duke/Durham PD arrangement (of the links provided, only an obscure college from California had a similar set-up as Duke and Durham).

Sean Parrish, a graduate student in the Duke History Department, provided a glimpse into the kind of “scholars” that the Group of 88-heavy department is now training.

Houston Baker fumed that other black intellectuals do not listen to him enough.

The Group apologist is still at work.

Data emerged about the statistical qualifications of Duke undergraduates, as grouped by race and ethnicity.

And two troubling national items, with indirect links to the case: (1) the Justice Department inexplicably dropped voter-intimidation charges against the New Black Panthers (including at least one, Malik Shabazz, who came to Durham); (2) My UPI colleague, Stuart Taylor, unearthed university writings from Sonia Sotomayor that sound as if they could have come from the Group of 88.

A reminder that you can access all the monthly summaries, which I started compiling in summer 2008, here.

Duke-in-Wonderland

In the upside-down world that has prevailed in Durham for the last five months, Duke students have increasingly risen to the challenge as the institution's arts and sciences faculty has sunk to progressively lower depths. Two developments yesterday reinforced the pattern.

On the positive side, a new student group emerged: Duke Students for an Ethical Durham. We often hear faculty and administrators championing participatory democracy, or expressing their hopes that students will demonstrate greater civic involvement. Normally such statements amount to little more than cloaks to advance various curricular agendas.

Duke students, however, have taken the advice literally. Students for an Ethical Durham is conducting a voter registration drive on the Duke campus, so that Duke students can have a voice in restoring a sense of civic justice to the community in which they live. The group is a bipartisan one: its two spokespersons, Emily Wygod and Christiane Regelbrugge, disagreed on the better candidate in the 2004 presidential, but they have no doubt that Duke students need to participate in the Durham political process if they expect fair treatment from local authorities. As Regelbrugge noted, "The people that Durham residents elect need to be held accountable to treat every resident fairly. Those who've been elected have really not been held accountable at all." The spokespersons said they hope to register 2000 Duke students by the deadline for the November election; currently, less than 10% of Duke students are voters in Durham County.

At a time when D.A. Mike Nifong plows forward with a case created on a tissue of ethical violations and his chief investigator submits an after-the-fact typed report than even a high school reporter might consider fradulent, Durham clearly is a city in need of ethical improvement.

The contrast between the Duke students group and a citizens' group just announced on behalf of D.A. Mike Nifong's campaign is telling. The Nifong effort is also headed by two people: Kim Brummel, who isn't even a resident of Durham County; and Victoria Peterson. As blogger John in Carolina has noted, Peterson flanked Malik Zulu Shabazz, the national chairman of the New Black Panthers Party, as he announced during a visit to Durham, "We are mad and fired up. We demand justice, and we will have justice, one way or the other." These are the people Mike Nifong (who said "it made me feel good" when Peterson and Brummel pledged their support) wants to chair his citizens' committee? Duke Students for an Ethical Durham didn't appear a moment too soon.

While Students for an Ethical Durham offers a vision of undergraduates at their most idealistic, looking to change society through collective action, this week's ESPN Magazine provided an example of a faculty that has lost its moral compass. The well-written story examines how the events of last spring affected six people on the Duke campus.

One is women's lacrosse coach Kerstin Kimel, and the ESPN article provides yet another reminder of why Kimel is one of the few genuine heroes of this affair. In the early stages of the crisis, reporter Jon Pessah notes, Kimel

wondered why no one at Duke was looking out for the players. This was not a Duke that Kimel recognized, not the one she fell in love with more than a decade ago, not the one that gave coaches the resources to build elite programs. Certainly not the one she told parents about while she sat in their living rooms. "You're not joining a team," she'd say. "You're joining the Duke family."

Kimel recalled an e-mail she received from one of her students: "One of my teachers knows there are six male lacrosse players in the class and said some things that were very out of line this morning. The boys ended up leaving, which made me rather emotional. It just makes me so sad. I feel like the boys are going to feel unsafe in this class from here on out"; in another e-mail, a player told Kimel that her professor calling lacrosse players "animals." Kimel demanded that the Duke administration do something to stop the harassment--a demand, from all accounts, that came from no other person at Duke. To date, there is no evidence that Duke has even investigated any of these incidents, much less meted out punishments to professors who engaged in such unprofessional behavior.

What sort of academic culture can exist in which faculty members see nothing wrong with such behavior? One, apparently, that fosters professors such as the Group of 88. The group's "Social Disaster" ad, which appeared in the April 6 Duke Chronicle and remains posted on the Duke African-American Studies program's webpage, is the low point of the institution's response to this crisis.

• Ignoring the academy's celebration of dispassionate analysis of all available facts, the Group of 88 relied solely on Nifong's words to definitively state that "something happened" to the accuser.
• Setting aside the academy's commitment to due process and procedural regularity, a cardinal principle of higher education at least since the McCarthy era, the Group of 88 said "thank you" to campus protesters who had created "wanted" posters of the lacrosse players and had banged pots and pans outside one player's residence, shouting, "Time to confess."
• Bypassing the academy's promise to do whatever is ethically possible to shield our students from harm, the Group of 88 contributed to what Times columnist David Brooks has termed a "witch-hunt" atmosphere at a time when Nifong had made no indictments.
  

In recent weeks, some Duke professors have tried to backtrack from the straightforward wording of the Group of 88's statement. We heard that the professors really worried most about an alcohol culture--even though the statement contained not a single mention of Demon Rum. From others came the claim that the Group of 88's statement "has nothing to do with the LAX case." Privately, I've been told, some faculty were even framing the statement as a benevolent expression of common principles--no more, no less.

Such arguments, of course, required a considerable suspension of judgment: in effect, 88 faculty members at a great university wanted observers to believe that they didn't mean what their own words said. In light of the ESPN article, these claims can be fully dismissed.

The publication reveals that the point person for the Group of 88 statement was Wahneema Lubiano, a professor of African-American Studies. Lubiano looked over the final draft--it appears that at least some of the signatories didn't even know which student quotes and which specific faculty wording would appear over their own signatures. No matter--the student gathering from which quotes were culled was hardly representative. According to ESPN, the meeting had two white women, "a few Latino and Asian students and a couple of white faculty members. Everyone else was black."

Lubiano, reports the magazine, "had heard for years about the poor reputation of the lacrosse team, heard some of her students call them racists. A Facebook photo of a male student in blackface, believed to be a lacrosse player, had been e-mailed around before and after the alleged rape." That the Coleman Committee investigated such allegations and found no evidence to substantiate them seems to have had no effect on Lubiano's certitude.

The Group of 88 reflected broader faculty culture. In late March, a meeting of about 200 anti-lacrosse faculty members occurred, at which "a senior professor stood and berated the team, saying the school needed to flush it down the drain and start over." The African-American Studies professor, meanwhile, entertained no doubt about the significance of the Group of 88's action: "Lubiano knew some would see the ad as a stake through the collective heart of the lacrosse team." She didn't care. At a time when the district attorney was threatening to indict not just alleged rapists but the entire team--and on a day, as we know now, that Nifong understood he had no DNA evidence to move forward--a professor holding such sentiments about her own students is chilling.

Lubiano's hostility to the lacrosse players only intensified after the Group of 88's statement appeared. On April 13, three days after public revelations that no DNA evidence implicated team members, she dismissed the news as part of a "demand for perfect evidence on the part of the defenders of the team." (It was actually not team defenders but Nifong who had first stated that “DNA evidence requested will immediately rule out any innocent persons.”) But if the case wasn't moving forward as she might have hoped, the campus culture was turning in Lubiano's direction. She was pleased "that the Duke administration is getting the point”: the banging of pots and pans had hammered home that a specific claim to innocence in this case mattered little. "Regardless of the 'truth' established in whatever period of time about the incident at the house on N. Buchanan Blvd.," she mused, "the engine of outcry in this moment has been fueled by the difficult and mundane reality that pre-existed this incident." To Lubiano, the "members of the team are almost perfect offenders in the sense that [critical race theorist Kimberle] Crenshaw writes about," since they are "the exemplars of the upper end of the class hierarchy, the politically dominant race and ethnicity, the dominant gender, the dominant sexuality, and the dominant social group on campus."

If Duke had more people who conceived of their roles as has Kerstin Kimel and less who acted like Wahneema Lubiano, I suspect the institution could have offered a successful moral resistance to Nifong's behavior. If the school spawned more groups like Duke Students for an Ethical Durham and less like the Group of 88, perhaps Duke could even have publicly demanded that local authorities treat Duke students according to local procedures.

In the short term, Duke's failure has harmed three of its students, one of whom is demonstrably innocent and the other two who almost certainly are. In the long term, it will be up to the students--people like Emily Wygod and Christiane Regelbrugge--to revitalize the institution's moral core that their administrators and faculty have sacrificed.