In higher education today, one important theme is assessment and accountability. Over the past year at Duke, however, accountability has been in short supply. Indeed, it seems as if figures whose behavior was worthy of condemnation have instead been rewarded.
Consider:
1.) Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta. Widely perceived as the senior administrator most hostile to the lacrosse team, Moneta (unlike Dean Sue or even Tallman Trask) appeared to believe the players were guilty. That conviction, it’s worth noting, didn’t come from an ultra-feminist belief that women never lie about rape; in one of his first comments on the February (alleged black-on-white rape) case, he appeared—as Liestoppers observed—to shift the blame to the accuser. Moneta told NBC-17* that the situation she faced was “part of the reality of collegiate life and of experimentation and some of the consequences of students not necessarily always being in the right place at the right time. This happens around the country. Duke is no different in that respect.”
The reward: Moneta was named vice chair of the Campus Culture Initiative; he also saw his contract renewed in 2006.
2.) Group of 88 stalwart Paula McClain. Over and over again, McClain adopted public positions that suggested indifference to due process for the lacrosse players and an eagerness to exploit the case to advance her pedagogical agenda.
The reward: McClain, incredibly, was elected chairwoman of the Academic Council—an event that has received insufficient media attention.
3.) Colleagues even more extreme in their anti-lacrosse activism—Peter Wood, Karla Holloway, Anne Allison. Wood and Holloway pretty clearly seem to have violated Chapter Six of the Duke Faculty Handbook (which requires professors to treat all Duke students—not just ones they agree with politically—with respect). Allison’s spring-term course used a book that treated the “rape” as an established fact.
The reward: Wood, Holloway, and Allison were named chairs (or, in Allison’s case, co-chair) of CCI subgroups.
4.) Chauncey Nartey. The Duke senior distinguished himself last spring as an extremist critic of the lacrosse team within the Student Government, someone who appeared to presume guilt.
The reward: Even though the fraternity of which he was president was suspended in November, he was one of four students to serve on the CCI; and, stunningly, was one of two students selected to join President Brodhead at a February 2007 “Duke Conversation” in Charlotte
5.) The African American Studies Program. Eighty percent of its spring 2006 members joined the Group of 88, and the department itself was the driving force behind the statement—a key exhibit in the defense motion for a change of venue.
The reward: In December 2006, the Board of Trustees voted to elevate the program—with a paltry 33 majors—to departmental status. At the time, the AAAS website listed 15 “core” faculty members; that number has since been scaled back to 8.
6.) Sgt. Mark Gottlieb. The figure who has come to embody the unethical performance of the Durham Police Department, Gottlieb had a record of unfairly targeting Duke students and played a key role in helping fabricate the case against the lacrosse players
The reward: Duke hired the sergeant to provide security at the Christmas Eve service and to help direct traffic at Duke events.
7.) Rev. William Barber. The head of the NC NAACP presides over an organization whose top lawyer, Al McSurely, promised to help the accuser get into law school(!) penned an error-riddled “memorandum of law” that the defense (appropriately) cited as grounds for a change of venue. Barber, meanwhile, began the case by issuing a statement that asserted as fact that a crime occurred.
The reward: Barber was invited to give a sermon at the Duke Chapel; his biased remarks prompted some worshippers to walk out.
8.) Dinushika Mohottige. The 2006 graduate was, to my knowledge, the only person to admit that she publicly distributed the vigilante posters with the lacrosse players’ photos.
The reward: Mohottige, almost incredibly, was asked three weeks after her vigilante action to join President Brodhead at a panel combating the “culture of crassness” on campus.
A depressing litany.
Hat tip: B.N.
*--correction from the Chronicle
79 comments:
Incredible. Just mind-boggling. Why can't Duke trustees and alumni see the damage done by the Brodhead regime?
This is my 25th reunion weekend. Couldn't bring myself to spend a pile of money to fly back and be subjected to this environment. I am hoping some of my classmates that can drive will be there and give Brodhead some grief.
Add it up folks, this IS the new and improved Duke University.
Did you see in the news this week that the NC House voted to apologize for slavery? Black House leaders predictably said it wasn't enough.
McClain chairs Academic Council, Wood, Holloway, Allen, Narty, and Moneta on CCI. All appointments subsequent to the implosion of this case.
Meanwhile, back on planet EARTH...
What is wrong with DUKE? Why would the faculty elect McClain to chair their Academic Council AFTER her part in all this?
The rot is deep. Duke is a mess. Who on earth would pay through the nose to send their children there, to pay the salaries of these tenured radicals?
The good perfesser, Dr. Johnson, neglected to mention that Chauncey Nartey is an an African-American from Africa. His family fled violence in his home country of Liberia to come to the United States, a decision I bet they regret every day.
earl hofert--
Perhaps you meant to say a decision WE should regret every day, given his stance on this matter.
The rot is deep. Duke is a mess. Who on earth would pay through the nose to send their children there, to pay the salaries of these tenured radicals? Apr 7, 2007 12:32:00 AM
I suppose people like Duke's new and improved leadership and g88 have children, and their friends have children. And the pod people will send their sprouts from the Left Coast. Mystery solved.
Extreme evil has an interesting dynamical progression. It tends to be self enhancing.
The reason for this is that hardly anyone is completely bad; they still want to be able to see themselves as virtuous.
Concentration camp guards, for example, would find that after wantonly killing an inmate they had a very strong need to validate what they had done - to define the act as "good". And a great way to validate an act is to repeat it, over and over again. Because if they could not bring themselves to murder the second inmate they would be forced to acknowledge that they should not have murdered the first one.
Same thing as Dook.
Well KC, that about sums it up....Ladies and Gentlemen here you have, Durham in Wonderland.
Look at you people. Pathetic.
Listen to KC Johnson's after he describes how so many of the "villians" have been promoted or at least unharmed by this scandal:
"A depressing litany."
Listen to the first commenter: "Incredible. Just mind-boggling. Why can't Duke trustees and alumni see the damage done by the Brodhead regime?"
The fourth commenter (12:32 AM): "What is wrong with DUKE? Why would the faculty elect McClain to chair their Academic Council AFTER her part in all this?
And Mike Lee (01:44 AM) Well KC, that about sums it up....Ladies and Gentlemen here you have, Durham in Wonderland.
No, ladies and gentlemen, what we have hear is DiW-in-Wonderland.
I only started reading this blog a couple of months ago. In that time I've noticed a disturbing delusion among many/most of the commenters here -- and indeed on the part of Prof. Johnson: That truth will win out.
I in a comment a couple of days ago told of being a first-year lawyer and representing an innocent client. I told you how the DA's office blatantly told me that they would put on perjured testimony to convict my client. I told you that I "didn't blink an eye", because "I'd been around the block".
Have you people not been "around the block"? You think because you're white, because you're rich, because you're honest, because you're telling the TRUTH, that this means ANYTHING? Yes, it might in a court of law, but all that shit doesn't mean shit in academia. In fact, all that shit works AGAINST you!
WAKE UP, PEOPLE. You are in a WAR, and you are LOSING -- no, you've already lost. Now you can only fight a guerilla campaign -- asymetrical warfare. Can you do that? Here's just one (of many) simple ideas to start: Print a poster of the Gang of 88 and print under the pictures: "Any of these professors could falsely accuse you of rape -- if you're white." Plaster a few 100 of those around campus ... for starters.
You people -- you LOSERS -- who have lost the war, you need to start thinking like losers. You need to start thinking that noone is on your side. Who is on your side -- an occasional congresscritter? In any vote in the House today, the metanarrative that enabled CGM's lies, and that enables the 1000s of other, much more violent crimes by blacks on whites every year -- would WIN HUGE.
I'm hoping, but not expecting, that some of you will wake up and forget what you THINK is the way the world works -- I'm rich and white so what can happen to me? -- and start realizing how it DOES work (Hint, ask 3 rich white boys at Duke).
I've been saying this for 2 months.
It has long been my opinion that the old Communist Party apparatus and techniques have simply been re dressed, redesigned, and repackaged into the current "liberalism" on campus. Just like the commies of old, these people truly believe that America is wrong about everything; our constitution is evil; our laws created by the awful white male conspiracy; and everything we stand for is false. America must be stopped. They are stopping America. They are doing it by infiltrating every part of our culture from university to Hollywood. I think they have won; they lost the Duke battle but that isn't going to stop them.
What this post tells me is that Brodhead and Steel learned absolutely nothing this past year. Nothing.
For the lacrosse families who somehow believe that Brodhead was sympathetic to you, here is your answer. For those families who believe that Duke wants anything more than your money, here is your answer. For people who think that the administration at Duke, plus a significant element of the liberal arts faculty there, cares about anything but promoting a ridiculous and dishonest agenda, here is your answer.
Duke has chosen to give the LAX families and all other decent people the middle finger. And don't think that Duke is alone in its contempt for decency and right. This is the state of elite higher education in the United States, and the attitudes we see at Duke are typical of elite liberal arts faculty everywhere.
Duke's had a spotlight shown on it over the last year. The results have not been good. Unfortunately Duke is not the only university in this condition. I'd venture a guess that Duke is the rule not the exception.
I know that this blog is devoted to the events at Duke, but the same mindset that prevails among administrators at Duke has infiltrated every HR department in every major corporation in America.
In the mid-90s the diversity consultants began to flood into HR departments. They had been indoctrinated in the same race/class/sex hysteria that dominates Duke.
So, this is not a far off phenomenon for any of us. This "white hetero men are evil" nonsense has been the foundation of managerial education for over a decade. I know, because I wrote the online managerial courses for the HR department in a previous job. In the process, I had to read the text books that are used in college managerial courses.
The litany is pretty simple: Gay men (even if they are white) are sainted martyrs. Blacks are at the top of the sainted victim list. And women have been subjected historically to a rein of terror in the workplace. The ogres who have committed these crimes... well, that's supposed to be our fathers (if you are a white man).
The diversity consultant is precisely the same imperious, sadistic commissar that you see in the administration at Duke.
The myth is that the evil hetero white men exploited, harassed and degraded everybody. So gays, blacks and women are justified in wreaking their revenge in every way possible.
Every corporate workplace in America is infested with this pack of lies.
Being the mom of a white male grad of Duke and a reader of this saga the past year, I have wondered who are the real minority at Duke and maybe at many colleges today. Does anyone know the percentage of students at Duke who are white males? As as aside,in both his law school class and his first job, white males were in the minority becuase women had the advantage.
12:03 AM said --
Why can't Duke trustees and alumni see the damage done by the Brodhead regime?
They do see and from the lack of action by the trustees and a majority of the alumni they are saying that what they see doesn't bother them all that much.
These are rewards? Spare me hat a punishement may have looked like.
"A depressing litany."
With an obvious point in common: Brodhead, who is apparently quite secure in his lofty position.
Re the silly NC House apology: Democrats. Got to keep appeasing that "victim" voting bloc.
I don't agree that the "war" is lost. It might look that way in the arts and humanities (and squishy sciences), but there is a higher degree of sanity in the rest of the university; and those other departments are necessary to Duke's existence. If that changes, the school will sink into the cesspool occupied by all the other "liberal arts" cabals posing as universities.
Rewarding The Wake-Up Call Culture on Campus
Slowly and painstakingly K.C. is bringing together documents and records of conversations that dovetail into a tapestry depicting a campus culture of pointless wake-up calls for students which are consistent with the agendas of a small group of faculty and administrators.
The resulting campus culture of hostility needs much more study.
The resulting relationship between the campus and the City of Durham seems to have an invisible internal logic all its own.
When the left wing system is done punishing us for our sins of the past, maybe then will they enjoy the fruits of their labor. Lets see, no more work ethic that built this country, no more due process, no more welfare programs because us white males are no longer around to support the third world country that the US has become. Finally, the "true" creation of wealth from an engineering and manufacturing standpoint will be kaput. Oh sorry it already is.... Good news however, PC sensibilities and entitlement programs will survive. Duke is living proof.
Howard 6:32
Re: Re-dressed, redesigned, and repackaged old promotional strategies for political theories.
You may be on to something here, Howard.
Recycling is the popular term now.
Why don't you develop that thought and paint a picture for us of the political recycling strategies of the G88 over the last several years.
GP
Re: 3:14 a.m.'s:
"I only started reading this blog a couple of months ago. In that time I've noticed a disturbing delusion among many/most of the commenters here -- and indeed on the part of Prof. Johnson: That truth will win out.
Have you people not been "around the block"? You think because you're white, because you're rich, because you're honest, because you're telling the TRUTH, that this means ANYTHING?"
*******
I think that the above comments partly explain why Brodhead, other administrators, and many people in general did not come out forcefully in favor of the players earlier. Brodhead strikes me as someone, like many of us, who was raised to believe that we must give great deference to the "system," because if we allow the system to work, the truth will prevail. I think that view is often correct. But sometimes the system gets hijacked by other interests, and it takes forces such as the blogosphere (and sometimes even MSM, as with Woodward and Berstein) to keep the system on track (or to put it back on track). So, maybe, hopefully, truth will still prevail in this case.
I know I'm going to get flamed for the above comments, but I do believe that a middle class (!) deference to the workings of the system tended to keep many people on board the prosecution's bandwagon early on. Of course, by now, most people who still support the hoax tend to be the "true believers."
Durham Lawyer
It's certainly possible that an individual, a group of individuals, or an institution can screw up.
The interesting question, the one that tells the tale, is the next step.
KC has shown us the next step and that has told the tale.
JLS says....
Let's see:
A. It is amazing to me that another week has gone by and NC still continues this mess. The only excuse I can see for this is if they dismiss the charges and at the same time indict Nifong, Gottlieb and Wilson explaining they used the pending charges as cover to investigate the crimes of the Durham DAs office and PD.
B. While Professor Johnson's post says a lot about Duke it is important to distinguish between the various situations:
1. Moneta was named chair of the CCI, but that was almost year ago when the hoax enablers riding high. More recently and after his outrageous seemingly excusing comment about the black on white rape, he was essentially demoted with the creation of new Dean's position.
2. McCain being elected chair of the Duke Academic Council tells us a lot about the Duke faculty. But this reward is from the Duke faculty a different group than the Duke administration.
3. Wood, Holloway, Allison were all "rewarded" when as hoax enablers they were riding high. I put their reward in scare quotes because it may have been a Pyrrhic reward. What they got was a chance to spend lots of time on a committee whose recommendations appear to be DOA. This is worth following up as I am sure Professor Johnson will other will. Also they brought themselves to public attention and got their "forthcoming" research under scrutiny.
4. Nartey similary was "rewarded" with a CCI slot. The more recent invitation to the "Duke Conversation" certainly is more disturbing. This is the administration at Duke honoring a student enabler.
5. Elevating AAASP to department status is a reward and likely a mistake on Duke's part. It was likely in the works well before this hoax. It is likely that bureaucratic inertia meant this could not be stopped last summer as this hoax became clear. More important will be now that it is clear that what frauds are in this department does Duke starve it of funds to keep it small and make it reform or does Duke feed it making a bad department bigger and worse.
6. Gottlieb likely got this extra duty gig on some kind of DPD rotation. Duke may have had no say in which DPD officers were assigned to that function. So Duke probably did not reward Gottlieb in any meaningful sense. Maybe Duke should make it clear that it will no longer hire DPD officers for security if DPD will not agree not to send a guy who has abused Duke students. But I don't see this as Duke rewarding him as much as evidence that SO FAR he has not suffered for his obvious bad behavior.
7. Barber being invited to Duke in 2007 certainly was a reward by Duke for a hoax enabler.
8. Mohottige again was rewarded early on in the hoax when the hoax enablers were riding high.
So many of the rewards were either when the hoax was early on and not revealed on in the works before the hoax. What really matters at Duke is what is happening going forward. That is why the McCain election, the Barber invitation and the elevation of AAASP though likely already in the works when the hoax begain are the most disturbing cases of rewarding bad behavior.
I would really like to hear from, and to better understand, the 20% of AAS professors who did not sign the "88 Doctrine".
-was it on principle?
-were they out of town?
-were they appaled?
-other?
KC - any ideas?
Duke's Humanities staff, from Brodhead (an ex-English prof?) down, is part of and committed to the victim industry...and let's face it, folks, a minor setback like the LAX hoax explosion is not about to destroy an entire (booming) industry.
There's far too much invested. Too many careers are tied in; think of all the rants excoriating white males that haven't yet been published. What an exciting time for research!
Even if they do admit slight error, the enablers/celebrants of the LAX charges will simply cast this case's falsity as the exception that proves the rule. And that's best case. Remember, something happened. That is now, and that will remain, the interpretation of choice at Duke, Purdue and all over victim academia.
Here is a positive example how Duke should have handled Gang88 lunacy:
Missouri State University has its own Gang88 chapter. However, unlike Duke, the university president is not a lifetime member of Gang88 chapter and Gang88 members were punished at MSU.
MSU faculty's Gang88 member forced students to draft and sign a pro-gay adoption letter to state legislators and one student refused to do that (and was of course punished by nutty left-wing professor)
President Mike Nietzel says it’s one of the most damning review of an academic program that he’s every seen..In addition, the University also reassigned Professor Frank Kauffman to non-classroom duties for the rest of the fall semester and required him to begin weekly consultations with Associate Provost Chris Craig at least until May 2007. Kauffman also gave up his administrative duties as director of the Master of Social Work Program.
Nietzel also ordered a study of MSU’s policy on freedom of expression by a campus committee and a comprehensive study by an outside group of the School of Social Work..
Compare this to to Duke..
link to the MSU article:
eport on Social Work program 'embarrasses' president
I think parents should be wise to send their kids to MSU instead of Duke.
@ KC
Your rhetoric is showing.
Larry Moneta may be the scum of the earth; you have provided evidence supporting that position.
But the primary evidence provided is Moneta's response to an accusation of rape by a white student at a black fraternity. This happened in 2007 and can have no causal relationship to the cited "rewards," which were granted by Duke in 2006.
In writing history, as you well know, chronology is king. It is invariably correct that ante hoc, ergo non propter hoc. A later event, e.g. Moneta's response to the accusation of a rape in 2007, cannot be the cause of an earlier event, e.g. a renewal of Moneta's contract in 2006.
I am not trying to defend Moneta. I am merely saying that you have used a rhetorical device, not relevant evidence, to prove that he was rewarded for known misfeasance or malfeasance.
JeffM
JLS says....,
re: jamil hussein
Excellent find on the Missouri State case. It certainly shows tha Duke could reform if they chose. Perhaps the Duke Alums here should think about e-mailing that story to ever single member of the Duke Board of Trustees?
re:
JLS and
Jamil Hussein
Thank you for such thoughtful and important contributions. So much of what one sees on blogs is just blather (my posts included.)
"Print a poster of the Gang of 88 and print under the pictures: "Any of these professors could falsely accuse you of rape -- if you're white." Plaster a few 100 of those around campus ... for starters."
Interesting idea.
From Brodhead's panel on Duke's "culture of crassness"
When audience members were invited to make comments or ask questions, one student asked what Duke could do to address the issue of "hetero-sexism."
Senior Dinushika Mohottige, a panel member, said Duke should do more to encourage the acceptance of alternative lifestyles. She described a hypothetical situation about an incoming freshman finds out his or her future roommate is homosexual and thus requests to be paired with a different person.
"Instead of simply letting people avoid these uncomfortable situations, we should make these students sit down and talk to each other, and to make progress in accepting one another," she said.
>>>>>>>>>
How does embracing "alternative lifestyles" help combat the campus hook-up culture and excessive drinking. The gay community has levels of alcohol/drug abuse and casual sex above that of the heterosexual population. I would suggest that statistically the worst community to emulate in order to combat a "culture of crassness" would be the gay community.
Can any one explain what the "issue of hetero-sexism" is?
To JeffM:
The Moneta 2007 response was included simply to provide context about his 2006 seeming presumption of guilt. Given his seeming presumption of guilt in 2006, he was ill qualified to have such a high post at the CCI.
"The rot is deep. Duke is a mess. Who on earth would pay through the nose to send their children there, to pay the salaries of these tenured radicals?" 12:32 AM
Quick answer. Because college is the key to getting ahead in our society. And, top tier schools are a golden key.
Demand for top tier schools will continue to be high with the number of high school graduates peaking in the next few years (while slots in the most desirable schools will not increase to keep pace).
Probably the only thing top tier schools have to worry about in the short term is losing one or two places in the rankings.
In the near term, perhaps more reform can occur in lower echelon schools and public universities. The Missouri State social work case mentioned has been instructive. Voters/taxpayers in Michigan have put the screws to blatant racial quotas at UM. FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) has made headway defending First Amendment rights of students and faculty at public schools since they must conform to that troubling document known as the Constitution.
This is not to say that there is no benefit in hammering at the more elite and private schools. I'm sure that there are alumni whose generosity will be tested by the offensive behavior of faculties and the craven non-response of neutered administrators. Students having a lousy experience and receiving indocrination that masquerades as education will put letters asking for $$$ in the shredder once they graduate.
I disagree that the "war is lost" but there is certainly a long fight ahead.
The Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax will blow up in the faces of is proponents (and, to some extent, already has). The key will be to push this issue so that the explosion is more like a nuclear bomb than a one of those gag "loads" that we used to put in ciagarettes.
SAVANT
One has to wonder why people the people with $40,000+ available for college pay that amount to placed like Duke. One wonders why others who have to borrow a large portion of that amount mortgage their futures to get a degree from places like Duke. From what I read, raw intelligence and persistence ultimately becomes more important in professional life than a degree from a prestigious college.
Rewarding bad behavior--that says it all. 1 part despicable, 1 part pathetic
Is it soup yet?
I would assume that people who attend Gang88 lectures (as full-time AA/angry studies) students are not paying tuition. Most likely, they are admitted via race privileges (which, unlike so called white privilege) is a real privilege.
Carolyn says:
Anon at 12:03 asks:
"Why can't Duke trustees and alumni see the damage done by the Brodhead regime?"
They CAN see. But because, in the past, no one else could - Duke got away with ignoring what it saw. What Duke's doesn't 'see' now, however, is that the Net has shattered the world's blindness. (Thank you, KC, Bill Anderson, Liestoppers, John in Carolina, etc.)
Of course, as we can see, Duke's still tapping its white cane - but I guarantee lawsuits will yank those dark glasses off real quick!
Strangely missing from today's "all rogue" team is: Whan, er,Wunin.. ah Juanin...doh!, I mean Jiffy Lubiano, aka "Lucky".
I am shocked and dismayed that my unLucky heroin failed to make the grade here, but it ain't over til the fat lady sings.
Any not so willowy 88'ers volunteer to sing next Friday?
@ KC
Well, your clarification helps a bit.
And I can at least understand the argument that people should not have beliefs that have not been vindicated in a court of law. According to that argument, it is wrong for anyone to believe that O. J. Simpson murdered his wife because, in the eyes of the criminal law, he has been found innocent of that charge. Nevertheless, I personally do believe that Simpson was in fact guilty of murder. Should that belief bar me from getting a promotion or being employed or being given responsibility for things? Individuals and private organizations do not have to abide by the same standards as does the state.
Now I recognize that my Simpson analogy is far from perfect. Given your extensive knowledge of this whole hoax, I am willing to accept any logical argument you provide on whether and when Moneta knew, or should have known, that his belief in 2006 was ill founded or whether he had a reasonable basis for his acts when he made them in 2006. But you do not provide that information with respect to Moneta (as you do with all the others.)
Nor is it clear how his apologetics in 2007 provide any "context" about his beliefs in 2006. What his acts in 2007 compared to those in 2006 may well suggest is that he has a pattern of acting in accord with political expediency or political agenda regardless of available evidence, but a pattern cannot be established by citing a single instance.
Again, I am not trying to defend Moneta; I am interested in helping to maintain the very high standards that are typical of your postings (as well as many of the comments) on this blog. With regard to Moneta, you claim that he was improperly rewarded in 2006; citing only acts in 2007 cannot possibly support that claim.
JeffM
Jiffy Lubiano, aka "Lucky".
ROTFLMAO!
Its obvious that the administration feels that it has more to lose from confronting the G88 faculty and admitting its mistakes than it does from proceeding with business as usual and patiently waiting for this episode to slowly blow over and be forgotten. They may be right. In a previous post, I indicated that the adminsitration's actions have hurt the quality of its applicant pool because it has influenced our family's decision to strike Duke from our list of prospective colleges for our daughter. However, the further I get into this application process the more I realize that I'm the lone ranger up here in our area insofar as my views of Duke are concerned. No one else with high school juniors looking at colleges among our friends and my daughter's HS classmates' parents have anything but a supeficial knowledge of this case and their view of the school is essentially unchanged by what they do know. (Fortunately, even those with a superficial knowledge of the case have begun to realize that it was a hoax.) Current HS juniors will, unfortunately for my daughter, be at the peak of the demographic curve when it comes to college applications. The competition is too fierce to let a little thing like the adminstration's pandering to the G88 and hanging the lacrosse team out to dry interefere with their decision. Most know nothing of the G88, the potbangers, etc. Thus, Duke remains high on their list of possible colleges. Even my interest and discovery of DiW came about only because my son was a HS classmate of Reade and being awae of the injustice being done to him and his family compelled me to read whatever I could find on the case. The Duke alumni in my firm (about a half dozen) know nothing more about the case than they read in the MSM or heard from me and their lack of real interest in the case has been disappointing. (At least a few have now come to me to note that I was right when I told them on day one that when the truth came out they see that the boys were innocent).
In the end, laying low and accepting the criticism of that relatively small number of people who have bothered to get informed about this case and are outraged by what they have learned may be a perfectly sensible strategy for the administration. Craven and immoral but sensible.
I hope somebody closer to the school will tell me that I'm wrong and that this travesty and the actions of the administration are generating some backlash from the alumni but I won't hold my breath.
While I appreciate all the research and investigative work KC has done, and agree with the majority of it, I think some of it is misleading. In this particular post, he suggests that all these actions led to a certain "reward" without properly establishing cause and effect and with selectively picking the most adverse action. Also, I think a student who has acted very strongly in regards to the incident is going to be more likely to be elected to join the CCI or some other committee. Unfortunately, while most students definitely support the lacrosse players, the most vocal may be the ones opposing them - and thus they are chosen because they are exhibiting such strong opinions.
Also, the selective inclusion of information is misleading. I usually don't follow up on sources, but I did once and found KC's selective quoting terribly misleading. This occurred when quoting Bomani Jones' terrible article in ESPN. KC quoted Jones as saying "Without question, I’d say that Duke is a white supremacist institution." While this is true, KC should at least include the sentence directly after that, which reads "But Duke shouldn’t feel too singled out. I feel the same way about the University of North Carolina, a school that I attended and that also has slave owners and Klan supporters’ names on different buildings on campus. And I’d say that many black colleges suffer from white supremacy, with their curricula frequently more about teaching black people how to do things instead of cultivating their students’ ability to think and create new scholarship. White supremacy is everywhere [...] and Duke is not immune." While I completely disagree with Bomani, that gives the reader a much different sense of his mindset than if he thought Duke was unique in its "white supremacy."
Overall, though, KC has done a good job with this blog. But people here need to stop hating Duke! There is a set of these types of professors and students at every single college in the country, so if you are angry at Duke about it, you should instead be angry at academia in general. I am almost certain that if this happened anywhere else there would have been an equally serious backlash. Now, if this happened at Brown or Berkeley, the players probably would have been kicked out of school.
JLS says....,
"Can any one explain what the "issue of hetero-sexism" is?"
It is that Duke like the rest of the world is set up for the 99% of the population that are heterosexual rather than the 1% [or maybe 2% at the outside] of the population that are homosexual.
3:58 You are really nit picking. Bonani is a joke - his follow up statement about attending UNC is comical. Most of us read the entire statements these folk make and make our own judgement. The good Professor does cause and effect and sorry you missed those analysis. This only happened at Duke - so much for "would have beens and could have beens" at other schools. So far, no other school has had a 88 Professors on their faculty publicly condemn their students. I don't hate Duke at all. I no longer respect the school, but who cares, I live in Vegas and my kids have already been through college and graduate school.
Anonymous 5:02 said...
...3:58 You are really nit picking.
...So far, no other school has had a 88 Professors on their faculty publicly condemn their students.
::
I think the Duke people are banding together as this case comes to a close in an attempt to move any focus off of Duke.
I'm afraid 3:58 and her friends will spend many years banding together trying to 'Wash that G88 right out of Duke's hair."
Lets say it again.
So far, no other school has had a 88 Professors on their faculty publicly condemn their students
GP
to Anon at 3:58
I suggest you go to your room and look at:
http://www.resisttheurge.com/dukevideos/werenotgonnatakeit.html
When Duke gets sued, The administration's "rewarding" of some of these hoax supporters will make it very difficult for Duke to defend itself in court or in the public opinion courts.
Duke better start thinking of a large settlement. They do not need to have all this rehashed in a civil suit.
I have to agree with 3:58. KC, please consider being balanced in your book when you talk about Duke- I don't think the university itself needs the treatment you gave it today. What other school has had to figure out how to deal with the politics and media and a depraved prosecuting DA as we have seenin this case? I have endured Duke hating for years in basketball- I still don't think the school in general needs to be condemned.
I wrote around February 25 that my son had graduated from Duke in 2004. His Duke experience was top-notch. His advisor was a brilliant person-leader in his field- who wasn't even obligated to take on an undergrad and not only did- but was a conscientious supporter of my son's interests. My son helped edit a book, did research on another book and generally was able to communicate with his professors in a way that I didn't get to do until I was in graduate school. My son's chaplain is still in our lives. She was smart, challenging and capable. She got my son through many tough moments. He had GREAT challenging professors who pushed him to think more deeply about course content and stretched him- wrote him long emails about his work, and were incredibly understanding when he needed surgery. He had dinner at professors' homes and indeed a retired professor and his wife offered their home as a second home to him. He still has regular contact with at least 5 professors. He is now a month away from graduating with his masters' in GA and has stood out from day 1 in his current program because he was so "over" prepared by his undergrad experience.
By the way, we are not rich and he received a full academic scholarship. In addition, faculty stood behind him, nominated, wrote letters and supported him receiving a Lilly Foundation grant whilch allowed him to live rent-free with other students one summer who were discerning how they would use religion in their various majors while also supplying great internship experiences- which the faculty also arranged for him. (That experience stretched him far and above any other living experience he had but would probably be condemned by the CCI.)
I am appalled by the Group of 88 and was a true skeptic from day 2 of the Nifong fiasco. I just can't allow stereotyping of professors given my son's fabulous experience at Duke. I have a PhD and high standards to education.
In gneral, Duke-hating (or UNC-hating for that matter) doesn't get us anywhere. Many of the examples given in the post today are common ways that academia uses to enfold those who are flaming and allow them a voice in a more controlled environment.
We live in Missouri now and my younger son has a scholarship to MSU(see Missouri State citations above- NOT MIchigan!) Would I let him go to Duke? In a heartbeat.
fox news: MINNEAPOLIS — Three University of Minnesota football players were in police custody Friday, undergoing questioning after allegations of criminal sexual conduct, the university said in a statement.
The accused players are african-americans. No information about the alleged victim (18 year old girl).
Waiting for the statement from Duke AA department and Al Sharpton...
still waiting..
5:42 What a great country. We are orginally from the district of Coumbia - my youngest is a Wash U bear(Washington University St Louis) and an MBA from Chicago, We must have crossed paths driving these kids to school.
Jess lives nearby in Chicago - he should be driving up, as we write.
5:49 Yeah we probably did! Don't you love it? Wash U is such a great school!
The profiles of the 3 accused players are available online:
Accused
player 1
Accused player 2
Accused player 3
I would bet that the accused victim is not an ugly prostitute. Will their faces be covered on Newsweek and other liberal newspapers? Do they even report this?
Jacqueline--
You may not WANT Duke to be despised and derided. But this sad episode has exposed what a frightful mess it is. Brodhead, McClain, Houston Baker, the Gang of 88, the CCI... the list goes on and on. Were it not for this fiasco, we would not have known any of this. The whole awful assortment was there in place when Nifong took up his cudgel. The rot had obviously begun LONG ago at Duke. Who would send their child there to pay huge fees that will keep an outfit like that going?
It is obvious (blindingly obvious) that Brodhead is driving Duke's stock down, and fast.
6:01
Posts like your just give credence to the G88 rants.
To Jacqueline:
One thing the book hopefully will do is to highlight the professors at Duke who behaved well--if only to show that figures like the Group of 88 did have a choice.
To father at 3:54 pm:
I'm an alumna of Duke and my son is a recent graduate of the university. I am concerned about the lacrosse case and believe that a tremendous injustice has been done to the players. I continue to keep informed about the case but do not berate the alumni I know who are less interested than I am.
I can certainly understand your great concern for Reade, whom your son knows, and the lacrosse players. Many people want justice for them and would like to see successful civil suits against those who enabled this travesty of justice, including those enablers at the University. Many alumni have spent much time and effort trying to right the wrong--including bloggers Jason Trumpbour, John in Carolina, and many at LieStoppers. I don't think they consider what they are doing as "a backlash."
I doubt that alumni who care about Duke see a "backlash" as a productive action. Those who are influential and those who donate large sums may quietly behind the scenes do much to help bring about corrective measures, as will many with less influence who will make their opinions and ideas known to trustees and administrators through letters and conversations. I doubt that many of these alumni will reveal their actions in blog posts or give KC a hat tip. I always get a chuckle from those people who strongly declare in a blog post that they'll never give another dime to Duke, as if Duke in its entirety were responsible for the events of the last year. I always wonder how many dimes they have previously given.
Having made the family decision to rule out Duke as a prospective school for your daughter, I wonder why you contine to spend so much time delving into the case and bemoaning the fact that others you know are not. I would think that you would concentrate your efforts on examining the schools that you and your daughter have not yet eliminated.
You seem to have a mild vendetta against Duke, concerned that other students and their parents are not dismissing Duke as a prospective school and waiting for a backlash by alumni. By focusing so much on one university, you are overlooking problems, both similar and different, at universities around the country.
6:33
Contrary to your belief, most people believe that as being a fact, but as you can see it is erased because no one wants to admit the truth.
And it is the truth. We witness it everyday. Erasing it won't change what is.
6:50 pm
Thanks for your reply. Perhaps backlash wasn't the right word but I'd like to hear that alumni in some significant measure are letting their displeasure be known to the administration and board of trustees. I don't have a vendetta against Duke. Even with all this, I still respect it as an institution but feel strongly about the current administration's actions in this matter. The only way I can reflect my disapproval is refusing to let my daughter apply there so long as the current President remains in that office.
I agree that many universities have their equivalent of the G88, but I have two other kids at Ivy colleges and I've never seen either of their schools take such ill advised and demonstrably anti-student actions.
As to my spending too much time delving into the case, I'll continue to do that until the charges are dismissed. I think knowing one of the boys is sufficient justification for that interest.
Finally, I don't pester my Duke alum partners about the case as often as my post might have implied. They are some of my better friends at the firm. I do confess to riding them a little lately about the fact that my college went to the final four this year while the Duke boys were watching at home...but then I haven't had that opportunity in a long time.
What the 88 professors exemplify for me is hatred. They represent a large segment of the AA community who would very much like to annihilate the white race if they could.
They're just not smart enough. Even with all shortcuts they're given.
GP said at 5:23 pm:, you Anonymous 5:02 said...
...3:58 You are really nit picking.
...So far, no other school has had a 88 Professors on their faculty publicly condemn their students.
::
I think the Duke people are banding together as this case comes to a close in an attempt to move any focus off of Duke.
I'm afraid 3:58 and her friends will spend many years banding together trying to 'Wash that G88 right out of Duke's hair."
Lets say it again.
So far, no other school has had a 88 Professors on their faculty publicly condemn their students"
Gary, you seem to really enjoy this case, almost obsessively so. You seem almost gleeful as you repeat the refrain, "So far, no other school has 88 professors on their faculty publicly condemn their students."
Please put emphasis on the word "publicly."
7:37
Those points cannot be emphasized enough. Gary and a lot of others obsess about this case because so many seemingly educated people have behaved so badly and without remorse.
Duke has a tarbaby on its hands, both literally and figuratively.
It's unfortunate.
What the 88 professors exemplify for me is hatred. They represent a large segment of the AA community who would very much like to annihilate the white race if they could.
This case has clearly exposed majority of african american community in this country as bigoted set of racists, led by Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, New Black Panthers and Gang88. There are some notable exceptions (prof Coleman, Bill Cosby, pretty much all republican african-americans). Of course, white far-left liberals share this view so maybe the common denominator is political ("dailykos") view, not race.
It is interesting to see how AA community and white liberals react to the accusations that 3 african american football players sexually assaulted a 18 year girl. They will get exposed again but you cannot read that on New York al-Times.
7:52
No, we didn't hear anything about that one did we? I very much doubt that white liberals who are in bed with this mindset would go along with the AA community if they weren't making a good living doing so.
It's as much about the easy lifestyle of the academic environment as it is about them wanting to look noble at someone else's expense. Although I am sure that many white liberals are as dense as the AA88's.
Re the alleged rape by 3 Minnesota football players that was announced today:
Fox News reported the story (didn't mention the race of the players, though): fox
CNN: No coverage.
New York al-Times: No coverage.
CBS: No coverage.
SI: Reports it in a neutral fashion and, unlike in Duke hoax, the article does not mention the race sports ill
Jesse Jackson: Jesse cancled his vacation with one of mistresses in Bahamas, took the first flight to Minnesota and offered a tuition to the victim and said that something bad happened to this woman and something unique that only this girl possessed was taken from her by the hooligans. Al Sharpton and John Edwards canceled their vacations as well, and wanted all black football players to be castrated. Just kidding.
"The rot is deep. Duke is a mess. Who on earth would pay through the nose to send their children there, to pay the salaries of these tenured radicals?"(12:32 AM)
I, like the poster Jacqueline above, would send my son to Duke again "in a heartbeat." I know, as she does, that among the rot (which is being exposed in this blog) are huge veins of gold, easy to find and to mine. I would, however, cut his funds in a heartbeat if he wasted his time on the agenda-driven courses.
The problem with sending a child to Duke is not just the school, which certainly has some high points and an attractive campus. The problem is it is located in Durham. There are many problems here - more than some towns, perhaps fewer than others. But here in Durham the hoax has just skimmed the surface of the depravity that besots the entire county, and to some degree, the entire democrat controlled state. If you truly like your child, send them to some other school.
8:30
You sure are kidding. Hell will freeze over before that happens.
Duke University suffers tremendously because it's located in a place like Durham.
Anonymous 7:37
I didn't say..."So far, no other school has 88 professors on their faculty publicly condemn their students."
5:02 said that and said it well.
I agree with 5:02 and I don't agree with you.
The Alums are out in full force with their scrub brushes to scrub away that history.
Suppose we will have Blog Investigators in the future? perhaps Whistle-Bloggers.
No need to be obsessive.
So it Goes!
More governmental abuse, from the brilliant Dorothy Rabinowitz:
http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/
feature.html?id=110009887
8:33AM
"the same mindset that prevails among administrators at Duke has infiltrated every HR department in every major corporation in America."
You hit the nail of the head. I work for a major international company and the HR department is filled with a mirror image of the group/88.
Agenda drive, underqualified and overpaide... with excessive power.
re: jamil hussein 5:54
I followed the link and looked at the profiles. All of the football stats went over my head because the only stat I look for on a good helmeted player is penalty minutes (and lots of them.) I did notice that on the personal side mothers, sibs, and teammates were mentioned, but no fathers.
The truth about "elite" higher education is that these institutions are totally self serving. There is no accountability. The sole function of these universities is compete with Havard to increase endowments (not use it to fund undergraduate education..except for Rice) and to be self-congratulatory and reward each other's faculty with high cost "research" and prizes, and by the way, fund faculty kids' higher education. I know I worked for one, and have had two children attend (not Duke) one of the top 3 Ivies.
These feckless administrators take advantage of idealistic young students (provide small dirty rooms, tell them when they can and can't talk to the press, use graduate assistants to teach and grade .... the famous faculty are too high paid to bother with nasty undergraduates). All done with tax exempt dollars. There are many better places to send charitable donations. Places that need it and where it will make a difference.
Unhappily, there is a benefit to paying for your kid to go there ...primarily association with a large body of smart motivated other kids, and connections for that first job! Quite frankly our daughter's high school chums, on balance are more compassionate and well rounded that her Ivy 04 classmates.
My theory is that as long as no financial accountability is demanded by the Trustees (NOT going to happen too much "status") and they get away with exhorbitant salaries, and abuse of graduate students why would they change?
How to start and enforce financial penalties/oversight/disclosure? That is the only answer that organizations respond to.
Post a Comment