Saturday, May 05, 2007

Crying Wolf

In an effort to position themselves as the true “victims” of the lacrosse affair, an extremist faction within the Group of 88 has alleged a “concerted” effort or a “conspiracy” targeted against them, characterized chiefly by threatening e-mails or phone calls.

Some Group members have received vile anonymous e-mails. (I have as well.) Such e-mails are a terrible side effect of the anonymity the internet can provide.

The Group’s claim, however, that others are endorsing violence against them is more than a bit ironic coming from the very same professors who signed an April 6, 2006 statement saying “thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard” to protesters who had, among other things, carried banners reading “Castrate” and “Measure for Measure” and who had distributed a vigilante poster around campus.

Moreover, the Group’s “evidence” that the e-mails form part of a conspiracy against them has been rather . . . sparse. In Monday’s Chronicle, William Chafe made the preposterous claim that “bloggers who targeted the ‘Group of 88’” had sent threatening e-mails and made threatening phone calls. When asked for evidence to substantiate his allegation—his charge, in effect, that one or more of the dozen or so bloggers who have publicly criticized the Group have engaged in criminal activity—Chafe could supply none.

The Group also has demonstrated what could charitably be termed a flexible conception of what e-mails they receive contain. I learned this first-hand last October, when Group member Alex Rosenberg told the New York Sun that this e-mail accused him of prejudging the case. (He added, “Blogs like yours do little but preach to the converted, and when the converted are largely the selfish rich for whom conservatism is but a rationalization for the maintenance of their unearned advantages, it’s really a waste of your time.”)

The latest example of creatively interpreting what constitutes “harassing” e-mails comes from the newly elected chairwoman of the Academic Council, Paula (“No to Due Process”) McClain. A Free Republic reader sent two emails to McClain. The first asked for comment about the end of the case; the second said that she had been “hoisted on the petard of Political Correctness, racial identity politics, gender determining feminism and what [the writer] coined as ‘Tawana Brawley Syndrome’.”

The reader continued, “Aside from the fact that petty tyrants like you have turned US college campuses into little ivy covered North Koreas, I suspect that you were seeking to appropriate PC bonus points and obtain instant moral authority by championing the cause of the “other” (marginalized black exotic dancer) against racist male chauvinist members of the privileged white elite. A case of cultural Marxist Class warfare that boomeranged. GOD how I love it so!!!!!”

I would not have sent the e-mail above. It had an unfortunate gloating tone. And while McClain might be a caricature of a race/class/gender “diversity” advocate, terming her a cultural Marxist seems oversimplistic.

That said, the e-mail contained no threats of any kind. Nor did it use racist or sexist language.

Here’s how McClain responded:

Your continued messages have now moved into the realm of harassment and I have reported you to your service provider for using abusive and inappropriate language in your email which was sent through their servers.

The ISP must have wondered what she was talking about.

Can Chafe and McClain seriously contend that any e-mail criticizing their positions on the lacrosse case is indistinguishable from anonymous, threatening e-mails? Theirs is, to put it mildly, a peculiar strategy.

113 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will Duke trustees and the Brodhead administration continue to watch these professors embarrass the university?

Michael said...

I have run into academics, used to respect and admiration from their students (real or feigned) that cower when challenged, claim abuse when there is none and generally appear to not know how to disagree with someone in the real world.

Anonymous said...

“Blogs like yours do little but preach to the converted, and when the converted are largely the selfish rich for whom conservatism is but a rationalization for the maintenance of their unearned advantages, it’s really a waste of your time.”


While it is probably true that very few supporters of the Group of 88 are responding to your blog Rosenberg’s motovations are way off. I was more then willing to go where ever the facts led on this case.

What got me hooked was that the facts very early on pointed to at least to reasonable doubt if not complete innocence. However there were some very bright people who did not want the facts to be played out. They tried instaed to insert idology as opposed to facts, logic and probablity. I found this offensive and I suspect others did also. Plus if facts don’t matter then I don’t trust our system of jusitce not just for the Lacrosse team but for all people.

Michael said...

re: 12:29

That quote was an ad hominem argument anyway. One would hope that a professor would have taken a course or two in writing or philosophy explaining why you shouldn't use them. Unless you have no valid argument.

Anonymous said...

The PC crowd has for a long time now been completely nihilistic in regard to their view of ultimate values and morality. In other words, they will not affirm any enduring, stable value systems. However, they enjoy moral supremacy at least as much as any 16th century Puritan. So, how do they get that kind of a fix? By victomhood!!!
It is perfect for their requirements. They get to keep their personal amorality while being able to claim a public moral superiority. At least until folks see thru their game-plan, which takes about 6 minutes on average.

Gary Packwood said...

Paula, bless her heart, is a late learner.

It takes time to learn that Americans do go on about their freedoms.

Democracy is not a spectator sport dear, but thank you for not waiting and for making yourself heard.

You are writing your own history.

GP

Chicago said...

These G88 members are nothing but professional victims who are now pissed that a girl did not get raped and that 3 innocent young men did not go to jail for 30 years. Such a fact hurts their agenda, which is what is important to them. Sad and sick, but true.

Chicago said...

Hey, unless I missed something, we have not heard one whisper from DK or his "wife" the SANE and Levicy enabler.

This is day 5 of the wait I think.

Anonymous said...

Thanks again KC

"The ISP must have wondered what she was talking about."

After so much for so long, it's good to have a chance to just laugh at them.

Thanks! ;>)

Anonymous said...

Has anyone heard how the DUPD investigation of the threatening phone calls and e-mails allegedly received by some of the 88 is progressing?

MikeZPurdue said...

I have observed this phenomenon over and over
again. Liberals can dish out but they cannot take it.

Liberals can dish out the most vile hate-filled
accusations against President Bush that have
no basis in reality. BUT when any one legitimately
questions how John Kerry got his medals in
Vietnam, liberals repeatedly refer to that as
slanderous and libelous.

Anonymous said...

Liberals have given liberalism a bad name. Classic liberals are now called conservatives.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I typically invoke Marx when threatening and/or harassing someone. What a joke!

Anonymous said...

1:16 John Kerry went to war in Vietman when almost everyone from his upper class, University, etc were getting a deferment or going to Canada. He joined the minories and kids who faught that war. Deserves praise for his committment to his country. Rudy G is my candidate and I did not vote for him in 04, but give credit where it is due. The real swiftboaters never denounced Kerry.

Anonymous said...

I'll say it again...if you don't want people commenting on your statements (opinions...crazy hallucinations...whatever), then don't air them publicly. If you are willing to put yourself out there and speak to what you believe (no matter how delusional), you must be willing to hear from the other side. I don't in any way condone hate-filled or racist e-mail/telephone harassment...but I don't understand this total and complete shock over the fact that people disagree with them, and do not disagree quietly.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ephblog.com/archives/003973.html

The above link is to the May 3 Ephblog, which has a link to 88er Grant Farred's April 30 talk at Williams College, "Innocent and the Law" (originally titled
"Public Secrets, Public Lies: The Event of Duke Lacrosse").

He did not allow recordings of the lecture, but someone took good notes on what is a continued attack on the lacrosse players in postmodern jargon that it beyond parody.

Some of the comments by Ephblog readers on the lecture are very funny.

The lecture notes are also posted at Liestoppers.

I hope that Farred, the politcally correct Princtonian, now a professor at Duke, doen't complain about receiving nasty e-mails or phone calls after delivering this public insult. I understand why he did not want anyone to record his words.

Anonymous said...

In reality Marxist fits the core of the 88. Just read there works read their links, and you will find Marxism is their idealogy and their new age god is Antonio Gramsci.

Look for yourself & you will find the 610 potbangers were Marxist at their core and so are the 88.

Humm I wonder?

Anonymous said...

I think the blog reactions, especially by this wonderful blog, to the words and deeds of the group of 88 has suddenly made them realize that their actions can have repercussions and they don't like it!

Mean, vindicative measures can't be contained or hushed up within the ivy tower. When something demonstrable wrong occurs, the knowledge of it will spread and with it the condemnation of those who commit such wrongs, including professors. Long protected from any serious reproach due to fears of seeming biased or worst racist, many professors in academia have been protected from the review and scrutiny of the public. Blogs and the internet have forever changed the playing field.

If you're going to take a public stand by publishing an ad in a newspaper, be prepared for the response. And when you rush to judge others wrongly and refuse to take personal responsibility for an error in judgment by publicly apologizing, stand back and expect the supporters of the wronged to respond.

It saddens me that those so blind to see themselves are in still a position to guide others. Perhaps this opens up a much needed review of the tenure policies at Universities. What other profession, aside from a Supreme Court Justice or a few other judicial positions offers job protection regardless of performance for life...

Anonymous said...

Carolyn says:

KC, dear, dear wonderful KC, you are so wrong!

It is NOT 'oversimplistic' to tell Professor McClain that she and the Gang of 88 were "hoisted on the petard of Political Correctness, racial identity politics, gender determining feminism and...‘Tawana Brawley Syndrome’...petty tyrants like you have turned US college campuses into little ivy covered North Koreas...A case of cultural Marxist Class warfare that boomeranged..."

It is accurate!

Hey, Free Republic reader, you are one awesome linguistic dude!

Sarah D said...

The G88 claim to have received threatening e-mails and phone calls.

I can claim to have been abducted by aliens, or to be conducting a secret love affair with Brad Pitt, however, people are entitled to remain sceptical until they see evidence.

Anonymous said...

“Never apologize. Never explain.” There is some doubt as to the origin of this sage advice, which I can trace back no further than Henry James, but it has become an apparently inflexible rule of American public life. Apology now seems to be equated with wimpiness and defeat. Will Hilary Clinton apologize for “voting for the war”? The issue is no longer whether the war is good, bad, or indifferent, or even whether Hilary Clinton is or was in favor of it. The issue is what “message” would an apology send, and with what effect on the “perception” of her leadership qualities. In a rare act of decency, albeit a coerced one, Don Imus apologizes for a casual and off-hand insult that reveals far more about the utter vulgarity of the man’s mind and discourse than any intentionally held social or political view. The apology is widely and probably rightly regarded not as an attempt to redress an injustice but as a desperate ploy to get his job back. Apology appears to have become only the very last of last resorts, in extremis, a sort of verbal last rite.

But surely one group for whom apology ought to be not merely possible but habitual is the “Group of 88”. These people are university professors. Professors ought to be modifying their views, changing their minds, and revising their opinions on a continuing basis. It is precisely the business of scientific and humanistic research to modify views, change mind, and revise opinions. Universities often define their mission as “the preservation and creation of knowledge.” Knowledge is “created” on the basis of evidence—new facts, or improved interpretations of old facts. Would a Duke professor consider that a student had displayed a moral flaw or a political debility if that student exited a course with views very different from those with which he entered it? It is actually easier to admire the lamentable “professor” Wendy Murphy than this Duke group who keep telling us how “distinguished” each other are. Murphy at least says in effect: “Yes, these guys got off, but believe me, the evidence of their guilt is probably buried there somewhere.” This formulation at least posits a relationship between opinion and evidence. The fact that the evidence has to be taken on faith may jeopardize the authority of the opinion, of course. The group of 88, on the other hand, would have us believe that the actual, evidential results of the criminal investigation—the positive assertion by the Attorney General of the State of North Carolina that the indicted men were “innocent”—has no relationship at all to the opinions stated in their manifesto. There is a large scientific distance between “not guilty” and “innocent”. The first means that there is not compelling evidence that they did it. The second means that there is compelling evidence that they didn’t do it. This is definitely new knowledge, but apparently not for the Group of 88. One is reminded of a wicked verse about Benjamin Jowett, the famous Victorian Master of Balliol College at Oxford:
I am the Master of this college;
If I don’t know it, it isn’t knowledge.

Anonymous said...

Carolyn says:

Anon. at 2:06 - I followed your link to Professor Farred's lecture last Monday. Unbelievable! Just unbelievable!

http://www.ephblog.com/archives/003973.html

My god, if Farred's brain levitated any worse, it would join Crystal on the ceiling of 610 Buchanan.

GS said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
GS said...

I"ve heard that they are being threatened and Discriminated against but they do not published the attacks and emails for the public to compare against the bloggers.

I believe their are always nuts emailing crap, but show us that it is the bloggers. All their statements are on the internet. Why not show the truth unless it is a lie you are telling?

Anonymous said...

KC, actually, in the McCain case, the e'mailer didn't call her a "cultural Marxist", as you claim.

A careful reading shows that he called her nothing more than a "petty tyrant"; he called the case against the Lax players "a case of cultural Marxist Class warfare", but didn't call her a cultural Marxist.

By the way, it's ironic that trying to silence the writer for his "inappropriate and abusive language", McClain validated his description of her as a "petty tyrant".

R.R. Hamilton

Anonymous said...

I'm certain that every single blogger has received vile emails...the G88 would be no exception, since they did enter into the fray...if there are *truly* threatening emails, they should alert the authorities...if they're just the predictable ugly rants from the unhinged, then they need to suck it up and put on their big-girl pants...if they got true, specific, death threats, I can NOT believe they would not run to the police, so I'm calling bullsh*t on this until they cough up some evidence...they wanted to be free to smear innocent men, and not hear from angry people about it? F*cking typical...no guts, no courage of their convictions...pathetic...

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

You don't understand. McClain's the expert on "racism, sexixm and homophobia."

Disagreeing with her is "racism, sexism and homophobia."

Don't you dare disagree with the Comisssar.

Anonymous said...

I love being one of the Selfish Rich! I drive a rusty 11-year-old Subaru just to trick people into thinking I'm poor as hell.

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

Fighting the Viet Nam War all over again? For those who did not get enough of it in 2004?

KC, could you move the comments on the past Presidential campaign to another blog?

M. Simon said...

It had an unfortunate gloating tone.

Yeah. I loved it too!!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the free republic reader/emailer needs to issue a clarifying statement. He or she could borrowed language from the G88's clarifying statment: "It has been broadly, and often intentionally, misread." There, that should take care of it. Surely, Ms. McClain wound understand and she might even reiterate what the G88 voiced in their original "social disaster" ad., "To the the students [,emailer in this case,] speaking individually and...the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard."

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

Preacher-man K.C.:

When I saw Rosenberg claiming "Blogs like [DiW] do little but preach to the converted..." I found it just too funny.

Sure, what has been "preached" by blogs like LS and DiW went to the choir, but it has clearly reached some sinners, too -- after all, the words managed to sway a Democrat AG in a state where the black vote is indispensable to a Democrat victory. The preaching hasn't changed the desperate hearts of the 88 yet, but they are hardened in their error. We have to hope that some light will come to some of them, some day.

As for the rest of Rosenberg's nonsense, I humbly inquire how progressives dare talk about preaching to the converted (I scan DailyKOS, Huffington Post, etc. daily, and have never found it the least un-preachy).

Besides, if the egregious injustices in this case are evident only to conservatives, then heaven help America.

I don't believe it, though: many sympathetic posters on this site are clearly from the left, and certainly not all are rich whites. I'm not, for sure, yet the declaration of the LAX players' innocence still fills me with joy whenever I think of it. So I say to all...let us join hands, brothers and sisters, and sing hallelujah!... and may Rosenberg find the way.

Anonymous said...

1:13:
"Has anyone heard how the DUPD investigation of the threatening phone calls and e-mails allegedly received by some of the 88 is progressing?"

The FBI were called in to investigate the cross burnings in Durham. The result? It was done by black teenagers.
Hmmm.....

Anonymous said...

I too am waiting eagerly for the position paper of DK's wife. It's possible that she is having a difficult time getting past, "This case is so unlike Richard Jewell's ..."

Anonymous said...

"Can Chafe and McClain seriously contend that any e-mail criticizing their positions on the lacrosse case is indistinguishable from anonymous, threatening e-mails?"

Sure. Lies and misrepresentation are just common everyday tools in the radical class/race/gender carpetbag.

Anon 5:24

"Professors ought to be modifying their views, changing their minds, and revising their opinions on a continuing basis."

Actually, there is much more of a tendency to carve out a niche and defend it to the death. Witness the global warming academic "war" as an example. One has to have a position, establish a consistent body of work; can't be seen as waffling.

Every time I encounter an example of the Left's version of free speech, I am reminder of an old Soviet joke noire:

"Americans claim they have free speech. Here in the Soviet Union we can say anything we want to also. Once."

Anonymous said...

How long is it going to take for the bot to get rid of the feckless stumblebum and his mindless minions??? They seem to be standing by watching the ship sink!! I went to school with a couple of the board and cannot believe they are putting up with these idiots.

Trinity60

M. Simon said...

I blogged this post. Consider this a track back:

It Had An Unfortunate Gloating Tone

Anonymous said...

K.C.,

We in academe understand that people like McClain and Chafe see themselves as the Champions of All That Is Good And Right. Thus, any kind of criticism or questioning of their actions is to commit a vile act of racism and sexism (and homophobia, and specism, and lookism, and....).

Their tactics are those of the followers of Leo Strauss, who taught his students not to engage anyone intellectually, but to attack, attack, attack. People like McClain and Chafe simply are not interested in having intellectual engagement. They demand nothing less than complete obedience to their way of thinking, and any deviation is evil.

Thus, in their minds, even an email with mild criticism or one that attempts to engage in real dialog is going to be dismissed as an act of "ism." As much as anything, this case has exposed this way of thinking and acting, but it also tells us there is not much we can do to change the academic culture on campus. The best strategy is that of containment.

We have seen how the collectivist thought of McClain and Chafe has seeped into the law. In that arena, it is manifest by lack of due process, fabrication of evidence, and outright lies being regarded as gospel truth.

Anonymous said...

The word conspiracy means for two or more people to formulate a plan surreptitiously (in secret).

FODU was expressly formed in opposition to the G88 and has purchased an add in the Duke Chronicle questioning the G88.

John in Carolina has publicly published the text of emails to G88 members and offered to post their responses.

KC has publicly stated on many occasions that the genisus of his involvement in this case was his opposition to the listening statement.


Can the blogs get any more fucking public?

The G88 refuses to explain who paid for the listening statement and how the endorsements from various academic departments were obtained.
The AAAS department refuses to release the video recording of the "Shut Up And Teach" event. Why?

Anonymous said...

Off topic but partially on thread:

Finally somebody posted a link to notes from Farred's talk at Williams.

Indistinguishable from parody. I typically experience a twisted enjoyment when confronted with his (their) tortured syntax and willingness to detach from any need for evidence or logic, but maybe I've gotten saturated. His discourse must be intolerably offensive to anyone who respects scholarship.

A perhaps minor but particulary irritating example (from the notes) is:

----------------------
• Quotes a description of an exchange between the lacrosse players and the two women:
- “Roberts called the players ‘short-dicked white boys.’”
- “We asked for whites, not niggers.”
- “That’s a racial slur, a hate crime.”
“Does ‘innocent’ cover, and (…) from the law’s memory, a hate crime? Or do strippers not have equal protection under the law? Do hate crimes matter?”
• Is innocent the same thing as “a free pass on racist invective?”
--------------

It is immediately apparent to me that both parties "quoted" in that heated exchange should be tarred with the same "hate crime" brush (if I can use that analogy). I guess Black strippers do get a "free pass" when using racial invective.

And the maddening thing is that, if I was given an opportunity to point out this illogic to Prof Farred personally and ask for clarification, I am certain he would have absolutely no difficulty 'explaining' the fundamental illogic of his statement.

My dad was in WWII. I am a child of the 50'/60's. I heard him say on several occasions, when speaking of the freedoms he fought to protect, that: "I may disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death your right to say it." Hurt feelings and PC now clearly trump freedom.

I weep.

rl DU alum medicine '75

Jack said...

KC has done a commendable job in helping to expose the hoax, and he has been tireless in identifying the rotten apples in the process – Nifong, Tara, the Gang of 88, Durham PD, specific media outlets, Duke faculty members, Broadhead and the Trustees. The many posters on this board have weighted in continuously with strong points about PC, justice, fairness, the role of academics and such, most in a constructive manner. With four children in and around college age, I am very familiar with the college environment, and many schools specifically; but not Duke. The impression I’ve developed over the past several months following this story is not a good one. I certainly do not want, and will not permit my children to attend Duke, under any circumstances, chiefly due to the issues exposed in this case. But, I can’t help wonder if we aren’t all feeding off one another in this process. The hundreds, thousands of posts on the various topics over the months – how many people does this actually represent, how many really different, individual posters? This may, in some way, be an example of “preaching to the converted”. Does the rest of the country recognize the issues here? An administration that has abandoned its students in a time of crisis and need, exposed them to such great potential harm, and unwilling to consider their innocence. A faculty which has publicly and stridently derided the student body in general, the values their students represent, a faculty which has repeatedly expressed disdain for their race, and the professional and social standing of their parents? As kids and families around the country consider where to apply to college, does any of this ring in their minds? Are they at all tuned in to this? How about high schools, guidance counselors and the like? From reading this board, I can’t help but think that Duke is not a good place to go to school; there certainly are better options, at least socially. My kids have not seen fit to go to college with the same demographic they grew up with; much less where the faculty is hostile towards them. Like I said, “ are we just talking among ourselves” ?

Anonymous said...

THE group of 88 are using the same tactics that drive LEFTIST like chavez..THREATEN WITH LEGAL ACTION and use the ACLUS AND AACP and others with large resources ...

when students threaten teachers DOES one see legal action taken against PARENTS by the NEA ? no because every student gets $50 dollars from the government per day contributed to school districts...

but let some american RESPOND to a PUNBLISHED MANIFESTO, more than likely PAID FOR by some aspect/group funded by the UNIVERSITY, and wee see ARROGANCE about these signers and psychopants being called to explain their CONDUCT....

The professor can change her email, she can deny delivery, BUT it is she who chposes to THREATEN...

the homosexual lobby has created the PATTERNS that drive the media and respondednt TACTICS that this useless academic has employed...

The duke case isnt ABOUT ending criticism and analsis EXCEPT if your a professor who believes THAT some groups are above the law, like she is

today there was a troubling story in the N&O that, if this bill were passed BEFORE THE DUKE CASE, would have denied JUstice TO THE players..

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

Anne Blythe, Staff Writer
North Carolina prosecutors hope to roll back parts of the 2004 law that helped defense lawyers show the innocence of the three men charged in the Duke lacrosse case.
A bill proposed in the legislature would give district attorneys and their staffs greater leeway to withhold details from some interviews with witnesses and investigators. If the interviews were considered legal strategy talks -- or "work product" in lawyer jargon -- then notes taken from the meetings might not have to be shared with the defense.

Defense lawyers are fighting the proposal, saying the changes would turn the clock back to a time when many prosecutors routinely sat on information that could help an accused person prove his innocence.

The N.C. Conference of District Attorneys is pushing for the amendment not quite three years after the law took effect requiring prosecutors to open their entire case files to defendants. A series of wrongful convictions sparked the October 2004 "open discovery law."

Prosecutors say their intention is to tweak a relatively new law that sometimes handcuffs them.

The 2004 law requires prosecutors to disclose the identity of confidential informants and hand over Social Security numbers and other key personal data that witnesses might not want made public.

The director of the state's district attorneys association acknowledged that Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong's widely criticized behavior in the Duke lacrosse case makes their proposal a tougher sell.

"We are hoping that the General Assembly will not take the acts of one prosecutor and hold the rest of them accountable for it," said Peg Dorer, director of the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys. "Timing could not be any worse. But if we don't address this, it's going to shut the prosecutors down."

What further worries prosecutors is a recent N.C. Court of Appeals ruling affirming that prosecutors need to make a record of all meetings with witnesses and provide notes to defendants.

"You're setting the prosecutor up to fail," said Colon Willoughby, Wake County District Attorney.

Willoughby said he interprets this to mean that if a prosecutor were to speak with an investigator or other witness in a hallway and find out nothing new, the law would still require a memorandum from that meeting.

"This happens all the time," Willoughby said.

Not only would such reports be cumbersome for the prosecutor and his staff, Willoughby said, it could create an atmosphere where anyone who forgot to mention a hallway meeting could be accused of violating ethics and professional conduct rules.

Defense lawyers say it should not be left to the discretion of a prosecutor to determine what might help a defendant fight charges.

They say Nifong's actions in the sexual assault case against the three former Duke lacrosse players show how a prosecutor can interpret information in a very different way from the defense.

Crystal Gail Mangum, a stripper, told police she was gang-raped at a lacrosse team party.

In that case, Nifong withheld evidence that DNA from four men who were not lacrosse players was on or in the accuser around the time she claimed the players gang-raped her.

Nifong said in a letter earlier this year to the State Bar, a letter he wrote to protest ethics and misconduct charges against him, that he had not considered the evidence of DNA from the four men anything that would have helped the three former Duke lacrosse players.

Lacrosse case fallout

Nifong said he was basing his case on the accuser's identification of the three men. Last month, State Attorney General Roy Cooper dismissed the sexual assault and kidnapping charges and sharply criticized Nifong for his rush to prosecute.

Prosecutors worry that publicity from the lacrosse case could cause legislators to give short shrift to their legislative proposal. In recent weeks, a negotiating team from the N.C. Academy of Trial lawyers has been working with the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys to develop a compromise that would take into account concerns about the disclosure of confidential informants and witnesses' personal data.

'Nifong protection act'

Under the legislative proposal, for example, Nifong could have withheld notes from interviews done by Linwood Wilson, his chief investigator in the lacrosse case. Wilson's December interview with Crystal Gail Mangum, the accuser in the case, led to the dismissal of rape charges. During that interview, Mangum changed her version of what happened from an earlier telling, saying she longer was certain she had been raped.

Defense lawyers say the bill proposals as worded now are unacceptable.

"I call this the Nifong protection act," said Mary Ann Tally, a representative of the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers working on the negotiating team. "You're protecting Nifong. You're not protecting the public from Mike Nifong. I'm more concerned about protecting the public from Mike Nifong than protecting him."

Anonymous said...

THIS IS SOME OF THE LATEST POSTS FROM WILLIAMS:

http://www.thetranscript.com/sports/ci_5792424

Impact of Duke lacrosse case felt at Williams
By Adam Bloch, North Adams Transcript
Article Launched: 05/01/2007 11:23:55 AM EDT


Tuesday, May 1
It's a long way from Williamstown to Durham, N.C. — a 678-mile drive, according to Google Maps. Such distance makes the campuses of Williams College and Duke University seem entirely remote from each other.
But the Duke lacrosse rape case, which has drawn a firestorm of national attention and debate over the past 14 months, has shown a tendency for involving even those far from North Carolina. What began in March 2006 as an ordinary rape investigation quickly ignited an increasingly public and widespread discourse on racism, sexism and college athletics.

The reverberations has been felt even in faraway Williamstown as three current and former Williams professors have played roles peripheral to the case, which came to a legal conclusion on April 11 when North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper cleared the three accused lacrosse players of all charges.

Few commentators on the alleged attack have drawn as much attention as Grant Farred, a former professor and junior varsity soccer coach at Williams in the late 1990s who has since moved on to Duke. Currently a visiting professor of Africana Studies at Williams this semester, Farred delivered a talk titled "Public


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Secrets, Public Scandals: the Event of Duke Lacrosse" at Griffin Hall on Monday.
Farred decried the finality of Cooper's declaration of innocence and what he considered the all-encompassing immunity it offered the accused. Though he eventually admitted that the three players were not guilty of rape or kidnapping as initially charged, Farred felt that they (and the rest of the lacrosse team) have shown "a tendency toward misogyny and arrogant sexual prowess."

The crux of his argument was that the Duke lacrosse team had a long history of unlawfulness — mostly citations for public drunkenness — and was guilty of using racist and sexist epithets. As such, he claimed, their publicly announced innocence provided an affirmation of Southern white privilege.

"The Duke lacrosse program is indicted here not for whatever happened on that night, but for its past — its blemished past," Farred said. "The lacrosse team has a history of being inhospitable, of being bad neighbors to Durham ... it is the history of racism in the South."

Farred first achieved a measure of recognition as one of the 88 faculty signers (commonly known as the Group of 88) of an advertisement in The Chronicle, the student newspaper at Duke. The final statement in the full-page notice read, "We're turning up the volume in a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait. To the students speaking individually and to the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting."

Farred created more controversy last October when he wrote an editorial in The Herald-Sun, the primary daily newspaper of Durham, that accused Duke students then participating in a voter registration campaign of "closing ranks against Durham" and "(displacing) the problem of racism from the lacrosse team and the university to Durham's political system."

On Monday, Farred reserved some of his harshest criticism for the North Carolina legal system: "The law is madness because it is megalomaniacal. The law is authoritative and tyrannical enough to close this event with a single word and a press conference."

Asked how his experiences as a coach at Williams had influenced his thinking, Farred responded, "I don't understand institutional loyalty. I don't understand the uncritical relationship between sports and institutions."

Farred, who courteously declined to answer questions from the Transcript afterwards, claimed that the lacrosse program at Duke operated from a privileged position that allowed athletes any misconduct as long as they performed well on the field.

The audience on Monday was mostly supportive in its questioning, but another former Williams professor has established himself as perhaps the foremost critic of Farred's actions with regard to the Duke case.

K.C. Johnson, who taught history at Williams from 1995 to 1999 and is currently a professor at Brooklyn College, has become one of the most unlikely figures in the public debate over the Duke lacrosse case. Initially intrigued by an interest in what he termed "academic groupthink," Johnson began posting messages on a historians' Web log concerning the investigation. As his interest grew, he formed a blog of his own — the amusingly named "Durham-in-Wonderland" — and became a highly prominent critic of the prosecution of the case and professors such as Farred.

"Maybe I'm naive, but I'd like to think that the academy stands for due process," he said in a phone interview recently. "The more involved I became in the case, the more upset I became. This was basically a case where everything was upside down. Nothing was happening as it should have."

Johnson, who at this point posts several long blogs per day and has become incredibly well versed in the investigation's minutiae, is also the co-author of an upcoming book about the case.

Of Farred, Johnson would only say, "He has unusual attitudes toward sports," referring to his former colleague's book "Phantom Calls: Race and the Globalization of the NBA."

Johnson also said his experiences with Williams athletics were overwhelmingly positive.

"Athletically, Williams is kind of the Division 3 equivalent of Duke, where you have the combination of high-class academics with high-class athletics," he said. "I had a decent number of athletes in my classes at Williams. Some were extremely smart and some weren't, but all were very hard working in the classroom. This idea that athletes are somehow given special treatment at academically elite institutions just felt false to me. I didn't have the sense that Williams had compromised its academic standards for athletics."

Johnson's comparison between the two colleges didn't sit right with Williams President Morton O. Schapiro, who noted that Duke is a major research university with more than 12,000 students, while Williams is six times smaller.

"I wouldn't overplay that," he said of the similarities between his institution and Duke. "The world in Division 1 is so different than Division 3. I'm not saying we can't learn something from Duke and Duke can't learn something from us, but they're in a completely different world down there. I know Division 1. It's a different ball game."

Schapiro also was tangentially involved in the lacrosse case as a member of the Presidential Council, one of the five committees that Duke President Richard H. Brodhead formed in the immediate aftermath of the accusations.

The council's mission, according to Schapiro, was to "scrutinize Duke's responses to the lacrosse team incident, advise the president on best practices in other university settings and consider ways Duke can promote its values."

Schapiro, who thinks he was asked to join because of his past experience with athletics as a dean at the University of Southern California, traveled to Durham last November. His duties for a weekend consisted mainly of reviewing reports by the other four committees. He was unable to attend the council's most recent meeting several months ago but provided a critique of a final overarching document published in February called "The Report of the Campus Culture Initiative Steering Committee."

Schapiro said the primary lesson he drew from his experience was the importance of campus communication. Unlike Farred and Johnson, he had only praise for Duke's administration.

"Duke is a great school, and everybody holds it up for emulation all the time," he said. "It gets some richly-deserved accolades. I was very impressed with their honesty in that final report. They took a clear look at themselves. I admire them for being so forthcoming."

Anonymous said...

This wouldn't be the first time college professors (students, too) have claimed to have been harrassed, only to have it later come out that it was either complete fiction or, even worse, that they had perpetrated the "harrassment" themselves.

A few years ago, long after I had graduated, my alma mater suffered the case of a professor whose car was vandalized with hate messages. The campus was in an uproar over the incident for several days -- meetings, teach-ins, and the like denouncing the evil perps who had done such a dastardly deed and searching for solutions to the vile "isms" that had been demonstrated. Later, a witness came forward who stated that the professor had vandalized her own car. The response of the administration in the aftermath? All of the PC bullshit that had gone on for days was still relevant because even if the event didn't happen, it is healthy to have this discussion.

From that day forward, my college will never receive another contribution to the alumni fund from me.

Sarah D said...

It would not be the first time that University professors had made false claims about death threats and hate crimes, just do a Google search the name Kerri Dunn, who was a professor at a college in LA, who, among other things spray painted the words "n***er lover" on her own car.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Little minds are precisely what the gang of 88 has.

They DARE not say that the facts proved them wrong in this case because that would imply there are such things as facts that need to be ascertained in other cases.

I do not say all academics are like this. Keynes once responded to an accusation that he was inconsistent with the rhetorical question, "When I learn that my position was wrong, I change it. What do you do?"

If one's talents lie along the lines of deconstructing hip-hop or reading history from a "queer" perspective, however, one seldom has to deal with anything as messy as a fact, and so admission of error is simply an alien concept.

JeffM

Anonymous said...

The more I see and hear from the halls of academe, the more convinced I am that the lunatics have taken over the asylum. Professors KC Johnson and Bill Anderson are aberations--highly educated men with splendid cognitive abilities and the ability to think critically. I used to regret that I was unable to go to college fifty years ago, but I believe I actually was fortunate not to have been corrupted by slugs like those who seem to infest Duke and other once-great institutions of learning.

Anonymous said...

11:17 AM --

Lest anyone draw a conclusion that there is a wave of nutty college professors going around vandalizing their own cars, the event to which you refer is the same as mine (11:01).

Michael said...

From the Farred notes:

[Q: What has been the campus sentiment towards the group of 88?

A: - I didn’t address that at all
- Because I respect my colleagues I will not answer that question.
- Valid question, will not answer for both personal and legal reasons
]

Interesting response. It appears that the Group of 88 has lawyered up outside of those that can't help themselves to say something.

Anonymous said...

i will go with my mother who said "You are in school to learn how to read and write " If post HS - then "it is to get the diploma or trade certification to make a living." - "the rest is frosting."

Michael said...

re: 11:19

I took "unearned advantages" to refer to the financial assets of the parents. Of course that would infer that a first-grader should have earned the cost of their first-grade education instead of having it paid for by his parents.

BTW, there is another here with the same handle so I may have to change mine.

Sarah D said...

To Scott at 11:01, sorry, I missed the fact you had already mentioned Prof. Dunn. However, her actions were certainly relevant

Sarah

Anonymous said...

In response to the article published about Farred's visit to Williams at http://www.thetranscript.com/sports/ci_5792424

I posted this comment:

Let me be sure that I have this straight about President Schapiro:

Prof. K.C. Johnson said that athletes at both Williams and Duke are "equivalent" in the sense that they both have "high-class academics and high-class athletics." But that didn't "sit right" with Pres. Schapiro?

Pres. Schapiro says that Prof. Johnson "overplays" his contention that both Williams and Duke have "high-class" students? And Pres. Schapiro has not a word of criticism for Prof. Farred?

Well, this is interesting.

Did you tell him that Prof. Farrad called Duke students rapists and racists? Did you ask him if perhaps that was "overplayed"? Did you tell him that Farred just said -- at a Williams forum, "the law is madness"? Did you ask him if he thought that was "overplayed"?

Maybe you should ask him why he felt comfortable disagreeing with Johnson -- for saying that both Williams and Duke students are "high class" -- but not comfortable disagreeing Farred who called Duke students rapists and racists and just called the law "madness" on Pres. Schapiro's very own campus. If he claims to feel comfortable criticizing Farred, then let's hear some.


R.R. Hamilton

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

I often have lunch with a friend who got his PhD at Duke and generously supports the university. When this incident hit the news, I felt there were too many people presuming that these young men were guilty. The media, feminists, the usual race baiters were piling on in the middle of a Southern election.

I asked him what he thought and his answer surprised me.

"They [the lacrosse players] represent a culture of privilege." He went on to talk about loud parties, pranks and national rankings.

I know about big time college sports having attended the Naval Academy and Oklahoma. Was he concerned that jocks get perks? No. It was something else. He was buying into the whole victimization theory. The three were wealthy, white males at a Southern school. She was a poor, black female. They must have done it; it fits the template - whites are guilty.

The actions of the accuser, the G88, the Duke Administration and the Durham DA were disgusting. All of them had best lawyer up. They will need it.

I am encouraged by KC and this blog and also by AG Cooper who put an end to this circus.

My friend has told Duke they should no longer expect a contribution from him.

Anonymous said...

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Gary Packwood said...

Representatives of a Culture

Anonymous 1: 38 said...quoting a friend...
..."They [the lacrosse players] represent a culture of privilege."
::
As I was reading your comment I was thinking about privileged people since the beginning of time and how they behave...as a culture.

Culture is such a broad term that they political left uses the term because it surly means something to everyone. Everyone nods their heads in agreement. Brats? Oh Yeah. Community Minded? Oh Yeah. Giver of great gifts to the community? Why of course! Spoiled? Yup!

I wonder if your friend knows that 'Culture' is a Jamaican roots rock reggae group founded in 1976?

I understand they were privileged.
::
GP

Anonymous said...

Blogs like yours do little but preach to the converted, and when the converted are largely the selfish rich ...

KC, that is just priceless. But it is also profoundly disturbing that this individual holds an academic position.

How does he know who reads your blog ("the converted")? Even you have no way of knowing that, although common sense tells you it's unlikely that all 10,000 or so daily readers have a single characteristic in common. How does he know we are all selfish and rich--particularly the latter? Of course, it's preposterous to suggest that all readers are well off financially.

This fellow is one sick puppy-- engaged in a sick thought process to avoid taking responsibility for his own wrongful conduct.

M. Simon said...
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Anonymous said...

He found out from me, and my friend Erin, whom I should have never told to take his class.

Anonymous said...

I told Anna too, but she wasn't interested.

She liked Egypt, though.

We all did.

Anonymous said...

sarah d --

You are absolutely correct that Kerri Dunne is relevant. No harm in mentioning her twice in the space of less than 20 minutes. In fact, the more public humiliation we can heap on her, the better.

I'm just really pissed off that my college got all wrapped up in the PC BS. It wasn't like that when I was there. Of course, in those days, only a few of the really whacked out ones were.

Anonymous said...

5:07

It's Kerri Dunn (no "e"), and she's probably mentally ill.

Do you like making fun of the mentally ill?

Has anyone noticed that Professor Johnson's book title is a non sequitur? The main title is "Until Proven Innocent," which bizarrely segues into the subtitle that contains political correctness, etc. Hey, KC, lose "Until Proven Innocent"--it upsets me.

William F. Buckley Jr.

Anonymous said...

Each member of the Gang of 88 will be best known for... being a Gang of 88 member. What a legacy.

Anonymous said...

5:49

You are so right. They are defeated losers, and it's only going to get worse for them. The discovery process will be hysterical, trust me.

Anonymous said...

This is to Jack @ 10:30 am:

Do you really think that the colleges that your kids attend aren't anything like Duke? I hope you are correct but I doubt you are. Here's one way to find out. Go to your kid's course catalog and find out if there is a women's studies department. If so, go to the course description and find out what basic text they are using in Women's Studies 101. Then go to amazon and find that book and see if it can be searched. Some of the books there allow "searching" and this gives you a way to browse through the book and get a sense of what is being said. If you are lucky and the text in question can be searched then make sure to start off with "oppression " as your first search word. Read the references to the word oppression and it will give you a sense of what is being said in the book. I am fairly sure that you will find numerous references to the word oppression and you will get a real eyeball full of the victimology that is professed. If you can't find that particular book you can search amazon for womens studies and a number of texts will come up. Here's a link to one of those that pops up:

Women's studies text Try that one and see what you see. I think it has 70 references to oppression.

I was curious last night about the SANE training and regimens and was able to find a forensic nursing book at amazon for SANE training and was able to see that the textbooks for SANE nurses use the same rape propaganda that is used by feminist groups. The "1 in 5" number was repeated over and over. What they don't tell you is that in order to get that number they define rape as many things...including being penetrated by fingers or objects. So two 16 year olds are fooling around and he sticks his finger in her vagina and she smacks his hand and that is counted as a rape. oh boy. The hilarious part is that when they dilute the rape definition to that degree the number of rapes of men goes up drastically! They don't tell you that part but you can find it by looking at the raw data.

It is obvious in searching the nursing text that the information about interpersonal violence is crafted for women victims only. They mention men being victims but seem to focus almost completely on women. That's a giveaway.

And so it goes.

Anonymous said...

Chafe is a wimp.

He had no problem criticizing others. Blasting the Duke3 and comparing their alleged behaviour to a lynching.

But when the criticism comes his way, he can't can't handle it.

Unlike Academia, in the real world, idiotic statements aren't shielded from criticism by virtue of their compliance with a politically correct orthodoxy. In the real world, people will disagree.

If Chase can't handle disagreement and criticism, he should keep his mouth shut.

Anonymous said...

Kilgore,

You're absolutely correct about most universities having their Brodheads and Chafes. Last I looked Princeton was the top ranked undergrad school. Check out the course offerings in its AAAS dept.

Laughable, pitiful ... pathetic!

Anonymous said...

If the Duke LAX case was about white male privilege, is this case about black male savagry:

http://townhall.com/columnists/MarkMAlexander/2007/05/04/murder_in_black_and_white

If the link doesn't work, just go to townhall.com and read the column by Mark Alexander.

Everyone who is still dreaming like MLK needs to have a look at this. If you go around black people, you get what you deserve.

Anonymous said...

5/5 1:47:00 am

You're pathetic. The sight of someone trying to cram their head into their nether orifice is grotesque.

E-mail: said...

William F. Buckley Jr.???!!! posted here? ... the conservative from Camdem, SC? ... if so, please remember me to your Mom. I recall many afternoon teas at her home in Camden ..... usually following Sunday mass.

Anonymous said...

Professor Rosenberg,
Research like yours does little but preach to the converted, and when the converted are largely the selfish liberal wingnuts for whom liberalism is but a rationalization for the maintenance of their unearned advantages, it’s really a waste of your time.
cf

Anonymous said...

Georgia Girl

Buckley was born in New York City, and raised in Connecticut. I think that was he because it had his sense of humor. I've met him, and he's quite funny.

Anonymous said...

Kerri Dunn spraypainted her own car because she is the same as a G88 wingnut. Rosenberg, Chaffe, Holoway, Baker, and the rest are unable to function in the real world and have NO, absolutely NO, NADA, NONE WHATSOEVER, idea of how to respond when challenged. They are the Borg (I know, trite Star Stek reference, but hey, if the shoe fits...).
cf

Anonymous said...

To Scott or Sara d or anyone else:
Do ou know if Kerry Dunn, who defaced her own car with racist comments, is still at Pomona?

E-mail: said...

8:06, that's pretty baffling to me ... the Buckley's along with some of the DuPonts lived in Camden, SC. I never met Buckley, Jr., but for sure I ran around with the Sunday afternoon tea-sippers .... hosted by Mrs Buckley. Camden is (or was) "horse country".

Anonymous said...

I saw Buckley in Sharon, Conn. - It was the day everyone was out on the street because the Russians had put a man in space. One of the all time great voices and speaker.

Anonymous said...

THE William F. Buckley is certainly not a part of the redneck trash in S.C. They might try to drink tea, but they probably spike it with moonshine.

Anonymous said...

K.C.,

By the way, I, too, have received threatening and vulgar emails. It seems to me that when I spoke out about this case in a very public way, that this kind of criticism comes with the territory. (I am thankful that no one at my university tried to retaliate against me. I hate to get nasty with my own peers.)

Furthermore, these people take any criticism, even the most mild statements, as "vile racism" and the like. They are pathetic and very, very small people.

And if you pathetic and very, very small people are reading this, know that I am talking about you. You tried to help a corrupt prosecutor frame three innocent young men, your students at Duke. You lost. Get over it, and get a life.

Gary Packwood said...

Conspirators ...Crying Wolf

I suspect the majority of the G88 would very much like to see the undergraduate programs at Duke become the undergraduate university for Southern students of color and international students. That would include especially women of color (Africa and Great Britain, for example).

The Duke name and the Duke endowment ($4.5Billion) is a strong draw for the politically left to harvest.
That is what they have set out to do, I believe.

And yes, I am talking about civil conspiracy and it is centered around Women's Studies and AABlack Studies and their friends and students.

What we are watching unfold is a chapter in American history.

The alums and Board of Trustees need to mentally and emotionally move over the hump of denial and recognize that there are those on campus who treated three young guys...as disposable people in order to harvest the Duke name and the Duke endowment...for future agendas.

The Conspirators are Crying Wolf because they recognize a conspiracy when they see one and ...they have been caught.
::
GP

Gary Packwood said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Bill Anderson @ 10:13pm

Exactly right!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Carolyn says:

KC, people - I apologize for being off topic - but I'm posting a link below to an awesome cartoon re AG Cooper's April 11 'rogue' label of Nifong!

http://www.townhall.com/funnies/cartoonist/MichaelRamirez/2007/04/13

Anonymous said...

Carolyn says:

KC, people - my apologies. I don't think my link came through for the awesome cartoon about Cooper's April 11 verdict. Here it is again.

http://tinyurl.com/253aog

Anonymous said...

Why don't you guys post a link? It's very easy to do.

Anonymous said...

Georgia Girl
I have tried to be nice; I am most comfortable in my own skin when I do not have to use words like "hopeless" or "clueless", or even "stop embarrassing yourself".
But what choice do you leave us? I mean, I read everything W.F. Buckley wrote back in the 60s. I met him once. So when you blat on about how you know for sure that he is from S. Carolina - I just want to put your stupidity out of its misery.
I have not agreed with him a lot, necessarily; but he has always cared about the right things, he spent his professional life (sometimes against popularity and at some risk) fighting against illiberal, statist, PC error.
He grew up as an anglo-philic Irish Catholic New England aristocrat. At his best, his wordcraft was good enough to remind many people of how Jimmy Hendrix played guitar in his prime.
You seem to know nothing about this. So, why do you comment on such a topic?

Anonymous said...

As an alum and Duke parent I am less troubled by the tantums of the Gang of 88 than by the cowardice of the trustees and administration and the silence of the remainder of the faculty. The Gang of 88 are largely a group of academic pretenders who soon will revert to their usual state of irrelevance. The shame for Duke is that the overwhelming majority of the faculty either is afraid to respond or does not care.

Anonymous said...

please hman, put that idiot out of her misery.

Gary Packwood said...

hman 10:57 Re: Your Comment to Georgia Girl
::
I think Georgia Girl was speaking about William Frank Buckley, SENIOR, William Buckley Jr.'s Dad, who most certainly did have a connection to South Carolina.

He owned The Kamchatka Estate in Camden, South Carolina to be exact.
Relatives are still there, I would imagine.
Beautiful place.
::
GP

Anonymous said...

I am not for any vile emails, threats or calling folk pathetic and small.

Anonymous said...

Then what do you advocate? Turning the other buttcheek?

Anonymous said...

I advocate not being mean spirited and attacking folk - including their jobs and licenses to work. It is still the land of the free and home of the brave and people have a right to their own opinion. To make nasty personal assessments of people you who disagree with you is not the American Way.

Anonymous said...

You've got to be an 88 plant. Just here to write deliberately stupid comments of support for the thugs who tried to railroad their own students. Off to the guillotine with them. They are scum.

Anonymous said...

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I just had a horror-filled thought: What if Nifong had been black?

Anonymous said...

If Nifong had been black he wouldn't have had to use criminal methods to indict innocent white men to get votes. This might not have happened.
In Durham, the black community in unison will vote for a knot on a log for office provided it is black. No pandering would have been needed if Nifong were black.

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 8:15 PM

When the incident happened in March 2004, Kerri Dunn (no "e") was a visiting professor at Claremont McKenna College, one of the 5 colleges located in Claremont, CA (Pomona College is also one of the 5, which are located adjacent to one another). Her actions were likened by the trial judge to someone who perpetrated a bomb hoax and she was convicted and sentenced to 1 year in state prison.

So to answer your question, Kerri Dunn (no "e") is not teaching at the college now.

As an aside, I like to make fun of politically correct asshats. If they happen to be mentally ill, I don't let that get in the way.

Anonymous said...

But, if Nifong were black he probably would still have gone after the Duke 3 for the same reasons that Chan Hall and Solomon Burnette get off on white boy pain. But there would have been no need for the tactics used by a white Nifong. The blacks in Durham would have expected that the sistah be saved from whitey. No questions asked.
Victoria Peterson would have been singing gospel tunes in the streets.

Anonymous said...

12:22 See - To disagree with you is to be a plant and stupid. What a discourse - Go with Gd.

Anonymous said...

To Jack at 10:35 a.m.
Let me add to the comments of Kilgore at 6:57 p.m. and anon at 7:27 p.m.
Anon at 7:27 said in response to Kilgore: "You're absolutely correct about most universities having their Brodheads and Chafes. Last I looked Princeton was the top ranked undergrad school. Check out the course offerings in its AAAS dept... .Laughable, pitiful ... pathetic!"
I don't think, Jack, that you are very familiar with as many colleges as you think you are if you think that others don't have the same problem of affirmative action hires for identity studies departments who will push agendas and make power plays when opportunity arises. The opportunity arose not too long ago at Harvard, and Larry Summers is no longer president, replaced by a feminist scholar. Duke's AAAS Professor Grant Farred is a visiting professor at Williams College this semester, spewing his postmodern race-sex-class crap at lectures and classes there. Princeton University gave him a PhD. Two of the more vocal of Duke's G88, Lubiano and Wood, hail from Stanford, armed with distinguished degrees. Houston Baker, arguably the most virulent of the 88, did his magic at University of Pennsylvania before he came to Duke, and now Vanderbilt has him. Do you know the great Cornel West, formerly of Harvard, now a celebrated member of Princeton's faculty and buddy of Al Sharpton? This thread has mentioned Kerri Dunn of Pomona who spray painted a racist phrase on her own car, claiming vandalism and stirring up the idyllic campus there.
The opportunity, indeed the perfect storm, arose at Duke and the opportunists came out of the shadows and the administration acted with temerity toward them. They are at many, many other universities and colleges, waiting for a ripe time to take action. You need to go beyond this board and read more widely about trends in higher education and incidents at colleges and universities around the country. Most race-class-gender power plays don't make the news, and those that do usually make the news in campus papers or publications focused on higher education, such as "The Chronicle of Higher Education." Harvard's presidential plight made national headlines and the frame-up at Duke was a media storm. Read deeper and learn more.
Your post condemns all Duke faculty, as if they all behaved as the outspoken of the G88 did. Repeatedly on this blog and others, recent alumna and parents of current Duke students have commented upon the incredibly good experiences and professors they and their children have had and are having. You are insulting all the professors at Duke in your post. Why?

Anonymous said...

Gary Packwood:

Thanks for setting the record straight about William Frank Buckley.

Hopefully hman learned his lesson about attacking others.

I get annoyed by folks who are overly impressed by their own "knowledge" and demonstrate this by slamming others.

Anonymous said...

To Packwood
The exact wording of the posting from Georgia Girl that compelled my response was as follows:
"William F. Buckley Jr.??? posted here...the conservative from Camden, S.C."
Your defense of the accuracy of that statement was to assert that G.Girl must have been thinking of another person entirely (the authors father) who did have some connections to Camden S.C.
In other words you merely explained, as gently as possible, the since there have been two William F. Buckleys (Senior and Jr.) it is cruel and unfair for us to expect Georgia Girl to be able to keep them straight in her mind. Apparently it should not matter that the one connected to Camden has been dead for decades and never wrote a book (afaik) whereas the other guy is alive today, wrote dozens of best selling books, and arguably could be described as one of the most influential polemicists of the late 20th century.
Someone asked whether or not I learned my lesson about attacking others. Well, you could say that in this case I did. - Ignorant people are seldom alone.

Anonymous said...

RMWC is going Coed.
It will be called Randolph College.
One of the reasons it's fallen
is that it has it's own
"Angry Studies" group, and it
attracts mostly "broken-winged-
types," (that according to
insiders.)
It once was a great school,
with a diversity of opinion:
now the conservatives are so
cowed that they dare not
speak up.

I wish the Duke
Profs who aren't part of the
88 would get their own newspaper
ad - enough of them calling for
the resignation of Brodhead,
and it would resound.

Leftwing and full of "take back
the night" types as RMWC might
be, they at least were sane
enough to have gotten rid of
their own Reigning Mad
(female) Queen.

Gary Packwood said...

hman
We think well of William F. Buckley, Sr. over here in Texas.

His writing, speeches and other contributions to the understanding of our neighbors to the South are an important part of the history of the USA.

William F. Buckley, Sr
An Inventory of His Papers at the Benson Latin American Collection
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/
taro/utlac/00009/lac-00009.html
::
GP

Anonymous said...

I weap for all of the talent that has been channeled away from the American economy into the hate-studies departments at Ivy-covered North Koreas (great term!) around the country.

Oh, what productivity, competence and acumen we are all without...

[remove tongue from cheek]

Anonymous said...

And those kids and parents thought they were in school to get a Profession or Trade to make a living. Goes to show

Anonymous said...

The PC crowd has for a long time now been completely nihilistic in regard to their view of ultimate values and morality. In other words, they will not affirm any enduring, stable value systems. - hman

The value system is simple: "The welfare of the revolution - that is the supreme law." - Leon Trotsky, in The Moralists and Sycophants. In other words, they recognize no moral obligations to us.

Anonymous said...

I would say that those in the Group of 88 who refuse to apologize should be asked to find employment elsewhere . . . but I guess that would be "threatening."

Unknown said...

William Francis "Bill" Buckley, Jr. (born November 24, 1925) is an American author and conservative commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, sportsbook, hosted the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing style is famed for its eloquence and use of uncommon words. http://www.enterbet.com