Two books on the case have now been officially released. It’s Not About the Truth, co-authored by Don Yaeger and former coach Mike Pressler, offers a behind-the-scenes look at how everything that happened since last March affected Pressler, his family, and the senior class he had recruited to Duke; the book also provides background on Duke lacrosse, Durham, Crystal Mangum, Nifong, and a summary of the case.
A Rush to Injustice, co-authored by Nader Baydoun and R. Stephanie Good, provides a personal memoir of a how a Duke graduate came to view with distaste the actions of his university.
An earlier post touched on the new items from the books dealing with the legal and police aspects of the case; today’s post examines some of the revelations regarding Duke.
The Nartey “Apology”
The Yaeger/Pressler book contains a passage from the “apology” sent by Chauncey Nartey, the Duke student whose e-mail prompted the Presslers to file a police report and who subsequently was named to both the Campus Culture Initiative and a “Duke Conversation” slot.
Wrote Nartey,
I simply wanted you to perhaps make the connection between how the families of the alleged victim might field, especially when it appears as though the ALLEGED perpetrators were so insensitive as to continue forward with activities as though a national scandal were not occurring underneath their noses.
Nartey bizarrely argued to Yaeger that his e-mails should not be considered a threat because he sent them from his Duke account.
Critiquing Brodhead
Both books contain powerful critiques of the president’s performance.
Former Duke AD Tom Butters told Yaeger, “I spent thirty-some years at Duke, and I can assure you this would have been handled differently. Understand what I am saying here—not in my days, in Duke’s days. Duke would have done something differently.”
Former lacrosse captain Dan Flannery recounted a vignette from the 2006 Senior Ring dinner, held at Brodhead’s house, late spring 2006. Brodhead thanked Flannery for attending, and added, “I have to believe we will be better someday because of this, of the situation.” Flannery’s response: “I don’t share the same opinion. I’ll believe that when mothers no longer have to take antidepressants.”
Flannery’s fellow 2006 senior, William Wolcott, found it “hilarious when Brodhead was interviewed and he said the facts keep changing. I felt like calling the guy and saying, ‘Hey, facts don’t change. The truth doesn’t change. Lies and versions of events, those things change. But the truth doesn’t change.’”
The Baydoun book has a lengthy quote from a letter sent to Brodhead by Dan Smith (Trinity ’70)—a former prosecutor in Denver DA’s office, assistant U.S. Attorney in Colorado, and a special assistant attorney general in Colorado. The case, Smith noted, had all the signs of a sham from the start. He then told Brodhead:
You are quoted as saying, ‘I embrace athletics at Duke.’ My God, President Brodhead, if the way you treated those three players, the team, and the coach is your idea of an embrace, what do you do when you dislike someone or something?
I can only surmise that your knee-jerk reaction to the events as they unfolded was kindled by the naïve, ignorant, and well-publicized response of a significant number of Duke faculty.
Common Sense
Chuck Sherwood, Devon Sherwood’s father, asked Yaeger, “Did it ever occur to them that they may have the kind of kid—this team—that if they saw one of their teammates doing something that was inappropriate that the other guys would have interceded and stopped it? Those are the kind of kids that I believed they had on the team.”
In the Baydoun book, Jim Coleman expressed a similar sentiment. “When we’ve got 46 students saying they didn’t do anything and not a single one of them is saying anything happened, which is a pretty good indication that they may be telling the truth, we find a way to support them without saying we’re indifferent to the truth.” The university, he argued, should have been more concerned with possibility its own students were being railroaded.
The Group of 88
In the Baydoun book, Bill Thomas, an attorney for an unindicted player, was blunt and on-target in his comments. The Group’s statement, he observed, was “horrible”—it basically said, “Thank you for not waiting to see what facts develop here. Thank you for jumping to conclusions based on race and social status.”
The attorney concluded, “They all should be ashamed of themselves, every single one of them.”
Former Chronicle columnist Stephen Miller astutely analyzed the Group’s motives:
It seemed like one of those situations where they were asking each other, “Who can go the farthest? Who can say the most outrageous things? Who can attack the establishment the most?” It was almost a weird sort of competition among these people. It was just so clear it was never about the victim, it was never about the players. They came in advance with their social agendas, they have had them for years, this was the perfect moment to really let things fly.
In the Pressler/Yaeger book, former lacrosse captain Matt Zash reflected on the Group’s behavior:
We have always said, we just want an apology. But now, [after] how long it’s lingered, you can just see that there is this underlying hate these professors have for us, just being white men, and elitist in their terms . . . It is apparent that . . . these people are not remorseful for what they have done.
Jim Coleman, meanwhile, discussed with Baydoun the “absolutely outrageous” possibility of in-class harassment—something the Brodhead administration has never investigated.
Said Coleman,
I think any professor who confronted and tried to embarrass and call out kids in front of a class should be disciplined. I think that’s totally inappropriate and shouldn’t be tolerated on a university’s campus. That’s just inexcusable . . .
Allegations that other professors were confronting the students, not flunking them, but talking about lacrosse players with lacrosse players in the class. That’s just cowardice, in my view . . . prejudging their guilt and turning them into pariahs is inappropriate . . .
It’s been unfortunate that these students got caught up in this and that more people, and this isn’t just the university, didn’t express concern about what was happening.
Administrators
Lacrosse parent Donna Wellington recalled one of the low points of the affair, Father Joe Vetter’s March 26, 2006 sermon:
A casual listener might have concluded that he more facts than even the DA at that point . . . He was already condemning these boys without knowing any of the facts, and my husband told him that he would deeply regret this when the real facts did get revealed.
If a priest is going to rush to judgment, where can anyone go for support and counsel about surviving the inevitable barrage of false accusations, and finding spiritual strength and solace in God’s eventual justice and truth? I didn’t know what to say to him other than to point out that this was a man with obvious human frailties and prejudices, and that he was very misguided.
John Burness, meanwhile, deflected critics of the administration’s handling of the Group by noting
In the time I’ve been at Duke, our faculty do and say all kinds of things. The university doesn’t comment on that . . . Our job is to provide a venue for free speech, and then late the debate go. We hope it’s enlightened, but at the end of the day, you have these debates and people learn from them. We don’t go condemning faculty members for what they say when they do that.
This argument would have been more compelling had Brodhead not thrice specifically commented on the Group’s statement—defending it in a January Chronicle interview and then in “Duke Conversation” events in Philadelphia and Chicago.
N&O columnist Ruth Sheehan noted the difficulty in not getting any positive responses from Duke about the team:
I did have a conversation with John Burness about the university’s role in the case at some point and asked why when all of this was coming out that they didn’t help us understand the truth, why they didn’t spin the other side to us. They could have helped us, that’s for sure. One thing he did say to me at the time, which is a convenient excuse but also true, was that they also have to be really careful about how they handle student information. That caution, I think, made things worse.
In the Baydoun book, Jim Coleman summarized his committee’s findings, noting that a negative view of the team is unwarranted:
Among athletes they did have a higher percentage of disciplinary citations, but we pointed out in the report that that was due to the lacrosse culture, which is that they are a very tight group of guys, they do things in groups, and they don’t spread out to other groups. So that when somebody is in the dormitory making noise or drinking beer, and it’s a lacrosse player, just about everyone else is a lacrosse player . . . In terms of the nature of citations, they were no different than the kinds of things other students were doing.
The Players
Baydoun reveals a fascinating story, about how he had dinner last March with former basketball captain Larry Saunders, at which a daughter of a mutual friend, Duke student Emma Stevenson, was in attendance. Emma and her friends at Duke had been thinking who the least likely member of the lacrosse team would be to commit a crime.* “They joked that Nifong would probably indict someone as unlikely as Collin Finnerty because Collin was one of the nicest guys on the team and one of the least likely to hurt anyone.” They were “shocked and dismayed” when Finnerty was indicted.
*--modified
151 comments:
victim might field
should be feel
JLS says....,
“You know we’re f’ed”
Mike Nifong’s self destruction seems to be causing some people, even on websites like this, to feel sorry for him. Whenever that urge to feel sorry for Mr. Nifong comes upon someone, they need to remember the context of Detective Himan’s infamous quotation of Mr. Nifong. According to Detective Himan’s unchallenged on cross-examination testimony, Mr. Nifong after being briefed on the state of the evidence on 27 March 2006 said to Detectives Gottlieb and Himan something to the effect, “You know we’re f’ed.”
The implications of this quotation is huge and I think a much neglected aspect of the bar hearing. One implication is that, if ever you feel impelled to feel sorry for Mr. Nifong remember:
On 28 March 2006, when Duke suspended the 2006 Duke lacrosse season, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 29 March 2006, when Mr. Nifong called the Duke lacrosse team members “a bunch of hooligans,” Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
Around 30 March 2006 when Mr. Nifong said, "And one would wonder why one needs an attorney if one was not charged and had not done anything wrong," Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 4 April 2006 when Mr. Nifong ordered the photo array that violated Durham Police policy and that he and Durham Police claim was only to find witnesses, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 5 April 2006 when Duke lacrosse coach Mike Pressler was force to resign and the rest of the 2006 Duke lacrosse seasons was cancelled, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 12 April 2006 when Mr. Nifong at the NCCU candidates forum said, "I am not going to allow Durham's view, in the minds of the world, to be a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl in Durham," Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 17 April 2006 when Mr. Nifong sought the indictment of Mr. Finnerty and Mr. Selgimann, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 18 April 2006 when Mr. Nifong had Mr. Finnerty and Mr. Seligmann arrests, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 10 May 2006 when Mr. Nifong found the evidence in the case became weaker as the second round of DNA testing by DNA Security confirmed the first round by the SBI and in addition found DNA of unknown males on and in Ms. Mangum, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 15 May 2006 when Mr. Nifong sought an indictment of Mr. Evans and had him arrested, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 18 May 2006 when Mr. Nifong saw the circus Judge Stephenson’ court was with oral threats against Mr. Seligmann in the first hearing in the case, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 18 May 2006 when Mr. Nifong was smirking in court about Mr. Seligmann’s alibi evidence, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 12 July 2006 when Mr. Finnerty’s diversion deal with the DC court system was set aside due to Ms. Mangum allegations and Mr. Finnerty was force to trial, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 14 August 2006, when Mr. Nifong had cab driver and defense witness Mr. Elmostafa tried for a very old misdemeanor charge, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 21 December 2006 when Mr. Nifong had Mr. Wilson interview Ms. Mangum again to tailor her statement to fit the known evidence, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 22 December 2006 when Mr. Nifong dropped the rape charges to minimize the importance of DNA evidence, but did not drop the other serious charges, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 12 January 2007 when Mr. Nifong handed the case over to the Attorney general rather than drop the remaining charges, Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
On 15 June 2007 when Mr. Nifong testified he still “believes that something happened in that bathroom.” Mr. Nifong had already on 27 March 2006 after being briefed on the evidence on Ms. Mangum’s allegations said, “You know we’re f’ed.”
I could go on and on and add many other dates, as I know many here could. But this is the implication of Mr. Nifong’s statement, “You know we’re f’ed.” Everything he did from then on was done with this knowledge of the lack of evidence of a crime. So no I don’t feel sorry for Mr. Nifong and neither should you.
I think that one of the saddest and sorriest aspect to this affair has been that Brodhead was able to use Duke's vast resources to pay off the families, but that no one paid a price. Not Brodhead, not Burness, not Dean Sue, not Larry Moneta, not one faculty member, and not Joe Aleva.
Only one person at Duke lost his job -- Mike Pressler, who was and is a much more worthy character than any of the rats he left behind on this sinking ship.
By the way, I watched for the first time Stephen Miller sparring with Nancy Grace on her show last year. This young man really held his own with that disgrace of a humanoid bully.
JLS says....,
As far as Duke goes, I have come to the view that if Duke alums want reform Steel must go. Not just Brodhead, but Steel also.
I have no idea how the Board works at Duke, but Duke alums must take control of it, if they are to reform the place.
JLS
A powerful statement
12:01
You made your case
I am really glad that the truth is being told about the Duke Administration. I suspect that KC’s book will further highlight the role that Brodhead, Burness, Dean Sue, Larry Moneta, ect played in this fiasco.
Perhaps it is now up to the alumni who give money to Duke to stop contributing or just give $1 and write an explanation as to why they are withholding support. Ultimately if enough dollars stop flowing then maybe some of the key players will be held accountable.
[Nartey bizarrely argued to Yaeger that his e-mails should not be considered a threat because he sent them from his Duke account.]
If Seung-Hui Cho sent a threatening email to a student from his Virginia Tech email account, I guess the recipient shouldn't feel threatened.
Email addresses and accounts can be spoofed and hijacked.
It's funny that Nartey chides Pressler for insensitivity during the times while not realizing that the message that he sent was highly insensitive (and probably criminal) given the times.
JLS, thanks for all the work you put into that post. Good job!
To Anonymous at 12:22 AM who said, Perhaps it is now up to the alumni who give money to Duke to stop contributing or just give $1 and write an explanation as to why they are withholding support. Ultimately if enough dollars stop flowing then maybe some of the key players will be held accountable.
Unfortunately, Duke only needs one donor: Melinda Gates.
[If a priest is going to rush to judgment, where can anyone go for support and counsel about surviving the inevitable barrage of false accusations, and finding spiritual strength and solace in God’s eventual justice and truth? I didn’t know what to say to him other than to point out that this was a man with obvious human frailties and prejudices, and that he was very misguided.]
There were several posts on this website under the "Men of the Cloth" entry providing the Biblical instruction on how priests are to look at disputes that clearly indicate that the priests in Durham were behaving in an ungodly manner.
The schools that Seligmann and Finnerty attended certainly had the capacity to provide solace and comfort to this unfair prosecution.
If you're in Durham, though, I think you're in rough shape.
Jun 20, 2007 12:01:00 AM
Great post!
opinion journal
June 20, 2007
12:30am
THEN AND NOW
Racial Role Reversal
What the Scottsboro Boys and the Duke lacrosse players have in common.
BY JOHN STEELE GORDON
Wednesday, June 20, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Imagine this: In a Southern town, a woman accuses several men of rape. Despite the woman's limited credibility and ever-shifting story, the community and its legal establishment immediately decide the men are guilty. Their protestations of innocence are dismissed out of hand, exculpatory evidence is ignored.
The Duke rape case, right? No, the Scottsboro case that began in 1931, in the darkest days of the Jim Crow South.
The two cases offer a remarkable insight into how very, very far this country has come in race relations, and alas, in some ways how little. For race is central to why both cases became notorious. In Scottsboro, Ala., of course, the accusers were white and the accused was black. In Durham, N.C., it was the other way around.
On March 25, 1931, a group of nine young black men got into a fight with a group of whites while riding a freight train near Paint Rock, Ala. All but one of the whites were forced to jump off the train. But when it reached Paint Rock, the blacks were arrested. Two white women, dressed in boys clothing, were found on the train as well, Victoria Price, 21, and Ruby Bates, 17. Unemployed mill workers, they both had worked as prostitutes in Huntsville. Apparently to avoid getting into trouble themselves, they told a tale of having been brutally gang raped by the nine blacks.
The blacks were taken to the jail in Scottsboro, the county seat. Because the circumstances of the women's story--black men attacking and raping white women--fit the prevailing racial paradigm of the local white population, guilt was assumed and the governor was forced to call out the National Guard to prevent a lynch mob from hanging the men on the spot. The nine were indicted on March 30 and, by the end of April, all had been tried, convicted and sentenced to death (except for the one who was 13 years old, who was sentenced to life in prison).
A year later, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld the convictions of those on death row, except for one who was determined to be a juvenile. By this time, however, the "Scottsboro Boys" had become a national and even international story, with rallies taking place in many cities in the North. Thousands of letters poured into the Alabama courts and the governor's office demanding justice.
The International Labor Defense, the legal arm of the Communist Party USA, provided competent legal help, and the convictions were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court because the defendants had not received adequate counsel. Samuel Leibowitz, a highly successful New York trial lawyer (he would later serve on the state's highest court) was hired to defend the accused in a second trial, held in Decatur, Ala. This turned out to be a tactical error, as Leibowitz was perceived by the local jury pool--all of them white, of course--as an outsider, a Jew and a communist (which he was not). Even though Ruby Bates repudiated her earlier testimony and said no rape had taken place, the accused were again convicted, this time the jury believing that Ruby Bates had been bribed to perjure herself.
Again the sentences were overturned, and in 1937--six years after the case began--four of the defendants had the charges dropped. One pleaded guilty to having assaulted the sheriff (and was sentenced to 20 years) and the other four were found guilty, once again, of rape. Eventually, as Jim Crow began to yield to the civil rights movement, they were paroled or pardoned, except for one who had escaped from prison and fled to Michigan. When he was caught in the 1950s, the governor of Michigan refused to allow his extradition to Alabama.
It is now clear to everyone that the nine Scottsboro boys were guilty only of being black.
When the accuser in the Duke case charged rape, the district attorney--in the midst of a tough primary election--saw an opportunity to curry favor with Durham's black community and exploit the town-gown tension found in every college town. He ran with it, inflaming public opinion against the accused at every opportunity.
To be sure, there was no lynch mob, which happily is almost inconceivable today. But many Duke University students and faculty, and many members of the media (Nancy Grace of Court TV comes to mind), simply plugged the alleged circumstances into their racial paradigm--wealthy white college jocks partying and behaving badly with regard to a poor black woman--and pronounced the Duke boys guilty. Wanted posters went up on campus with pictures of the accused; 88 members of the faculty sponsored an ad in the college paper effectively supporting the posters; and the university president suspended two of the accused upon their indictment (the third had already graduated), cancelled the rest of the season for the lacrosse team, and forced the resignation of the team coach.
Here is where the real difference between the Scottsboro boys and the Duke boys kicked in: not race but money. The Scottsboro boys were destitute and spent years in jail, while the Duke boys were all from families who could afford first-class legal talent. Their lawyers quickly began blowing hole after hole in the case and releasing the facts to the media until it was obvious that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. The three Duke boys were guilty only of being white and affluent.
The district attorney won his election. But when the case fell apart and his almost grotesque malfeasance was exposed, he first resigned his office and ultimately was disbarred from the practice of law. Duke University has just settled with the three students it treated so shamefully for an undisclosed, but given the university's legal exposure, undoubtedly substantial sum. Meanwhile, the 88 members of the faculty have yet to apologize for a rush to judgment that was racist at its heart.
The country has come a long, long way in regard to race relations since 1931. But we have not yet reached the promised land where race is irrelevant. Far too many people are still being judged according to the color of their skin, not the content of their character, let alone the evidence.
Mr. Gordon is the author of "An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power" (HarperCollins, 2004).
re: 12:08
Joe Alleva did pay a Karmic price later in the summer with his own son.
Nartley's affirmative-action status is sealed with his exquisite redundancy "continue forward."
The underlying antimetanarrative of the hoax is the failure of integration--specifically, how whites are coerced into accepting black immorality and mediocrity.
If the guiding lights in the G88 were white supremacists, and the innocent lacrosse players were black, what do you think MSM would have reported? What would Brodhead have done?
1. black Durham mob
2. black student and faculty mob at Duke
3. black thug accuser
4. antiwhite MSM
Let's not fool ourselves: this case was never about race--it was about black bad behavior.
Why aren't these so-called authors telling the truth?
They be scared?
Polanski
12:15
Change in this area will require structural changes to the organization of the university.
As you may know, Duke for many years was a church affiliated university. Although that is not officially so today, the Board of Trustees certainly is. Roughly one third of the Board of Trustees is selected by each of two North Carolina "conferences" of the Methodist Church. There is no way under the current setup for the alumni of the university to select a majority of the Board.
The Methodist Church may no longer have day to day operational control of the university, but through their selection of a controlling faction of the Board of Trustees do still exert strategic and moral direction for the university.
The actions of several of the senior administration of the university in this matter certainly do not approach the level of ethical and moral standards that one would hope would be shown by the Methodist Church in North Carolina.
Perhaps it is time to re-examine the role of the Methodist Church at Duke University. If the Church selected Trustees permit the continued type of behavior that has been shown by some of the university administration and staff, perhaps the church needs to either find a way of selecting better trustees.
If the two church conferences can't select trustees who can accept only higher ethical and moral standards from their administration, faculty, staff, and students then they should consider cutting their remaining role with the university and giving up their power to select trustees (allowing the alumni to select a significantly greater percentage of the board).
During the last 15 months, we have been exposed to many individuals. Some of their behavior has been mundane, and some extraordinary. Both ranges of behavior have been found in the young and in the old; both from "town" and "gown"; both from all manner of racial and cultural origin.
In an ideal world, I would hope that we would learn from all of these individuals - hopefully trying to emulate the behavior of those who have shown that they are attempting to live their lives to a higher ethical and moral standard.
Although not openly discussed, perhaps this is one of the goals that "the university" (not just Duke) should be trying to accomplish with their educational mission.
Pittsburgh
JLS --
Thank you for an excellent rendition of a walk down memory lane.
Nothing that will ever happen to Michael Nifong could make me feel sorry for him.
Ditto for Crystal Gail Mangum. She may or may not be mentally ill, and if she is, I don't care. She is a walking menace to society and needs to be institutionalized. I couldn't care less that she could endanger herself. It's her danger to other people that concerns me.
When it comes to people like Nifong and Mangum, I tend to be guided by "an eye for an eye" rather than "turn the other cheek."
I have nothing but contempt for the Duke administration and for the Gang of 88.
The professors were like looters in the aftermath of a tragedy. They didn't try to help. Instead they combed through the wreckage of the lacrosse allegations looking for anything that they might use to advance their own racist, sexist, and class agendas.
I'm happy that Duke reached a settlement with the players but I'm sorry that the faculty was included in the agreement. The Group of 88 (-1) are truly despicable.
..Former Chronicle columnist Stephen Miller astutely analyzed the Group’s motives:
...It seemed like one of those situations where they were asking each other, “Who can go the farthest? Who can say the most outrageous things? Who can attack the establishment the most?” It was almost a weird sort of competition among these people. It was just so clear it was never about the victim, it was never about the players. They came in advance with their social agendas, they have had them for years, this was the perfect moment to really let things fly.
::
Now we know what was going on and who allowed it to continue.
Thanks Stephen Miller!
::
GP
Gary, what are the social agendas?
Thanks you, KC.
It got me thinking about some of the perverse ironies of this whole affair.
A bad/evil DA that was not quite as bad as Nifong would have dropped the case after the election with some mealy-mouthed excuse about the burden of proof, and the LAX players would have gone through life as accused rapists that got away with it.
A racist Duke faculty that had that was just a little less blinded by their own bias would have refrained from publishing the so-called listening statement, or at least followed up with an apology, and maybe avoided the wrath and inciteful documentation and analysis of KC. (which IMHO has been instrumental in the happy outcome)
A bad NC judicial system that was just a little less bad, would have stopped this embarrassment in its tracks a lot earlier.
It was the degree of absurdity of the bad actors that made it possible for the kids to get their lives and reputations back.
Odd, that.
-RD
So the three indicted players settled with Duke and Duke indemnified the faculty...
...but the other 43 players didn't.
Nor did Mike Pressler.
No, it's not over yet...
At this point, there is nothing more whites can do to appease or satisfy black people. They've been enabled to the point of unmanageable expectations. Deferred gratification and discipline are foreign concepts. All perceived obstacles and impediments are met with confrontation, irrational anger and violence. If Obama becomes president, he'll never be able to deliver all that mail they'll be expecting. And they'll hate him for it.
JLS says...,
re: cathyf
Mr. Pressler the ex-coach settled with Duke a while back. As I remember the settlement was announced a couple of weeks back and it was apparenlty done a month or so back.
You are correct about the other lacrosse players, but I think there are 44 other players from the 2006 Duke lacrosse them. Unless you think the one that settled the grade retaliation suit agreed to a global settlement with Duke and the 88?
Michael,
What happened to Alleva's son??
I would expect, as ardent champions of free-flowing, free speech, the 88 (-1) will protest with all their might the censorship imposed on them by the recent settlement.
For the students to see such a civic display, to hear the 88 (-1) protest their loss of basic rights, to come out individually and together - would be one of the great moral lessons of university life.
To this noble end, a quote from Thomas Paine:
“A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.”
And here he addresses the lesser 88’s:
“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”
Finally, Brodhead:
“Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”
I hope Mrs. Evans or Finnerty sent a St. Raymond medal to Fr. Vetter -- the patron saint of the the wrongfully accused.
KC > very insightful as always.
I think what has struck me is that a college culture represented by the president and his administration and faculty could be so callous and unknowing of it's student population that they believed guilt of this terrible accusation so quickly.
I believe the person who said it would not have gone this way if others were in place. It is the makeup of present company.
Duke has been around along time and will continue. I'm just glad the three guys don't have to be there anymore.
I'm glad they settled and can move on to other things.
Present and future students beware, you are not thought of highly by those in charge. Any accusation makes you guitly until proven innocent.
The Yeager/Pressler book is very critical of Brodhead and the Duke administration, but if anyone doubts this portrayal, just read today's N&O:
"The agreement with the families and the players is the third settlement stemming from the lacrosse case. The university settled with Mike Pressler, the head lacrosse coach forced to resign last spring at the height of the accusations against the players. Recently, the university also settled with Kyle Dowd, a former lacrosse player who complained of receiving a bad grade because of his association with the team."
If Brodhead had acted with honesty and decency from the beginning, the university would not have had to make these three financial settlements. What is amusing is that Duke is willing to pay what I assume are large amounts of cash so that no one will examine their behavior in court and so that no one will lose his job.
It makes me think back to one of Brodhead's early letters on the lacrosse accusations where he indicates that all administrators would be judged on how they reacted to the case. In fact, they got to do whatever they wanted without consequences.
Final proof that Duke has learned nothing: Paula McClain, who becomes the new head of Duke's Academic Council on July 1, is a member of the group of 88.
An important element of this affair is the behavior of the Duke faculty. But singling out students and embarassing them in class is not a left-right issue. Or even a Duke issue. The people who are attempting to use the LAX case to go after faculty from the lunatic fringe of the misogynistic, racist radical right (Yes, please start calling names; you guys just can't stand it when someone names what you are!) are missing the point. The pressue should be kept on Duke, not because one doesn't like the politics of the 88, but because anyone who did something like this deserves to be disciplined. It is inappropriate, unprofessional behavior.
Final note: some of your vicious comments are the best arguments I've ever heard for tenure.
Bill Anderson said at 12:08: :::I think that one of the saddest and sorriest aspect to this affair has been that Brodhead was able to use Duke's vast resources to pay off the families, but that no one paid a price. Not Brodhead, not Burness, not Dean Sue, not Larry Moneta, not one faculty member, and not Joe Aleva.:::
Well said. Agree completely. My only hope is that within the settlements are mechinisms that may help right this sinking ship. I simply can't believe that these families would trade money for silence. Not after what they have been through. I am betting on them to have done something to help. I hope I am right. We may never know.
Boys and the Boy Crisis
The scary thing for all of us who have children that'll ultimately attend college is that this behavior, and the shared beliefs of the group of 88, permeates colleges and universities across America.
You write huge checks and have your kids forced to parrot back the tripe promulgated by elitists and leftists (no, I don't think the 88 are ring-wing as one troll continues to post). I know I had my share for my 6 years of higher education.
The ultimate measure of Duke IMO will be when some of those 88 who aren't tenured come up for consideration. If the school validates the behavior it'll be the nail in the coffin.
7:15
How much evidence do you have that [all? many? some?] college students are "forced" to "parrot" "tripe"?
Are you also a troll? Your post doesn't add much to the conversation.
7:15
Let your child earn her own college money. Then you don't have to worry about the big checks and tripe. And maybe your child will gain something you don't seem to have. An open mind. Oh, the shock of it all!!!!!
"You know, we're ****ed!" is a use of the royal "we" that misunderstands the "we" is you and me, and in that misunderstanding Nifong misunderstands or misunderstood what his responsibilities as a prosecutor actually were, and that was justice for the community, a commumnity of all of us. To put the lacrosse team outsice of the community invited the behavior of the deviants who never wanted the members of the lacrosse team included into their sense of community. I try to rationalize the Group88's behavior, and I keep coming back to their bigoty, exclusion, ignorance, and vindictive behavior. I cannot believe these people are associated with Duke let alone appear to represent the University community themselves and some of them would even have themselves presented to the greater public as even-handed, centered people, and, as an example, Peter Wood seemed to be such a nice boy, but he isn't "nice" in his behavior nor are the rest of the Group88.
6:40 am
Using the classroom to pontificate
is unprofessional behavior,
much like Ward Churchill's.
Tenure ought to be tempered with
a Student's Bill of Rights.
Does that fit into your perception
that we're "misogynistic, racist
radical right?"
Must be awfully hard to sit there,
an 88, knowing that you can't
pontificate - due to the settlement -
and that you're restricted to anonymous
entries in blogs such as these.
It'll get harder, I promise you,
when students in your own classes
smirk and laugh behind your back
because you can't say anything
to defend your intemperate rush
to castigate - or castrate -
three fine young men.
They'll be laughing, and you won't
be able to say a word...
except here, anonymously, with the
rest of us "right wing racists."
Re-read 12:01, then read 12:37; post them on your bedstop;
take it to church with you and give
a copy to the Priest who also
rushed to condemn.
7:15
Wake up! Quit sleeping through class and reading others notes and parroting back the party line. Take a Ward Churchill class. Listen to the incredibly same ranting, chanting Group88 world view. You know. Whatever, baby. You know. We know.
re: 3:10
http://www.newsobserver.com/122/story/455367.html
KC, you have let us down. You have not produced the letters Fried man put into evidence near the close of Phase II or even told us who was so foolish to sign them.
Also, what has the Fong been doing doing during his paid leave? Is he cohorting with Crystal and Victoria?
Duke could - if it wanted to -
install a Students' Bill of Rights.
And a teacher/Instructor/Professors'
Code of Conduct.
By the way, where is Mr. Prowess
Envy these days?
Check out: This guy would bury Nancy and Wendy.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn5b5yunT-E&mode=related&search=
To paraphrase Dr. . . . . at the end of the war, people will not be judged on their war record of service to the motherland (the University). They will be judged politically. These judges are being put in place even as we write. The Universities with their Group88 faculties have become gulags of political correctness incapable of protecting the civilization that created them. These groups seem to exist only to be part of the corruption and destruction of these once proud institutions. What a fraud Duke has become.
Michael (re:re:3:10)
Thanks. I wondered, too.
I have a friend who works in a
small college. A couple of months
ago, she commented that the LAX
players were always the most polite,
always quick to open the door
for others - and the baseball players
did the opposite, always rushing
to get to the door ahead of her,
never looking back nor holding it
open. She thought that they - in
general - were rude and inconsiderate.
I don't think this represents
baseball players everywhere,
but I've noticed the same contrasting
behavior.
Alleva's a baseball player?
Go figure!
Remember Nifong saying he did not lie?
He has to keep saying that, the judge in the case will be looking at him for contempt of court charges. He could say nothing else to the bar.
The Ward Churchill strategy for getting through life (and getting and keeping a cushy tenured job): lie, cheat, plagiarize the work of others, falsely claim to have an American-Indian heritage (so you can claim the benefits of being a "minority applicant"), etc. After your lies have been believed and you've been hired by a naive university administration, spew some crazy tripe to your students about some pivotal event in U.S. history. Then, when the powers that be find out about your lying about being an Indian, and about your plagiarism and your sub-par "scholarship," and they try to fire your sorry ass, you can claim that it's a retaliatory firing because you exercised your free speech rights when you spewed your crazy BS about 9/11.
As they say in the beer commercials: BRILLIANT!!!
It is not likely that the settlement was paid with insurance. If it were it would have been in the interest of the school to include that in a statement.
Even if an insurer was involved, said insurer will look to get it back over one or two years by a rate increase.
There is no free lunch. Donors to the school are paying big money to prevent some nasty people from being deposed.
"But singling out students and embarassing them in class is not a left-right issue. "
Sorry, but in my experience as a college student, and that of others I know, it is.
11:57 pm
Going back and seeing Nartey's
mispelling - ("how the families
of the alleged victim might field") -
was that really how he spelled
it? "Field?"
Go-oo-lleee! A future 88-er!
Hire 'em, Duke, afore he gets
away! yuk, yuk.
Hopefully within the ranks of the 43 players at least one will bypass any filthy lucre offered and cause the Duke administration and others to be deposed.
Angry donors could also force depositions.
The enablers are shielded from financial liability but not from litigation. In this over litigious society this is one of the rare cases that should be litigated.
I see. No teaching except what I--a parent who may or may not have a clue about much of anything except white privilege--want taught. Do you want the same microscope employed on other professions? How about Scooter's lying? Karl Rove? Disappearing e-mails in the White House? Or is that not important.
Some of you only want standards applied to people whose ideas you don't like. Not ideas you disagree with but ideas you don't like.
Some of you are really scary and make it crystal clear why this country has some of the problems it does.
Guess what. Not only white boys are smart. And guess what else. The really smart white boys aren't hurt at all by affirmative action. It's the less smart ones...
And pay attention: women do so well in school that they're often discriminated against in college applications, because there aren't enough men.
re: 8:06
It was paid out of a legal fund; not the endowment. Read this at the N&O earlier from an article linked off of LS.
Hi 8:07
If you're a happy little grammar Nazi and more power to you, have you noticed that some of the more reactionary bloggers haven't figured out that its possessive doesn't take an apostrophe?!! Or do you attack only the spelling of those whose views you oppose?
Just wondering...
Amazing. The defenders of the 88 Dukes of Hate just want to talk about Rove's memos and Libby's remembering differently than the fallible Tim Russert. It's handbill argumentation. Be the handbill, it's so much easier than having a soul.
Meanwhile the 88 For Hate will find themselves tagged as such wherever they venture forth from their shielded little world.
I am so encouraged by Coleman. He says so well what so many alums are thinking. I hope they turn to him to examine how the school could have handled this better.
8:36
Well, apostrophes are a LITTLE
different than the difference
between "feel" and "field."
Perhaps you grade your students
on how they "field" about
your literature class?
8:34:00 AM said...
And pay attention: women do so well in school that they're often discriminated against in college applications, because there aren't enough men.
Got a cite to back that up with?
Nifong's Legacy, Feminism's Shame
Interesting piece
Tuco
8:45
You're right - and they always
forget to mention Berger's
purloined documents.
Funny how they can take a serious
case of evidence tampering/theft/worse
etc. and make it look like a
little stocking-stuffer.
How Nixonian.
I think you men are so funny. Rove/Libby/white men whose politics you agree with can do any old thing and it's ok. Don't you realize you offend people who might otherwise agree with some of your points by your bigotry and myophia.
Why do you think the blogger about the apostrophe taught? I assumed that person knew something about writing.
I assume many of the white guys on this blog aren't doing that well in life and envious. Else they wouldn't always attack.
Duke itself will survive. The way they are settling, if the payouts to the civil suits get to be too much, people will loose their jobs. I suspect that Brodhead will be the first to go. What BOT would stand behind a man that opend up the free money atm for anybody with a cause. I read earlier on this blog that Duke can't afford to get a reputation of handing out money. It may take a few years, but I firmly believe it will all come out in the wash
8:51
You can find that on NPR in the past couple of days. Anyone involved with universities is aware of it. There are attempts to keep gender balance even but women make up about 60 percent of the students at many small good universities.
The guidance counselor at my son's school noted this when she was making suggestions as to where he should apply.
PS My son is a white male.
One doesn't forget Berger's purloined documents. At least, he admitted doing it.
Cheney and his ilk don't admit to anything. Of course, maybe his heart problems have caused a lack of oxygen to his brain & affected his memory.
8:34
Nice argument.
You must be Grant Farred,
the author of the notion of the
"sexual prowess of white male
athletes." (You know, GF,
the one with the Prowess Envy?)
Interesting hypothesis you erringly postulated:
white males are so superior
that they can't be harmed by
affirmative action. Hmmm.
Except the dumb ones.
Are you dating Polanski, by any chance?
JLS says....,
It is worth pointing out that money is as always fungible. So it really does not matter where Duke pretends to take the money from. It comes from Duke's money.
Thus there is less money available for something else. Who the administration is will determine whose budget doesnt get the money they would have otherwise. With the Brodhead administration that probably means the lacrosse and ecnomics budgets will be cut.
I'm a Duke Alum and have followed this closely, and am very concerned how the administration and the Board will be held accountable. I am ashamed of Brodhead's performance, insulted by his assault on Duke, and shocked that he has slipped through the entire review.
9:01
Interesting. I read that post rather differently. It talked about women as doing better in high school than men--in part because they seem to mature earlier--and applying to university in larger numbers.
But then my prejudice is that many students of East Asian heritage do better in general than white folks male or female. It never occured to me to think that white guys were smarter than anyone else. Just more privileged.
I'm glad to see this post raise the issue of calling out students in class, because to me that issue represents a much more fundamental violation of the responsibilities of educators than the admittedly ill-conceived and poorly drafted listening statement. (The continued unwillingness of most statement signers to disavow, apologize for, or even qualify that statement does, however, make it into a major issue.)
My daughter, a rising Duke senior, is aware of many instances in which the lacrosse team was vilified in classes (sometimes when team members were in the class, sometimes when they were not), and she also knows of a few cases in which friends of hers were publicly --and personally--mocked by instructors for such sins as driving high-end car brands.
I don't take the position that some commenters do here that exposure to left-wing political views in the classroom is inherently a vice or a waste of time. My daughter would also readily acknowledge that many of her acquaintances have grown up in a bubble, with very little exposure to experiences, people, or ideas different from their own or their parents' (she also, although somewhat less so because she always attended public schools). Even if, in the end, one sticks with the opinions one started with, it's very useful to test them against some other ideas.
But it can't be personal. Challenging students' ideas and opinions is a valuable educational process (and one that can be done very effectively, I think, without requiring students to parrot back a party line); attacking who they are is not.
Viewing this simply as a left-right political issue will miss the mark. There may be more instances of this type of problem involving left-wing instructors now because that is the prevailing orthodoxy of academia today, but the problem doesn't relate fundamentally to politics so much as to attitude toward teaching and toward students. (In another era, the 5th grade teacher in my private elementary school who carefully critiqued the quality of his students' clothing, noting that one specific student's synthetic-fiber sweater was not as nice as another's name brand wool sweater, did just as much damage while certainly not taking a left wing position.)
Oops, I'm anon. 9:06--I meant to say "makes" in the last sentence of the first paragraph, not "make."
9:06
Your comments are well taken. One problem might be that some people--not your daughter--might consider any differing opinion a personal attack.
To wit: if a student drives a Hummer or an SUV and a faculty member comments on gas as a non-renewable resource and the need to drive smaller cars and support mass transport, would a student take these remarks personally?
8:55/9:00
Purloined documents that relate
to the biggest national security
failure ever, compared to the
alleged outing (it wasn't Rove
nor Libby who "outed" her, BTW)
of a CIA non-operative who
everybody knew was a CIA agent
already?
Some comparison. Good thing you
don't teach Comparative Anatomy -
or comparative anything.
8:55
I'd guess that this white male
(me) is somehow envious of you?
That I'm not doing so well in
life?
Guess your rationale is as good
for the 88 as it is for us envious
losers, since they're always on the
attack!
You can't even get your straw man
to work for you.
I just have to comment. It's so very much fun to watch these right-wing white men get upset. This is better than daytime TV.
My sons gave me both books for Fathers Day. The oldest is a Duke student, the others are not yet at the point of deciding were they will attend. I had all three books in an online shopping cart, waiting for publication of the third book.
They are both worth reading. I've been a regular reader of the blogs since last December and there were still things that were new to me.
9:12 Troll go back to Nifong's lair!
9:12
Wendy, is that you?
How are things up in the castle
of Drakul?
9:14
Naw, I'm staying here to read everyone's comments. They are extremely interesting. I wish I were an anthropologist.
JLS says....
re: anon 8:34
Well of course the smart Black like say George Washington Carver succeed despite Jim Crow laws. So I guess that puts in in favor of or at least not against discrimination whether Jim Crow laws or Affirmative Action.
But at least you have shown what you are, racist.
9:16
Perhaps you are a prehominid,
wishing to see how the hominids
evolved?
8:57 AM
NPR -- not a reliable news source
8:58 AM
Do you have daughters? Are they white females?
9:12 -
It's also fun to watch the videos of the left-wing fems holding a "castrate" banner and chanting repent and confess.
Have those chanters (post-AG or Nifong disbarring) confessed their own offenses and repented?
Regarding the gender balance issue: our local high school published the names and pictures of the top ten students and they were all female. It has been like that for many years.
I'd attribute the gender balance issue in college to what happens in elementary, middle and high-schools; not what happens in college.
The school environment appears to favor females at the expense of males. A few books and many articles have been written about this.
No, just the white male son. He's fine. Doesn't seem to assume he is being disadvantaged by people of other genders or races. I might suggest he read your blogs so he can learn from you that he is!!!
9:12
What does "right-wing" mean,
these days?
Do you think KC is right-wing?
Can you define "right wing" for us,
using appropriate descriptions
and definitions, not using
personalities whom you wish to
deride or assail? Not using
a dictionary?
JLS says...,
88 reasons to despise Duke more
Anonymous 1: 17 said...
...Gary, what are the social agendas?
::
Social Agendas?
In my opinion, to learn from the mistakes made at failed Antioch College in Ohio and then move the revisionist movement into wealthy universities where students are inclined to listen to the argument that all harm caused to others was/is promulgated by white privileged powerful people who wish to dominate the underclass who they created.
The US legal system, Christianity, patriotism and the teaching of history are socially constructed lies that need to be 'deconstructed' and revealed for what they we designed to accomplish.
Those who have earned degrees in 'Anger Studies' with no trust fund or plans to attend law school, school of journalism or medicine or nursing need something to do and they are gravitating towards universities with sufficient funds to pay them monthly and then offer tenure.
Employees and graduates of State Universities are sitting back and watching these wealthy universities... wondering if alums are going to continue to fund these Anger Studies 'types' and then rescue their own children who WILL BE harmed by these professors and their meta-narratives. eg, Collin, Reade and Dave.
There are so many of these Anger Studies types nestled in wealthy universities that they themselves have become social agendas.
At Duke they should all sign a contract promising that "I Will Never Join a Lynch Mob Again" in my opinion.
The offices of student affairs are becoming the programming arm of these 'Anger Studies' types with parents unaware that their kids are being programmed.
Will the alums take back their universities or will we watch them all slowly sink into the sewer as did Antioch College?
::
GP
9:10--
Good question, good point. As I understand it (and I admit this is second-hand information), the specific example concerning cars was not such a general statement; the instructor demanded that students identify the cars they drove and then responded by making fun of my daughter's friend for having the car she did (not permitting an explanation that the car was not her choice but a hand-me-down from her parents). My daughter's friend dropped the class.
But of course you are right that "personal attacks" are in the eye of the beholder; this is only one case, and my daughter's general impression that there have been other such incidents may be based on situations that are much less clear cut. In any event, she gave me no indication that such behavior is widespread, especially beyond the lacrosse situation.
9:25
I could, but the words would be too difficult for you understand without a dictionary. In short, however: right wing is like pornography. You know it when you see it!!
You asked.
9:33
You didn't answer, except with an attack.
You can't do any better than
that?
Pathetic.
9:32
This is a big problem I think. I suspect that many undergraduates are still at the age where they are extremely sensitive to slights and perceived slights. Faculty ought to pay attention to this.
I suppose that's a problem with in class interaction. Especially when the student doesn't volunteer the information.
May I answer what I consider right wing to be? It will include a lot of anti's and other things you may not like, but I am not attempting to call people names, but rather use adjectives to describe what they believe in.
I think the term, "right wing," can be rather content free, but I consider many right wingers to be some but not all of the above:
1. anti-environment
2. often racist
3. often misgynist
4. not exposed to other cultures
5. often narrowly read
6. unwilling to listen to other view points without attacking
7. pro-business in a way that is bad for the environment
8. pro-individual at the expense of society
9. extremely likely to claim to have a lock on the meaning of the Constitution
10. anti-gun control
11. anti-abortion
9:33
"Right wing is like pornography. You know it when you see it!!"
It's been interesting to see how few real arguments people who supported Nifong had: Williamson
commented that Nifong made a fool of some people, and continues to make a fool out of others.
Glad he didn't leave you out.
correction: misogynist
Hey BIGGGGGGGG MAC
Why do you think anyone who differs in opinion from you supports Nyfong? Bit black & white, aren't cha' bud?
9:24 --
Why do you feel the need to point out that your son is a male? Not once, but twice. Aren't they all? And doesn't that simply disgust you?
re: 9:32
Our son ran into this in a summer course that he's taking and I just told him to grin and bear it. It's nowhere near as bad as what your daughter had to endure but I think that there are professors that think that most people agree with their point of view and use it as a given.
Ridiculing a student in class seems to me to be a poor instructional method. A professor can discuss the pros and cons of a matter and then let their students form an opinion in a controversial area.
Michael/9:32
Again, I think there is both the issue of sensitivity and of real ridicule. Don't you think students who are unused to particular ideas might feel more senstitive to them than those who have been exposed to a variety of viewpoints?
I ask because my child comes home from school with ideas from teachers that I may disagree with, but I am pleased to see my child deal with them. Sharpens the wits.
9:40: Do you equate conservatives with "right wing?" Your list seems incredibly idiotic and displays a complete mis-understanding of the political differences in this country. Or, as someone posted earlier, do you see "liberal" as center?
This list makes the right look like something beyond Stalin. Ridiculous.
9:40
Let's see:
1) "Anti-environment." The biggest sewer-holes are and have been
the communists (East Germany, Soviet Union, and now China.)
Not to say that others haven't been terrible, like Love Canal etc.
Rudy wants to continue to send crap to Virginia, claiming that it
should be an honor for Virginia to
accept New York City's solid waste.
He's not right-wing; he's a dope.
2) Often racist. Oh. Like the Chinese?
A group of Nigerian students was
attacked in China.
And India? With it's racist, misogynist caste system?
Killing of baby girls? Honor-
killing?
3) Often mysogynist? How about
the "castrate" signs? That's not
misogynist? Goes both ways,
sweetie. How about communist
countries which allow for abortion
of female babies?
4) Not exposed to other cultures.
See above.
5) Often narrowly read. Wrong.
Real right-wingers are often very
well-read, more frequently than
not. Remember the axiom:
"The predator improves the prey."
(Frank Herbert) Real right wingers
are good at adapting, and are so
often unjustly criticized that
they've become a reviled class.
Right, dearie?
6) Unwilling to listen to other
viewpoints. Well, if that's not
the kettle...
7) Pro-business in a way that's
bad for the environment. Like
Chernobyl?
8) Pro-individual at the expense
of society. Those are
called "Libertarians," not right-
wingers. And they make a good
argument that they contribute more
by being unfettered by nannies
like yourself.
9) Lock on the Constitution? Who
was it that said that the
Constitution doesn't mean today
what it meant yesterday, and that
it was a "living document,"
(subject to the vagaries and whims
of the nouveau-lynchmob?)
10) Anti-gun control. Most serial
killers don't use guns. Feel
safer?
11) Anti-abortion. Well, suck
eggs. Lots of right wingers like
abortion because it reduces the
underclasses and black people.
(See Margaret Sanger's
rationale for abortion, which in-
part is an argument for eugenics)
Google Sanger Eugenics, honey.
9:35, Michael, 9:47--
This is an interesting discussion. Most of your comments seem to confirm, one way or another, that it's not the ideas themselves, but the teaching method that is at the heart of this issue.
I agree that it's probably useful for instructors to be aware of potential student sensitivities, which are likely given the developmental stage of most college students. But that doesn't mean they should be avoiding controversial topics or unfamiliar ideas, just that they should be presenting them in ways that are less likely to be perceived as directly threatening to the students.
Obviously, this would rule out direct personal attacks; I don't think it would rule out statement of an instructor's own position or point of view, though I do think the instruction is more likely to be effective if that position is presented in a context that acknowledges other views and encourages students to work through the ideas and issues for themselves, using the instructor's position as one of many tools in the process.
9:06/9:32
re: 9:47
Our son is as argumentative as I am and has training in reasoning, argumentation, logic and debate and can be tireless to the point of winning by wearing you down. That's frequently not the best approach in a classroom.
As far as sensitivity vs ridicule goes, I would say that ridicule exists; one only need look at the Duke Lacrosse Hoax for examples.
I think that singling a person out for what they do or wear or drive to embarass them in front of others is ridicule. The sensitive approach is to present arguments for and against your case so that the person that you may be trying to reach gets it in a way where they aren't embarassed in front of their peers.
Sometimes priests take this approach when there is a particular problem in the congregation where they don't want to call out individual parties.
You can be exposed to a variety of viewpoints and still get ridiculed by a professor.
Some kids can handle it and some don't handle it very well.
9:44
9:24's son may not stay a son. Mom sounds like a real gender-bender.
BTW: Wondering what's going through poor young Nifong's head at the moment? I sincerely hope he gets through it. (Might want to change his name.)
Michael,
Some can't handle ridicule very
well: eating disorders sometimes
begin with small, seemingly
innocuous comments about
chubbiness.
If ridicule is ok, it should be
in a class on Satire, where it is
expected - or utilized by satirists
(who usually know what they're
doing and how far to go: see
Ben Franklin or Jonathan Swift.)
on Duke University:
I would be willing to bet that somewhere you have a statement about academic integrity. It is a shame that you believe it only applies to students. Then again, your faculty and your "esteemed" president have to have some integrity before having academic integrity. You guys make Ward Churchill look like he has a clue!
On left/right:
Any parent with a child only hopes that the child will be treated with dignity and respect in the college environment. That is not always the case, sadly. The opposite is more often the case.
on tenure:
Time for it to go. Though I am a tenured professor, I see far too many abuses of what was intended to protest academic freedom not political ravings. The classroom is not a place for one-sided political activism. Unfortunately, tenure has made this the rule rather than the exception.
on the 87 left (notice the pun)
It is my hope that every student who walks into your classes is armed with a video camera. Your true colors may be "encouraged" to lie low for a while but you won't be able to keep your mouths shut for very long. Vitriolic rants will return to the classroom if you are allowed to remain. Then again, alumni may have sense enough to elect a BOT with some semblance of morals. The CYA settlement was designed to hide the other rants of the Duke inner-city gang.
To the remaining LAX players:
Go for it--get what you can from the Dookies (not to be confused with the Dukies). The settlement was to "preserve the image", although why in heaven's name ANYONE would want to preserve the image of the academia (oxymoron) at DU.
Some people have book sense and no common sense. Some people are blind (even though they have 20/20 vision). Some people are so self-righteous (of course I would not be thinking of Broad--head or the 88 employees of DU (to call them educators is an insult to ALL educators).
It is now time to realize that there are too many self-aggrandizing people in the world. Nifong is gone. Once the other criminals have been removed (DPD liars, ADA's, crooked judges, 88 escaped mental patients, Brodhead, etc), there can be healing.
For those who want everything wrong in the world to be rooted in race or class, get over it. The Robin Hood mentality is just that--the mentality of a hood. Most of you really don't give a flying f about the "victims", you just look to put another feather in your cap (or buck in the bank--which is FAR more likely). As Rodney King said, "Can't we all just get along?"
To Thomas Sowell:
You have been identified as an economist. Many true economists recognize you as one of the greatest professors of economics EVER. However, they miss your true gift. That would be the ability to read people--to see through superficial statements and judge the book by the pages inside rather than the cover. Thanks for your wonderful insight.
To KC
Outstanding work. Thank you for identifying injustice (88 times over) and telling the true story. Without your work and three families with the resources and faith that they have, the truth might never have been known. As a resident of NC, I can only say thanks.
To Lane Williamson
Are you interested in being the DA in Durham? You would be one who could restore honesty and integrity to that office.
To Brad Bannon
You have made the Campbell Law School VERY proud. Good job!
I consider myself "right-wing". I am a white female. I have a son who graduated from Emory University, which has it's share of left-leaning professors. I usually vote Republican, so does my son. I have a daughter. I grew up in the real world, the daughter of a farmer in the Western United States. In the real world that I grew up in, a cougar will attack and kill a human. A rattlesnake will bite you if you don't kill it. If farmers didn't use fertilizer, more of the world's population would starve. There really are evil people out there who would kill me if they knew I had jewelry/electronics to steal in my home, hence, the constitution says I can own a gun. I believe a woman's body is her own, and abortion should be legal up to 8 weeks gestation. I feel marijuana should be legalized. I feel 'someone' needs to teach kids about sex, and 'someone' needs to teach kids how to get and keep a high credit score. (One's credit score has much more to do with his/her life than learning about an endagered frog in California.) Our schools fail that lesson miserably. Most parents fail to responsibly teach love/sex/money matters to their children. They haven't even mastered those issues themselves!
Mostly, however, I believe in justice for all, rich, poor, white, black....women....men....and I believe that left-leaning liberals are out of touch with the rest of America. I have traveled the world, and in Russia, one is not an individual. It is sad to see what communism did to the individual's soul in Russia. If your brother gets murdered in Russia, and your brother is a nobody...the police don't really care. No one will investigate. (I saw this, in my travels.) I am extremely well read...from the classics to Bertrand Russel to Star Magazine. I am a conservative, white, American woman. I am proud of it. While performing volunteer work around the world, persons in other countries are SHOCKED when I tell them I usually vote Republican. They have been spoon fed drivel from CNN and other lib media outlets that I should be homely, narrow minded, bigoted, racist, and un-caring. I am none of those. I am kind, caring, compassionate, and most of all, have a deep understanding of human nature. I can forgive someone of their short-comings. I see the big picture. In my world, most left-leaning liberals have never done a hard day's labor in their lives. They want their children in Ivy League schools, they want their children to marry other Ivy grads. They are intellectual snobs, and openly show their disdain for anyone with a lowly high-school education. They pretend to like "African-Americans", but would die if their daughter or son married one. Liberals smirk at middle class American values...but heaven forbid a middle class girl gets pregnant with Liberal son's baby. SHE used sex to catch their son. Never mind that Liberals teach free sex with no consequences. I've seen it all and them some, and all I can say is the left are THE most hypocritical, narrow minded, out of touch people I know. I love the Duke story. The truth prevailed. It is a beautiful story.
10:33 Well stated. You should read, "Intellectuals" by Paul Johnson. if you haven't already. It is a well documented book about many intellectuals and the fraudulent nature or their message and their character.
Duke reglect that same "enlightened" arrogance, though most appear to be useful idiots.
Is there justice at Duke?
On July 1 Paula McClain will take on the position of chairman of the Duke Academic Council. In an N&O article (Duke Deal Shields Faculty) she says
she hopes the settlement allows the university to move forward. Removing faculty members from any liability likely just made good sense, said McClain, who was not part of the legal discussions.
"I don't know if any faculty really felt any liability," she said. "But in a very litigious society, anyone can sue for anything."
Sounds like she's blowing off the settlement. Unless the 88 (or 87 remaining) feel the pain in their own pockets, what incentive is there for them to become decent?
Answer, NONE. The settlement should be systematically deducted from the paychecks of the 87 remaining, Brodhead, Burgess, and all the other hate mongers.
The 88 certainly don't appear to feel that they've done anything wrong. Not now, not ever. If we don't like what they wrote, it's because we "misunderstood" it.
I certainly don't understand how they could be shielded from any potential action by the other LAX players, and I can't believe the unindicted players aren't negotiating also--or better yet, preparing litigation!
I'm an alum and the last student fund-raiser that called me (recently since Duke's year-end is June 30th) seemed genuinely surprised when I said I wasn't sending any more $ until this question of Brodhead's leadership hadn't been settled yet in my mind. She sent me a pledge card anyhow.
re: 11:11
The Duke prof that gave the talk at Amherst or one of the schools in Western MA that KC requested someone attend mentioned legal issues in his presentation.
So at least one person was concerned about liability. I suspect that others were too. Certainly Kim Curtis had a good reason to be concerned.
Dear 10:33,
I'm an Ivy League grad, friends with the same, hope my children achieve the same, and would much rather my children marry blacks than your children...Wouldn't want you as an in law.
88...
Please realize that there were many, many more that walked right by and did NOTHING.
It's not just what was done, what was said, but equally important was what wasn't done, and wasn't said.
Duke is infected. Very few stood up and Coleman and the Chemistry Professor were at the top. The Economics Professor's comments were welcome but slow.
The administration demonstrated, and continues to demonstrate, a woeful lack of leadership.
Not only did they not step forward in any reasonable fashion, but they promoted the loons that represent the 88.
Good luck getting any money from me; alumni, Duke Chapel, Class, application fees, and/or especailly tuition.
I'd be very curious to see what has the metrics are regarding planned-giving. One wonders how many estate planning decisions have, and are, being made that take Duke out. Those decisions are not likely to show up on any donor reports today or last quarter.
10:33
Well-put, and congratulations!
I would prefer your company to
11:20 am's. I like real people,
not wine-sipping pseudo-
intellectuals with no real-world
experience.
I've seen lots of
them, especially when I was an
English Major: most of them
were wannabees. They mostly
lived their lives vicariously
through the characters they
read about, and could only
regurgitate and re-phrase old
ideas, none of them original.
Most were really dull writers.
You put a serious dent
(read: you ran over them with a train)
in 9:40's silly depictions of
what a right-winger is and is
not.
Much better than my attempts to
rebut them.
Thanks!
Mac, You're so cute. What makes you think anyone would want to hang out with you? An English major, eh? Why not a real man's major: econ, engineering, architecture?!!!
And why do you think that was a reasonable response? It simply prooves the person's point about the right. Clueless. Oh, and noisy about it.
PS Mackie boy, your English major days didn't make you a better writer. Unless your writing was previously worse.
An English major wants to speak about real-world experience?!! Yeh, right.
And what does sipping wine--you do what, chug it?--have to do with being intellectual? Or are you one of those folks who assume all Frenchmen are pseudo-intellectual because they drink wine? Odd. Very odd.
PC DOOFUSES
I know it makes you feel hip to couch the case in liberal-versus-conservative terms, but you're wrong. Case is about black bad behavior, and a stupid prosecutor who made a lying whore his Dulcinea.
grammar peeve--when using the preposition "outside," do not add "of": it's redundant
8:34: so, I "only want standards applied to people whose ideas I don't like"
The stupidity of that statement is...
Why don't you come out of the closet and assert what you really think: "standards are racist weapons used by white men against underrepresented minorities"?
Let me be clear: Most black students and faculty are not cognitively prepared to even discuss a complex concept like "standards"
Now go label me a racist.
Polanski
Wow, Polanski, you're right and I think you should be sending editorial letters to Duke's area newspapers.
I agree with all that but no one wants to say it out loud. I think that the professor McClain is a good example of how unintelligent these people are.
She reminds me of a welfare queen.
Hey Polansky,
No, I don't think you're a racist. I just don't think you're very smart. Some white people aren't, ya know. That's why we have vocational-technical training.
1:04
Yea, but what do you have for the multitudes of black dimbulbs? The welfare office and Church's Chicken?
Seems it's been that way for decades and decades.
Dear 1:20,
Racist losers like you are what give KC's blog a bad name.
You remind me of Germany's jealous, envious members of the lower middle class circa 1933...
1:04
Dat beh you, Wahneema?
Thassa poeerfull argewmentums, Polansky [sic].
Polanski
Sorry, Polanski,
Slavic names like yours can take y or i at the end when they're adjectival.
And, no, I'd be a WASP. And trying to belittle me w/ whatever kind of talk that is doesn't mitigate your racism.
Do you have any friends?
"friends" "racism"
Relevance?
If you consider me a "racist" because I've pointed out how underqualified blacks are dumbing down elite institutions, I guess I'll be forced to take the Fifth.
Do you make it a habit of labeling persons of good taste "racists"?
A university is a work in progress; it does not need the contributions of the erstwhile victims/present mediocrities. You pay Karla Holloway's salary. I certainly won't.
Polanski
1:57
KC's blog doesn't have a bad name. Quite the opposite. It is known nationally for a very factual account of black racism and PC run amok.
You just can't take the truth so namecalling is all you can ever use.
Dimbulb!
Dear Polanski,
Two different ideas. Two different paragraphs. Didn't you learn that in English 101? Sorry I didn't do a transition for you, but this is a blog.
There is a connection, however: you're such a racist, I wondered if you had friends.
Finally, my experience at one of the top Ivies was NOT that Blacks/African Americans or anybody dumbed down my "elite" institution. Everyone was impressively smart.
PS I kinda like the idea of dimbulb. Does that mean you're environmentally aware? No? I thought not.
Post 2:34--
KC Johnson's blog really isn't known for highlighting black racism. And, I'm not sure he'd want it to be. Why don't you ask?
2:44
No, that was not his intention. True. But as a result of covering this case from top to bottom, the result is what it is.
Duke's Faculty88 look really, really bad, especially those who call themselves "African American" and live off the money of rich white Duke parents.
Bums and racists, all!
2:42
Did you know that at Harvard Medical School they now have to de-emphasize complex research to accommodate black geniuses' special forms of understanding?
I suppose you think Wahneema's listening statement was well written. And I doubt you attended an Ivy, UNLESS you're really black.
Polanski
"Everyone was impressively smart."
And you are one of the biggest liars this side of Mike Nifong.
Put some Preparation H on that and call us in the morning.
HOW MUCH PREFERENCE ARE BLACKS GIVEN AT ELITE INSTITUTIONS?
Visit blackprof.com. There's an article by law professor Michele Alexandre on the Duke case [KC, suggest you link it, or write about it], entitled "Tale of 2 victims..." This article is valuable because it delivers what I perceive to be the "authentic" black take on the case.
Professor Alexandre is a Harvard Law School graduate. Her prose could have been written by an eigth-grader. Read the article! I'm not exaggerating.
Polanski
erratum
eighth
Hi Polanski,
Yes, I attended an Ivy & I'm white. Very white. As I said, a WASP. Maybe that's why I'm not a racist...
But, what you think about my degrees doesn't matter much, because I'm pretty sure we don't travel in the same circles since you didn't attend an Ivy League school
PS Pan Polanski,
How is it you know how an eighth grader writes? Because you are one? Or you're just at that level of maturity.
I love how people like you try to tell the rest of us who we are and what we think.
Can't-take-the-truth
Dimbulbs!
3:33 FYI
I went to Boston College (undergrad) and to grad school at Harvard, Wisconsin, and Texas.
More than that, I've published well-reviewed books in the NY Times.
I guess that makes you my little bitch.
Bend over; I'm hungry.
Polanski
No, Pan Polanski, it doesn't.
I out do you at every level. Texas? BFD
If you really want to get down to it, let's talk presses...Who'd you publish with? I-am-a-racist.com?
3:55
This is very interesting. What do you public? Science fiction? Fiction? How-to books? Self-improvement?
:-)
Hello, 3:55,
Were you kicked out of two graduate programs or did you lose your support, which is the same thing? Most people manage to stick with one graduate program.
think you want "outdo" and "whom"
Bruce, you just can't win--
Now go get your shinebox!
Polanski
4:02
Quit Harvard and Wisconsin. Essentially kicked out of Texas for not going to class.
But I learned a lot at all 3 places, and I don't regret for a second studying behavioral psychology (Harvard); medieval literature (Wisconsin); and business administration (Texas). Texas, btw, is a great school, and its MBA program 1 of the most rigorous in the nation. I have to laugh at people who think the Ivy League is the cat's meow. There are a lot of wonderful schools all over US that are rigorous and worth attending.
P
Poster @ 3:33
I don't care who you are and don't want to get into the middle of your argument with Polanski, but this post is plain stupid.
If you are an Ivy leaguer, then I'm Marilyn Monroe.
And it's obvious that you are an African-American commenter from all that you discuss. Why lie?
There is such a thing as objective truth in the social sciences. If you don't seek it out and learn, and if you manage to have major societal decisions taken in ignorance (or from narrow interests), you wind up running uncontrolled, large-scale experiments on society. Over time and across societies, what accumulates is data. With enough data, you can largely make up for the lack of scientific controls. Think of twin studies.
The way to arrive at the objective truth is to recognize that most histories are presented through an agenda-driven narrative. You need to seek out and take in as many of these as possible, to get the full picture and to become more adept at recognizing things that fit the objective facts and those that do not. Then, you look at the data, at outcomes, unintended consequences, patterns, norms, exceptions, adjustments, etc.
Having done this, you can begin to see things for how they are. If you get together a number of individuals who have done the same and have a diversity of thought, experiences, and opinions, you can discuss and debate, drawing on the strengths of many to carve away falsehood and sharpen insights. You develop theories and try to use their predictive power to test the theories and understand developing situations.
I’ve done this. There are numerous examples where both left and right have been in the wrong. However, there is absolutely no question that most of the leading lights of the G88 are utterly bankrupt in most regards, including as arbiters of any sort of justice. They are shining exemplars of many of the troubles of some of those who self-identify with the left. In my view, the main trouble they have is that they are intolerant.
They cannot abide any diversity of thought. In fact, feelings and dogma trump thought and there can be no dispassionate analysis of the past, of difference, of whom is the victim of what, and so on. Why would anyone expect that there are not individual and group differences? Heredity and environment, education and social policy make us what we are, individually and collectively. There is a biological basis for many things.
I don’t suppose I am going to convince anyone of how things actually are. However, it would seem that the departments that employ the G88, and the counterparts at many other universities, ought to have people across the spectrum and they ought to be free to say all sorts of things. Instead, all too often, there is a critical mass of ideologs to the left who have managed to take control and kill off all dissent. We see one result here.
Dear Marilyn/4:36:
I'm saving your posts to show them to my friends. I want to share the laugh with them.
You remind me of fascists in the 1930s: they denigrated their enemies: France/Britain, ie, democracies as women. You think I'm your enemy, so you attempt to denigrate me as black.
This is precisely the kind of behavior that makes people think many right wingers are screaming fools.
PS 4:36
I'd tell you who I am so you could check my Ivy cred, but I think you're sort of nutz.
"I just have to comment. It's so very much fun to watch these right-wing white men get upset. This is better than daytime TV."
It's even better (and immensely satisfying - sigh-) to watch bitter, gender feminists feigning disinterest and a "so what?" attitude. I'm enjoying your pain.
You now know that your surreptitious infestation of American campus life has been outed. Didn't Matt Zash, former Lacrosse captain say: "you can just see that there is this underlying hate these professors have for us, just being white men.." Ahh - captured in print and online via Google forever and a day.
Get back in your box, and be aware that when you re-emerge, there's going top be a whole lot less tolerance for you and your excesses. Hope it hurts....
6:23
Why does the daytime tv post, which I think is hilarious, have to come from a bitter feminist? Just wondering...
I'm confused. What is a gender feminist?
7:39
it's obvious you are confused. That's what happens after you've been clusterfucked as you have. Fraud!
Hahahahahahahahaha!
7:39
I'm sure your post is meant to be an insult, but to whom? It's not v. clear.
Wolcott's comments about Brodhead are hilarious. They're true too. Facts don't change. Of all the people involved in this case the lacrosse players are the only people who have given the same account from start to finish and never wavered. It's easy to be consistent - when you're telling the truth.
The comments about Collin don't surprise me. He's always struck me as being a very shy and vulnerable person and not at all the rampaging jock that the press initially made him out to be. It must have been tough for his family to sit back and watch that but at least the truth finally came out.
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