The bizarre views of Group of 88 member Kathy Rudy have received national attention, thanks to the efforts of James Taranto’s opinionjournal blog. He first turned his attention to Rudy after this so-called “animal rights” activist could bring herself to describe Michael Vick as doing nothing beyond treating his dogs “very cruelly.” (Of course, Vick actually admitted to executing them in a barbaric fashion.) Rudy’s rationalization? Vick is black.
Here’s Taranto’s latest, from Friday:
Kathy Rudy, who studies women at Duke University, is turning out to provide a rich vein of material. Our item yesterday brought lots of interesting comments from readers. One called our attention to the Dec. 15, 2000, issue of Duke’s Faculty Forum newsletter, in which Rudy, who had just received the university’s $5,000 Alumni Teaching Award, describes the undergraduate class that “was most formative in my academic training.” It turns out to be one in which her teacher went AWOL:
"The setting was the mid-70’s, a small Catholic college in Upstate NY, and rather unwittingly I signed up for a class in something called “Organizing 101.” I was a pretty organized person and therefore thought that maybe I would get a good grade in the class. We started by reading the works of labor, political, and community organizers--people like Si Kahn, Saul Alinsky, Lenin, etc. . . .
"Almost half-way through the semester, the teacher just stopped coming to class. No explanations, no excuses . . . I remember as if it were yesterday the day that one of our classmates came up with the idea that maybe we should use the very techniques we had learned in the first weeks of class! We could organize ourselves, he suggested, and make demands that would get our needs met. Immediately, the class divided, about 2/3 thinking that this was a great way to give the teacher a taste of his own medicine, and 1/3 (the obedient Catholics) believing that we should just continue to show up and wait patiently. . . . Over the next few weeks, we talked the good Catholics into joining us, refused to bargain accept [sic] as a whole, demanded that all of us be given A’s, and asked for double course credit to compensate for the time and energy we spent dealing with this situation."
They got their A’s, though the credit was for only a single course. Her professors who did show up, though, must have been really bad if they were all outshone by the one who flew the coop.
Lots of readers, meanwhile, laughed at Rudy’s statement that “complexifying this equation to include race meant identifying ourselves as white oppressors.” Reader Eugene Dillenberg writes:
"I teach at a major Midwestern university where most students, and large sections of the faculty, generally laugh off the kind of racist/sexist nonsense Kathy Rudy spouts. We are preparing our students to take their places in the world, and we have little time for this kind of childishness.
"But one word caught me up short. “Complexifying”? This is a college-educated person? This is a college professor? My undergraduates know better than to make up words like this. If they try, they get their essay returned to them, with the offending text circled and the grade lowered accordingly.
"If someone knows this little about language, we must wonder what else she knows little about."
Paul Clark adds: “‘Complexifying’?!! Rudy isn’t an English professor, is she? In undergrad, I had an English professor who was not satisfied with the word ‘epiphany.’ He converted it to ‘epiphanic moment.’”
Brian McBrearty finds it hard to take Rudy seriously: "As a white male oppressor let me say that dominating women is easier when they sound like Foghorn Leghorn when trying to sound erudite. She was trying to be serious, but I could not stop my oppressive testosterone-fueled laughter long enough to read the end of her whiny complaint."
Christopher Scalia quips that “‘Complexifying’ is the new ‘strategery,’” and Gregory Taggert asks, “Complexifying? Is that the feminist version of complicating?”
Of course not.
Everyone knows that the actual word is “complexificationalizing.”
It’s worth reviewing the remarkable N&O video of the procession to the detention facility by Mike Nifong and his entourage.
That the convicted ex-DA could feel comfortable being escorted to jail by those who still proclaimed his innocence suggested a man who remains convinced that he did nothing wrong.
Upon Nifong’s departure from jail, the entourage was present to greet him again. Former Nifong citizens’ committee co-chair Victoria Peterson summed up for the group: “We love you here in Durham. The people love you. We support you, and we still support you, and we feel that you are innocent.”
The Chronicle reports that the Arts & Sciences faculty had its first meeting of the 2007-2008 academic year. The gathering had an Orwellian tinge.
[Dean George] McLendon, according to the paper, “advocated mutual trust and respect to rebuild positive relations between faculty, students and the Durham community.”
If a professor uses class time to announce the results of his “research”—that an “ejaculation had occurred” at 610 N. Buchanan (as occurred in March 2006 in one History class)—is such behavior conducive to fostering “mutual trust and respect”? Presumably not—yet such behavior never was addressed by the administration.
Continued the Chronicle,
Steve Nowicki, who was appointed as dean of undergraduate education in June, said he values the pluralism of ideas(!) and values within the Duke community and he plans to utilize them in defining his new position . . . Nowicki said the Duke administration cannot only look to other universities for new ideas because Duke needs to embrace the organic qualities of its own institution. “Diversity is a differential advantage [at Duke],” he said. “We need to celebrate differences while having common values.”
If professors publish op-eds accusing Duke students of “secret racism” for having the temerity to vote in Durham—as occurred last October—is such behavior reflective of a “need to celebrate differences while having common values”? Presumably not—yet such behavior never has been addressed by the administration.
The Brodhead administration has consciously chosen an ostrich-like policy—refusing to address the dubious behavior by fringe faculty in spring 2006. (From the same administration that appointed five committees to explore behavior related to the lacrosse team, this approach could be termed hypocritical.) Unfortunately, the policy of having swept such behavior under the rug renders ridiculous statements such as those of McLendon and Nowicki.
“Spoiler Steve” Monks was back in the news last week, criticizing the City Council for appointing the Whichard Committee. “To go out front,” remarked he, “and say we’re going to have this investigation prior to resolving the civil matter was, in my opinion, potentially financially foolhardy.”
Of course, this is the same “Spoiler Steve” who did everything he could last fall to ensure that the DPD’s corruption would have a chance to send three innocent people to jail. Running as a write-in candidate for DA, Monks focused his campaign entirely on areas where Lewis Cheek was strong, with the obvious goal of splitting the anti-Nifong vote. The Monks effort also produced one of the most bizarre episodes of the campaign, when the Spoiler called a press conference to announce that polling data (which showed him receiving 2 percent of the vote in the N&O’s public poll) indicated that he was the only candidate who could defeat Mike Nifong.
During the campaign, Monks said his goal was to ensure justice for the three falsely accused players. But right after Election Day, he appeared to lose interest in the issue, avoiding any and all public commentary about the case.
Faced with the choice between “Spoiler Steve” and someone like incumbent Diane (“Something Happened”) Catotti, I’d be hard pressed not to favor Catotti. At least she was up-front in her efforts prop up the prosecution and then, after it collapsed, ensure that no one be held accountable for misconduct.
This week’s hypocrisy award goes to sports columnist Mike Wise of the Washington Post, who, in a blog Q&A, recently opined,
I guess I don’t subscribe to the notion that I should bash someone for bashing’s sake. Too many people in my business are into yanking someone’s chain instead of having convictions about anything. Real fans and readers see through that. You can’t slam a person or team non-stop unless they really deserve to be smacked upside the head. If readers feel they already know your destination they won’t take the journey with you.
Yes, that’s the same Mike Wise who used the Duke men’s lacrosse team’s run to the championship game to repeatedly “bash” them—even as this journalist didn’t even take the time to interview any of the players or their coach, who were nearby (Baltimore) for the lacrosse Final Four.
The AP’s Aaron Beard had his latest nicely done article, examining the atmosphere surrounding Nifong’s one-day jail sentence. He obtained an especially perceptive quote from Jim Cooney, who noted, “I keep reflecting back to where we were a year ago when we were begging him to look at the truth and look at the facts, and he seemed committed to doing exactly what he pleased. He probably feels like he’s in a lake of fire right now. But if he does, he needs to come to the realization that he set that fire.”
In the N&O, Matt Dees and Joe Neff had a comprehensive summary of the settlement talks. Beyond monetary damages, they note,
The settlement also would require the City Council to pass resolutions urging the state legislature to pass criminal justice reform laws, including mandatory videotaping of identification procedures, recording of grand jury proceedings and creating a state ombudsman position to review complaints against prosecutors and intervene as necessary. And the city would be required to form an independent commission to review residents’ complaints about police . . .
Lawyers who have followed the case closely say the city has three main areas of vulnerability:
* The April 4, 2006, photo-identification procedure, conducted in violation of city policies, that led to indictments in the case. Accuser Crystal Gail Mangum was shown only photos of 46 white Duke lacrosse players.
* Discrepancies between hand-written notes taken by police Investigator Benjamin Himan and typewritten notes submitted months later by Sgt. Mark Gottlieb. Gottlieb wrote in July 2006 that Mangum on March 16 had described three people that fit the characteristics of the three accused players. Himan’s notes, written the day of the March meeting with Mangum, offer three very different descriptions.
* A CrimeStoppers poster released by police shortly after the initial rape allegations. It said a woman “was sodomized, raped, assaulted and robbed. This horrific crime sent shock waves throughout our community.”
The folks at BlueNC, which describes itself as “a community-driven website that promotes progressive values and policies in North Carolina,” might want to take a look at the Dees/Neff article before again writing about the case. As it stands now, the blog’s approach to Durham matters suggests that we may soon be seeing a new organization, “Progressives for Police & Prosecutorial-Misconduct (PP&P).”
In a post that seethed with prejudice, one BlueNC blogger lamented the fate of Mike Nifong, who “has a symbolic 24 hours behind bars—more time that Scooter Libby will ever do for a crime for which Alberto Gonzales should be charged but won’t because Democratic Congressmen are not as vindictive as the parents of rich white jocks.” [So, because Scooter Libby’s sentence was commuted, Nifong should go unpunished for lying to the court?] The blogger complained about the prospects of a civil suit, fuming, “As a Durham citizen, I don’t want to see my taxes poured down a rathole for the actions of a now disbarred DA, which is after all a state office.” [BlueNC appears to be conveniently overlooking the actions of the DPD. By the way, I wonder for whom the Durham backers of BlueNC voted last November?]
Bloger PartieLion continued,
What has bothered me most about the Nifong case is how quickly the defense lawyers brought all of the power of the national media to bear on the case so that it never got sorted out by twelve folks from Durham. [Yes, it was the defense attorneys that “brought all the power of the national media to bear” on events in Durham. In a PP&P exclusive, it appears that Joe Cheshire was impersonating Mike Nifong in the DA’s 50-70 ethically improper statements.] Now it is the vindictiveness of the civil case and its derailing of an investigation that is striking me.
There is something more than Nifong’s action rotten with this case. And that is the determination of the parents not to have the merits of the case, whatever few there might have been, brought out either in a trial or in an investigation of the actions of the Durham Police. [So much, apparently, for the comprehensive investigation by the AG’s office and the State Bureau of Investigation.]
Could it be that the point is not to get justice but to ensure that rich white jocks at prestigious colleges get legal immunity?
So, the PP&P platform appears to be:
1.) Victims of prosecutorial misconduct should stay away from talented defense attorneys, or from filing motions that lay out the improper actions of the prosecutor.
2.) We need to repeal the legislation that allows victims of police or prosecutorial misconduct to sue in federal court, for violation of civil rights.
3.) As another BlueNC blogger noted, the case needed to go to trial, since, “Shouldn’t we wait until the frickin’ trial takes place before we take down the district attorney?”
Perhaps Wahneema Lubiano could be persuaded to serve as honorary president of the organization. And if PP&P activists were really lucky, they could persuade Houston Baker to return from Nashville to advise them. This is the man, after all, who on March 29, 2006 demanded the immediate expulsion from Duke of every member of the lacrosse team. This sort of approach would seem to fit right in line with the civil liberties philosophy of the “progressives” at BlueNC.
Interim DA David Saacks got off to a highly unfortunate start. Asked to reflect on the lessons of the lacrosse case in his first day on the job, he incredibly asserted, “In some respects, couldn’t you even say the lacrosse case showed that our system works? They [the three defendants] never went to trial. The mistakes were pointed out early in the process and were corrected. But the system did work, even if in a roundabout way.”
If what we’ve witnessed over the past 18 months constituted the “system” working, imagine what a broken-down system in Durham would look like?
The unwillingness of otherwise intelligent people to state the obvious in this case never ceases to amaze. Such remarks only increase the need for an airtight civil suit settlement against Durham.
323 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 323 of 323Hey, Durhmites.
This just in from the settlement negotiations - its only going to be $29 million. Bwaahahahahahaha.
Console yourselves with warm memories of the good old days when the fun game was called "Get The White Boys". Just one short year ago.
Shoot, all y'all are going to be paying for this longer than you had to enjoy it.
3:44 am
Why didn't they test the DNA of David Copperfield? He's one of the few people that I know capable of levitation. CGM would have ID'd him if his pic had been in the lineup. Hell, she's have ID'd you if yours had been there.
7:08
I'm guessing ole Mikey himself. Now that he's finished round one in jail, he's got nothing better to do with his time. There are just too many statements that are tied up with "factoids" that sound like those presented in court. Just like some drinks---with a twist.
Me thinks he doth protest too much. Loonies to the left of Durm, loonies to the right. Durm I am!!
4:19 -- the next time you go to the polls, remember something a famous man said about content of character.
Michael said...
re: 5:04
Regarding a fund established to help the real victims of interracial rape: would Crystal be elegible?
9/9/07 5:17 PM
Sure, if it ever happens to her. And btw, I'm not talking about huge sums of money here. After all, if the aid were only $1,000, then for 20,000 annual victims, that would be $20,000,000. I would like to see some of the money used for education on interracial rape, too.
If the "good" professors want to keep their government dollars, they only need to throw out the bad professors. If they can't do that, then are they "good" professors?
How, precisely, would you suggest they go about throwing out the "bad" professors? Other faculty at Duke can't fire them. If they're tenured, there's not much the other faculty can do about the situation.
And yes, we taxpayers have a right to determine who gets our money. This is still a democracy, despite the attempts of many elitists to turn it into an oligarchy.
Actually, you do not have a right to determine what happens to your tax dollars. You have a right to vote in local, state, and federal elections. You can decide to hold your representatives accountable if they do something you disagree with. So far as impacting the federal funding that goes to Duke, however, this won't get you very far. The directors of the NIH and NSF have a lot more to do with that, and they aren't elected.
RRH at 4:51 said: "David Saacks is right. KC is wrong on this one. Of all the institutions -- the legal, the media, the academic, the political, etc. -- that failed during the Lacrosse Hoax, only one, the legal one has shown a capacity for self-governance."
[UPI SPOILER]
I'm nodding in agreement. I would only add that some journalists - Ruth Sheehan comes to mind - corrected their original "rush to judgment" screeds. But, on the whole, the legal system was the only institution with the inherent checks and balances to correct and remedy its own errors. Yes it wields the biggest sick - the ability to deprive liberty - but by design it is able to right itself. The media must rely on invidual editors and journalists for correction. The academy, as KC and Stuart concluded in Chp 25 of UPI, needs outside intervention - and
soon!
****
I'm just now checking in today for the Sunday Roundup and Comment - seems like the guards left the asylum doors open today!
Annual cost of a Duke education..........$45,000
Cost to get a slut and associate to strip..$800
Cost of defense of trumped up charges..$1,000,000 plus
Watching Mikey do the Perp Walk...priceless
re: 5:34
[My answer: The OJ trial. But that wasn't the fault of the lawyers so much as the judge (minor) and the jury (major).]
This was a failure to convict the guilty. I contend convicting the innocent is a much bigger crime.
[What system created by man always works as it's supposed to?]
You stated that the legal system worked best compared to a few other choices in self-governance. I contend that it failed in this case. If you want to argue that 1.1 is greater than 1.0, I guess that is your option.
[And don't confuse "wrongly convicted" with "cleared". Ninety percent of "wrongly convicted" people are guily; there was just a problem with their prosecution. I had to show one IP fan that the IP's recent claim to have "exonerated" Darryl Hunt was in fact incorrect: He was not shown to be innocent of the crime, but IP is claiming "exoneration" for him on its website.]
I have no idea as to whether or not your numbers are correct. But assuming they are, it appears that you're willing to throw the other 10% under the bus.
Given the unlimited resources of the government, including the power of life, liberty and death to crush a person in a variety of ways, I would hope that the enlightened would be unhappy even with your ten percent number.
1:49 AM most of you all are not even from durham and have no idea what the people down here are saying
Is it a loss of some kind to be deprived of what the people of Durham are saying? Help me out here.
The people of Durham may rant about the "greed" of the players all they want. What poster 1:49 AM fails to understand is that the "PR" tide has turned permanently against Durham because an unjust prosecution has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the overwhelming majority of the American people who know about the case.
The opinions of the people of Durham don't matter. The city has already disgraced itself by virtue of the quality of the officials who run it. The coming litigation doesn't depend on their opinion. The bright national spotlight that'll illuminate the Durham courthouse and the judgments that come out of it will make sure of that.
beckett
6:28 -- Maybe they can't be fired...but they sure can be shunned by other members of the faculty.
re: 6:07
I think subtlety was lost. How do you establish "real" rape in cases where there is no forensic evidence or where it is just he-said, she-said.
As Katrina showed, if you put out lots of free aid, scammers will try to claim a share.
I sort of feel that even the population of Durham who stood by and said nothing while everything was going on (potbanging lunatics and a Castrate sign and the New Black panthers' death threats), without ever stepping up and saying "this is wrong, this doesn't represent us, these guys are innocent until proven guilty.." , are deserving of the suits the city now faces.
RRH --
*sigh* How many more times are you going to post false accounts of the Darryl Hunt case, trying to suggest that he was not exonerated? The DNA evidence not only exonerated Hunt but led the police to the true culprit, Willard E. Brown, who confessed. We've been through this before. We know you know this. Why is it that you'll mock those who cannot see that three young white men have been exonerated, but then turn around and do your best to re-do a similar injustice to an African-American man? I think we know the answer, and it's quite ugly.
Duke University will foot the bill for the city of Durham settlement.
Wow, incredible comments today.
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of the facts and evidence” John Adams
Anyone still in the "something happened camp" is either incredibly stupid, ignorant or so racist they can't see the truth for what it is.
Let's be clear, 1. People do NOT go to trial to prove their innocence. The LAW and the CONSTITUTION say that GUILT must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It is really that simple. The whole damn reason we have preliminary hearings, Grand Jury reviews, and Judges is to PREVENT INNOCENT people from being tried. Most 4th graders know people are innocent until PROVEN guilty, why can't a bunch of racist professors and organizations see that...
2. CGM Lied, only a moron would not see that. This is a FACT, cited by the State AG
3. Mike Nifong lied, probably the same moron can't see that. If one watched the State Bar trial, any doubt about that was erased. Another FACT
4. Another FACT, Dave Evans DNA on a fingernail from HIS bathroom even if it were a 100% match would be meaningless given all the other evidence. MEANINGLESS !!! I again refer to the extensive LIE CGM told (or was it Mike Nifong, I can;t keep them straight anymore). CGM of course told of a rather brutal, prlonged rape in which people even ejaculated in her mouth among other places, of course Mikey, who never interviewed the LIAR, called this a non-ejaculatory event, but was pretty eager to describe the brutal rape and choke hold on National TV
5. RRH, I must side with KC on this one, though your points are well taken. Saying the "system" worked simply becasue the end result was the correct one is akin to the ends justifying the means. When accused have to spend some 10 million collective dollars to get the truth, it is clear the system is broken. The "system" is supposed to be for all people, regardless of race, intelligence or financial status, the "system" needs to protect the innocent, and thus, I must conclude, that at least in Durham, the "system" sucked. The "system" can't work some of the time and not others (I do understand that in any justice system, some innocent will be guilty and some guilty will go free) it must work well for all that enter it...
6. The City of Durham stood by while it's corrupt system tried to put 3 INNOCENT men away for up to 30 years each. Personally, I don't think $100 million each is enough. The fact that some people in Durham want to "move on" and think that really it was a bunch of privileged white kids with good lawyers that got them off and not facts, makes me think the only way to protect the public is to punish them so severely it leaves a HUGE mark, becasue, sadly, I think it would happen again given the chance.
7. A few other FACTS, Gottlieb Lied, the DPD Lied, Linwood Wilson lied, the State AG sought and found the TRUTH.
and, some opinions, KC Johnson is a hero, I could care less if words get misspelled here and there, it is irrelevant to the blog. I even disagree with him politcally, but he has done nothing but an awesome job in exposing the corrupt society in Durham (no offense to those good citizens of Durham who believe in truth and justice). I think the NTO was likely illegal, I think Judge Stephens is as corrupt as the DA office, I think David Addison also lied, I think the NC NACCP lied on purpose, I think Officer Himan lied about the reason to go to the players dorm rooms illegally that night before the indictment, I think the behavior of the Duke leadership is/was abysmal, and it is beyond me how those 88 morons called professors got away with what they did.
It is one thing to have opinions on things based on facts, knowledge or experience, it is another to say the world is flat, that simply shows ignorance.
A Sunday Roundup stacked with stupidity.
Just another day in Wonderland.
Wise is still not wise.
Blue NC - "the people's think tank" no doubt worships at the trough of Professor Rudy. Their "thinking" is exactly why Durham should and will pay millions to the Lax 3 and hopefully a pot full to the other 43 Laxers for abusing them as well. I live in NC, though far away from Durham, and hope that Durham is brought to its knees in these lawsuits. I hope that these lawsuits are able to finally whip the wickedness that is Durham -- the armpit of the Piedmont.
For those who thought that perhaps Saacks' approval of the NTO last year was a momentary aberration from normal conduct, his latest comment now assures us that he is sleazy just like the rest of the cast of characters that have so thoroughly abused the legal system in Durham.
Durham -- will you ever reach the bottom-out point? I won't hold my breath.
"I'm just now checking in today for the Sunday Roundup and Comment - seems like the guards left the asylum doors open today!"
It's been wall to wall ruddy trolls all damn day. There must be a nest somewhere.
We gave as good as we got.
The entire Lewis Cheek campaign was silly and quixotic. It was destined to fail from the beginning. The fact the KC Johnson is still mad at Monks shows just how out of touch with reality he is. There was no way Nifong was going down. And if he was going to go down, then it would have to have been to a legimate candidate. Everyone in my church, neighborhood, and workplace thought that the Cheek thing was rediculous. The guy said he didn't want to be DA. End of story. Vote for someone who does.
"How, precisely, would you suggest they go about throwing out the "bad" professors? Other faculty at Duke can't fire them. If they're tenured, there's not much the other faculty can do about the situation."
Fair enough, Engineering Prof. For starters:
(1) Why didn't more of the honorable profs at Duke follow the lead of the handful like Professor Gustafson, and speak out for due process, and against inflammatory statements / events like the pot bangers and the listening statement.
(2) If Duke's faculty have a role in university shared governance, why didn't someone in the faculty council raise questions about the propriety of giving university imprimatur to the advertisement. Specifically, questions about whether or not the departments listed as signatories had approved making this statement in their departmental meetings, and whether or not university funds had been spent for the advertisement in the Chronicle or the 'wanted posters' could have been legitimately raised in that body.
(3) Why couldn't more departments do what the Economics Department did,and specifically pass resolutions proclaiming that they were student friendly, and that all students, including athletes were welcome, and could expect fair, impartial treatment in their classes?
None of these attacks tenure. But if some departments feel that many of their faculty are being criticized for behavior in a less than honorable manner, perhaps they would be more careful about playing the the rules in the faculty handbook.
Which leads to
(4) When it became obvious that the race / class /gender studies faculty were participating in what can only be described as a lynch mob, why did the remaining faculty for the most part sit on their hands and say nothing? My personal opinion is that the race / class gender Jacobins have much more power in the university administration than people off campus realize. No rational faculty member wants to publicly attack these people, which carries the implicit threat of being branded as insufficiently sensitive to progressive issues, if not racist or sexist. Given the politics on campus, that is a serious threat, and a real cause for fear. Your president may be a sensitive poet, but I'd guess he is terrified of being denounced to your progressive faculty's Committee on Public Safety. He didn't want to end up like poor old Dr. Summers at Harvard. So he sat by and let the mob of his own faculty try to railroad three of his own students into prison, to keep the progressive element of the faculty happy, and save his job. And most of the rest of the faculty helped, by saying nothing, and refusing to stand up for what was right.
Bad as it all was, the administration should have recognized that buying silence with settlements for the three families will not put this to rest. Too much is known, and trying to hide behind a no discussion clause may buy some time, but it does not solve the problem. The inmates, people like Dean Sue and William Chafe, or Karla Holloway, are running the asylum. The public can see this, even if the faculty cannot - or,more importantly - will not. A previous poster said, of all the groups that failed the students, only one has tried to correct its failings itself. That is the criminal justice system. The NC AG finally did what needed to be done, and found the wrongly accused to be innocent, disbarred the corrupt DA, and sent him to jail. Duke has cravenly hidden behind an out of court settlement without even taking the steps of making a public apology, and acting to stop abuse of power by chastising members of the faculty for their obvious failure to live up to the conduct code published in the faculty handbook, or egregious misconduct like grade retaliation.
Good luck. I am grateful that I am not attending Duke.
1:49 AM --
You must be the pathetic 12:53.
You're wrong of course. Neither a judge nor jury can pronounce a defendant "innocent". The only choices are "guilty", "not guilty", or "we can't decide" (hung jury).
What Cooper did is use the "innocent" word (virtually, unheard in legal circles) as a means to indicate how lacking in evidence the case was. This was not a case that was thrown out due to a technicality or because the DA wouldn't have been able to meet his burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. There was abosulely NO EVIDENCE of a crime.
Do you realize that right now, most of the country, including most of NC, doesn't care if Durham falls off the face of the earth? You people are stinking up the joint!
OK, 5:29 AM --
I'll hereby stipulate that your opinion is as worthless as a $3 bill.
Gary Packwood wrote:
"Blog comments are time stamped by the computer which is hosting this blog and that computer is located in the Eastern United States.
There are bloggers from all US Time zones including Hawaii as well as bloggers from all over the world to include Asia."
I understand how it works, and I guess I'd give people posting in the early morning in Asia a pass. Maybe some of the first dozen comments are from outside the US or Hawaii, but I doubt it, and it's still Saturday or Sunday. Where are you located?
As an Orange County (NC) resident with many friends in Durham, I truly feel for that community. I doubt they can really afford to get hammered financially for the mistakes of their DA, police, etc.
But sadly, this is a lesson in the true high cost of giving a free pass to wackadoos in government. Durham is full of liberals who are reasonable human beings who see the far (out) Left as being like them, just more so. There is a sense that Lefties are cute characters who make the community more lively and cool.
In reality, Lefties are not more liberal than liberal. They are pretty much the opposite -- anti-intellectual, anti-empirical, totalitarian, hate-filled.
Liberals don't like the Far Right, but the Far Left occupies a very dark place which is pretty much the same dark place the Far Right occupies. If you find yourself in a mass grave, does it matter if you were put there by Hitler or Stalin?
There is stupidity and evil to be found on different parts of the ideological spectrum. In the Durham case, political extremism has been almost tragic and certainly destructive.
The type of government you choose and follow matters. Bad choices have very real consequences. Sadly, Durham has enough decent, thinking people that this did not have to happen. But, it did.
Up to a while ago, person after person (on this blog and elsewhere) advised all that Duke would not/could not be sued, Duke would not settle - and that Durham could not be sued, Durham would not settle. Sure, folks ignorant of the law might gnash their teeth and whine about how terribly these entities had acted, but they'd done nothing truly actionable, nothing anybody would wind up having to pay for. Anything else, we were told, was just wishful thinking.
This attitude must have obtained in many quarters in both Duke and Durham. Nothing else seems to explain the silence - or even the continued bloody-mindedness - of Duke and Durham figures who, as the LAX fraud became more and more exposed, were inexorably becoming more and more exposed to liability themselves. Looks like they thought it was all simply about an abstract thing called justice, something that might cost them a reputation, but no actual cash money.
Would there have been more pressure on authorities and administrations to behave with at least the semblance of decency if more people had realized how expensive all of this incompetence and corruption was going to be?
Looks like it.
To 8:44,
Ha, yes, I am laughing, I can remember the tirades claiming Duke had no liability and would not settle, no way Durham would be sued. Well, Duke settled, Durham is about to be sued, and well, hopefully the DPD is next. Hell, Duke couldn't settle fast enough. Which makes me think their is more to this story than meets the eye (or ear)....
BDay
To Observer at 8:57 AM:
Excellent post.
When I saw '$30 million', I knew there would be people screaming. My own opinion, based on some of the statements they have made since being declared innocent, is that the lax 3 are more interested in the reforms - reforms that will help provide important protections to ALL accused (black, white, rich, poor, male, female) - than they are in the money. Of course, I also believe they are deserving of a settlement. My humble opinion is that the large sum was named, at least in part, to make good and sure they had everyone's attention. If Durham agrees to enact what reforms it can and fight for the others statewide, I would not be surprised to see the amount of the requested settlement drop - possibly substantially.
I haven't yet gotten through the entire thread - my apologies if this theory had already been put forth and dissected.
On the 30 million settlement demand:
It is high enough that, on the off chance it is accepted by the City, the amount would not be an insult to the aggrieved students. But my personal guess is that it was set as a kind of bait - the City will most likely mistake this for normal negotiations about a price and turn it down or make a counter-offer - at which time the Plantiffs will drop negotiations and proceed to trial, fully able to say that the city turned down their attempted resolution.
As things move along, the very same individuals who will be making decisions for the City will be largely the same group who will be brought to understand, as the story continues, just how damaging the inevitable civil discovery process will be - to them. By and by, those people will come back to the Plantiffs and say, "We changed our minds, 30 mil of the Cities money sounds quite fair to us." At which time they will be met with a cold silence. At that point they might finally realize that this was not just about money. Indeed, it would be much better for them if it was.
3:16 asks:
If it wasnt about the money and it was about punishing the wrongodoers specifically and forcing them into bankruptcy, then sue Nifong and all the other individuals who did the bad stuff. The city of Durham should not be bankrupted because of the actions of one or two bad apples. This getting money to send a message when you have already been paid tens of millions by Duke is a little overkill. The case isnt worth that much until they would have been convicted and spent time in jail.
Since Durham voters overwhelmingly supported Nifong, and since he had strong support among "progressives" in Durham, it would seem to me that Mr. Nifong was carrying out the bidding of the AA community and the "progressives."
Since those two voting blocs make up the majority of Durham voters, and since Nifong was doing what they clearly were demanding, it seems to me that Durham should be forced to foot the bill and then some.
Look, you Durham progressives should have thought about this when you had the NCCU rally last year. You should have thought about this when you marched through the streets with "Castrate!" signs. You should have thought about this when you sided with people screaming death threats at Reade Seligmann at his hearing.
And, yes, you should have thought about it when you voted for Michael B. Nifong after he secured bogus indictments. But, no, the voters of Durham would not listen to reason. They would not listen to facts. They would not listen to anything but what they wanted to hear.
Well, Durham, let me tell you something that you will have to hear: not only will you pay for those three young men that you tried, in effect, to murder last year, but you also will pay for the other families who were subjected to this fraudulent process.
Other than a few citizens like Jon Ham, Beth Brewer, Jackie Brown. and Alex Charns and the attorneys representing the young men, tell me who in the mainstream of Durham stood up and said, "Stop!"
No, you people were feeling really damn good about yourselves, and you thought you were invulnerable. Enjoy your new taxes, and enjoy the humiliation that is going to come with this case. You deserve every moment of that enjoyment.
I understand how it works, and I guess I'd give people posting in the early morning in Asia a pass. Maybe some of the first dozen comments are from outside the US or Hawaii, but I doubt it, and it's still Saturday or Sunday. Where are you located?
Jake, can you please make clear the exact point you wish to make with this soft time interrogation?
Orson Buggeigh 7:39
Very nice post. Thanks. Your point about dissenting faculty being blackmailed into silence is well taken.
I don't feel sorry for Durham at all.
There are positive features about the place, but the people there always manage to destroy them.
The place is shockingly wasteful, dependent, and irresponsible.
This has all been documented for years. It has become the image for which they are known...and no one seems to care because federal and state money have always flowed.
Waste and corruption. Corruption and waste.
As an example, some years back just under a million dollars of public money was flushed down the drain.
One of those freebie programs was set up where individuals could apply for public money to start their own business...but they were supposed to pay it back.
It turned out that most of the people who were given money never even worried about repaying it.
Some in charge of running the program were found to have concocted their own little scams.
Some used phony names to apply and since there was no oversite, all this went down for years and years. The money went to people who never even thought about starting a business.
Just poof! Up in smoke.
It was pathetic and the story was all over the news.
No one over there seems to care. If there are so many reasonable and upstanding residents living in Durham, why don't they ever try to change the place they call home...for the better?
7:30 said --
"The entire Lewis Cheek campaign was silly and quixotic. It was destined to fail from the beginning. The fact the KC Johnson is still mad at Monks shows just how out of touch with reality he is. There was no way Nifong was going down. And if he was going to go down, then it would have to have been to a legimate candidate. Everyone in my church, neighborhood, and workplace thought that the Cheek thing was rediculous. The guy said he didn't want to be DA. End of story. Vote for someone who does."
Well, you have a right to your own opinion, but I'm afraid it's not a terribly educated opinion. When the same strategy behind the Cheek campaign previously worked at the national level to elect a dead man to office (Mel Carnahan for Missouri Senator in 2000) it's ridiculous to call it "destined to fail from the beginning". Cheek said he couldn't serve if he was elected, but still said he wanted people to vote for him so that someone better than Nifong could serve the people as District Attorney, and since Easley already had plenty of reason to regret appointing Nifong in the first place, it's a lead pipe cinch that electing Cheek would have had put someone other than Nifong in place. That's a legitimate candidate in my book.
hman said...
....On the 30 million settlement demand:
....But my personal guess is that it was set as a kind of bait.
::
How about the beginning point for negotiation. Not bait.
::
GP
Anonymous at 4:32 said...
"...this case is about injustice and the trampling of civil rights. Rich/poor, black/white, male/female -- doesn't really matter. This was a malicious prosecution... Nifong's purpose was financial/political however, Nifong didn't do this alone.
These families have admitted that their sons would probably be sitting in jail had they not been able to hire the best defense attorneys in the area. However, the real story is about our justice system and how ANYONE can be railroaded. Improvements, such as the recording of grand jury testimony; recording of ID processes and interrogations; authority to remove a prosecutor or judge from cases (while avoiding politically based interventions) -- will help all victims.
I don't believe this is about money to these families (my opinion) -- I believe it's about accoutability and change -- to try to make this type of travesty less likely in the future."
Well said. Thank you.
Michael said...
re: 5:34
[The OJ trial] was a failure to convict the guilty. I contend convicting the innocent is a much bigger crime.
I disagree. I would rate them about the same. Of course, OJ is a special case: He can't make a move anymore w/o the papparazi all over it. But for every criminal that the system negligently leaves free to walk the street, a dozen or more people are going to be affected: You say you're offended by "innocent people behind bars"? Go to a lower or lower-middle class neighborhood; look at the doors and windows of those little houses: See how many people -- innocent people -- are "living behind bars" because criminals live free. Notice that I'm not even talking about people who are actual victims of these criminals; I'm talking just about the people who have to live in fear of crime and who have to spend money on protection that could be spent on, say, their kids' educations.
Asking which is better, jailing an innocent or freeing the guilty, strikes me as asking who is worse, the man who steals $100 from one victim or $4 from 25 victims? (In case it's not clear, I mean should we judge a greater "system failure" when it wrongly places a great burden on one person (by jailing an innocent) or when it wrongly places a more diffused burden on many by freeing a real criminal?)
You stated that the legal system worked best compared to a few other choices in self-governance. I contend that it failed in this case. If you want to argue that 1.1 is greater than 1.0, I guess that is your option.
Let's pretend that we can turn back the hands of time and have the system "succeed" as you would want it to: Immediately after the DNA results come back, Mike Nifong announces that he no longer believes Crystal or Tara and will drop the case. The black community is outraged, claiming a special deal, that Nifong was "paid off" by the rich whities, etc., and the Duke Lacrosse Case becomes a new chapter in the 88's metanarrative of white men as feral beasts lusting after innocent maidens of color. Nifong won't be disciplined for any of the unethical comments he made about the case, and the CCI (Campus Culture Initiative, aka Full Employment for the 88) will become established Duke.
Now, how is that better than the final result? Look at the final result -- the one you call a "failure": The legal system pronounces the boys innocent
and, with complete transparency -- open hearings -- it throws the disbars, disgraces, and throws the prosecutor in jail (not to mention that a super guy like KC gets to become a famous author). That's a "failure"? Like I've said, if the legal community ran its show like academia runs its, Nifong would be AG of the state by now.
[I]t appears that you're willing to throw the [some innocent defendants] under the bus.
I would hope that the enlightened would be unhappy even with [that].
9/9/07 6:37 PM
First, you know I don't mean we should throw the innocent under the bus. I'm saying we shouldn't throw the system under the bus.
As is well said, "Perfection is the enemy of the good", and I submit to you that many of those who say they want to "perfect" the system actually want to destroy it.
I know I've edited your remarks to me, but I hope you'll agree that I've done so in a fair way.
RR Hamilton
off topic, but what the hay
Professor, I'm just curious if you tried to get on 1 of the more PC chat shows to promote your book. Has your publicist tried to book you with PC Oprah?
For the life of me, I could never understand the power of the Oprah show to promote intellectual material, as Oprah's core audience are idiots.
The world is a most curious place, that's for sure.
Orson Buggeigh 7:29 Responding to Engneering Prof. said...
..."How, precisely, would you suggest they go about throwing out the "bad" professors? Other faculty at Duke can't fire them. If they're tenured, there's not much the other faculty can do about the situation."
::
The faculty senate needs to prepare a resolution with help from the law school faculty for consideration by the Duke administration and Board of Trustees creating a new category for current and future tenured errant faculty who are recommend by the faculty senate for removal all from teaching, advising or mentoring of undergraduate students ...for life.
You should be able to find a alumni donor who will build an office building named - Duke Forthcoming - where these errant faculty can spend the rest of their days preparing their forthcoming publications.
If graduate and professional schools at Duke wish to make use of the Forthcoming Faculty...they can call or write or e-mail.
And yes, I am serious...if the faculty is serious when they say they don't know how to rid their ranks of harmful people.
::
GP
To G. Packwood:
We will know within a few weeks whether the settlement demand was an amount well above what they would actually settle for - or the opening move in a strategy to get a lot more.
Keep in mind the leverage that the plantiffs have in this case. It is anything but a typical situation. It is highly likely, IMHO, that Durham Officials do not yet realize how badly they, personally, have f..ked up. A little discovery might concentrate their minds in ways that have not occurred yet.
But in case they do "get it" now and take the first offer, 30 million would still be OK.
In other words, the plantiffs are actually playing it safe, not swinging for the bleachers.
M 9:09
You win today's prize.
You posted on 09/09/09/09
:-)
::
GP
anonymous said at 7:23 PM...
RRH, I must side with KC on this one, though your points are well taken. Saying the "system" worked simply becasue the end result was the correct one is akin to the ends justifying the means. When accused have to spend some 10 million collective dollars to get the truth, it is clear the system is broken.
First, thanks for your fair and careful reading of my points, but as I've failed to convince you, let me try one more analogy:
Let's say you are watching a televised golf match. During the match, on the 3rd hole, one of the players is accused of illegally booting his ball into a better position. Some spectators are convinced it's true, others aren't; officials say "play on". Then finally on the 18th hole, the officials take a look at a video replay and say, "Well, sure enough, he did boot that ball", and they then disqualify the cheater.
Now you may reply that the importance of the Lacrosse case and the possible consequences are so much greater than a mere golf match, and I would agree. But notice that in the golf match, the cheater wasn't jailed and the other players didn't get to split up 10s of millions of dollars.
RRH
For Orson Buggeigh, taking up my case in a 7:39 PM reply to Engineering Professor, thank you; you said it better than I could have.
RRH
Late in getting to the conversation, but apparently 12:53am has never been to a risk management seminar where they talked about the, "...the longer it takes to get to settlement/verdict, the worse it will be for the defense if/when they lose." principle.
LMAO..."anti Durham stance"???, damned straight!!! It should be, the whole city stood by and did nothing while their officials screwed up big!!!
Gary Packwood said...
M 9:09
You win today's prize.
You posted on 09/09/09/09
:-)
::
GP
How wonderful! I hope it's an autographed copy of UPI!
:-)
9/9/07 10:35 PM
RRH, you certainly know that there is nothing in the Rules of Criminal Procedure providing for an appeal to the state's attorney general to stop a rogue prosecutor from bringing frivolous charges designed to further his political ambitions. In this case it is far more appropriate to say the system did not work, that it broke down, and that the deus ex machina solution that restored justice was the product of happy fortuity -- the system did not mandate that it happen that way. From now on, let's play by the rules at every stage of the process -- that's the only way to insure the system works.
My personal opinion is that the race / class gender Jacobins have much more power in the university administration than people off campus realize. No rational faculty member wants to publicly attack these people, which carries the implicit threat of being branded as insufficiently sensitive to progressive issues, if not racist or sexist.-Orson Buggeigh
Your personal opinion? I think it is one that is shared by many, that faculty with far-left views dominate the culture of elite academic institutions and bully their fellow colleagues into submission. Certainly the events of this case can be viewed with that perspective. However, I don't find it to match reality.
As to your other questions, I can only speculate. It is difficult to explain why some faculty chose to do or say certain things, never mind why they did not do others. You say that Professor Gustafson spoke out, but I've no idea what he did. Did he write an op-ed piece in the Chronicle or Durham Herald Sun? Is it also his contention that he was pressured by his peers not to say anything?
Many like to think in terms of massive left-wing conspiracies or whatnot. Perhaps the answers are not so simple in this case.
Everyone seems to accept the idea that $30 million is the offer on the table. There is no corroboration of that number. Frankly, it may have been a trial balloon floated by a defense that was looking at a $100 or $200 million number.
If I was on defense, I'd want the world to believe in a number that was much lower than was on the table. I'd want this if only to guage sentiment. The upside would be an avalanche of negative public opinion that could affect the sentiment of the complainants. And there would be almost no downside, under the circumstances.
It is very difficult to value the damage done to these three young men who arguably had a most promising career awaiting. On Wall Street, the value of that career would have the potential of $25 to $100 million each. And each of the wrongly-accused young men is exactly the focused, smart, objective-driven, personable, confident and hard-working young person that any group on Wall Street would absolutely love to have as an entry-level associate.
So, PV a career (times three) that knowledgable people would agree would be worth $100 million or more and the notion of a $100 or $200 million payment by Durham is not out of question.
I'll guaran-fugging-tee you that if Labron James, or Tiger Woods or P Diddy were the wronged party, there would be no problem in making a similar valuation.
OT, but I've read in previous comments a claim that there was an anti-Catholic bias at Duke and/or in Durham against the players based upon their Catholic faith and/or Catholic education. While Bill Donohue may sometimes be a blowhard, he does occasionally make valid points regarding anti-catholic bigotry in the main stream media, but I don't see the bias in this case. I just don't see where the G88 or anyone else attacked the players based on religion.
"Everyone in my church, neighborhood, and workplace thought that the Cheek thing was rediculous. The guy said he didn't want to be DA. End of story. Vote for someone who does. "
So... vote for someone that wants the job -- even if they're unethical or unqualified or don't have a snowball's chance of winning?
I'm one of the 20K+ that knew Monks 1) couldn't possibly win 2) wasn't qualified and knew Mike Nifong needed to go...
Do tell, are you and everyone in your church and workplace among the 26K that voted for Nifong or the 6K that voted for Monks? How much impact did your vote have?
Once again, the Cheek campaign had nothing to do with Lewis Cheek. Lewis Cheek didn't campaign for the office. 20K of your neigbors (and probably even some friends) realized that Mikey was corrupt, Stevie couldn't win (wasn't qualified and showed himself to be just as politically motivated as Nifong) -- and cast a vote to rid themselves of an unethical minister of injustice.
If you voted for Nifong, you're one of the reasons we're going to see higher taxes. If you voted for Monks and were paying attention -- you had to know it was a wasted vote. Anyone polling 2% with 2 weeks to go before the election doesn't have a chance and was a waste of a vote...
A vote to Recall Nifong (by checking that box next to Cheek's name on the ballot) -- would have had the same result as we have today -- an appointed DA -- only Nifong would have been gone much earlier and maybe, just maybe Durham wouldn't be facing a $30M lawsuit.
quix·ot·ic [kwik-sot-ik]
–adjective
1. (sometimes initial capital letter) resembling or befitting Don Quixote.
2. extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary, impractical, or impracticable.
3. impulsive and often rashly unpredictable.
I'll take quixotic -- if there had been just a little more chivalry, a few more visionaries -- Durham might be in a bit better position right now. Open your wallet...
jmoo
To the 11,41:
I agree. The Group might be biased in many ways, but the players' religion doesn't seem to have played any role in triggering the Group's response.
Re: Steven NO WICKY's comments about "Celebrating differences while having common values"
What an idiotic PC propaganda statement!
You can acknowledge difference. You can even respect the right to have differences.
But PLEAZZEEEE do not ask me to "celebrate" my differeces as in the PC mode of the Gang of 88.
I just bet you, if some wealthy white male professor stood in front of that biggoted diversity faculty at Duke and mouthed those innanaties ( not sure that is is word, but it IS a sentiment) at them, they would NOT celebrate it.
And no, we do NOT share common values.
Read my lips: We do NOT SHARE COMMON VALUES.
I value truth; you value agenda.
I value freedom for ALL; you value freedom on a sliding scale, with more for you and less for others who disagree with you.
I value due process; you value a rush to judgment, and you are willing to sacrifice innocent people on the altar of your "diversity" idol.
NO!
We do NOT celebrate our differences, and we do NOT share common values.
They are mutually exclusive. And they cannot co-exist. And you know that. You want to ensnare the guillible, well-meaning, peace- loving victims into your classrooms, where you want to indoctrinate them into your intolerant, educationally bankrupt dogma of "politically correct diversity".
As my daddy used to say "Bullnure"!
Fortunately, we have the U. S. Constitution on our side. At least for the moment. And hopefuly enough people have heard the bells tolling and are willing to take you on and boot you out and leave you jobless. Not because we are mean. But because we value TRUE freedom more than your propaganda.
11:41 --
The only incident I can think of that could possibly be construed as anti-Catholic bias shown to any of the players was when some blog commenters were referring derisively and inaccurately to a Maryknoll priest, a long-time friend of the Finnerty family, who was giving them his support, as a "rent-a-priest". To my mind it's not even accurate to consider that anti-Catholic, since the implication is not "their Catholic faith is bad" but "their Catholic faith is for show, not sincere".
Anon 10:13...
"Why should I? I feel fine. I think it's hilarious that KCJ and his band of merry men and women can't stand it when anyone points out he made an error."
Laugh it up, funny boy...it's not that we can't stand it; it's that we are getting a bellyache from laughing so hard at you being ST000PID ("with zeros!!!") that we need to reach for the Pepto...
ROFLMNO (to paraphrase Deb!!!)
Inman said: It is very difficult to value the damage done to these three young men who arguably had a most promising career awaiting. On Wall Street, the value of that career would have the potential of $25 to $100 million each. And each of the wrongly-accused young men is exactly the focused, smart, objective-driven, personable, confident and hard-working young person that any group on Wall Street would absolutely love to have as an entry-level associate.
It is my hope that they still have promising careers waiting, and I'm interested in what other posters think about this - particularly those who know more about how Wall Street 'works', which, I assure you, is very probably everyone posting here. :-)
The case has certainly affected the reputations of the falsely accused. Would anyone like to speculate on how much? On how badly their future careers have been affected? Could the grace they displayed under fire actually help them? Opinions?
Anon at 7:30
"The entire Lewis Cheek campaign was silly and quixotic. It was destined to fail from the beginning. ... There was no way Nifong was going down. And if he was going to go down, then it would have to have been to a legimate candidate. Everyone in my church, neighborhood, and workplace thought that the Cheek thing was rediculous. The guy said he didn't want to be DA. End of story. Vote for someone who does. "
Let me say, one more time slowly... the Recall Nifong campaign had nothing to do with Lewis Cheek -- Cheek announced that he would not accept the office if elected and he did not campaign for the office.
(approx) 20K of your neighbors voted to Recall Nifong ... 26K voted for Nifong and 6K voted for Monks.
Who did you & your group of associates vote for?
If you were paying attention last October -- you had to have known Nifong was unethical (and worse) and Monks was polling 2% with two weeks to got before the election (and unqualified).
But you voted for someone just because they "wanted" the job? hmmmm...
Remember, Durham is now, 9 months later, in the exact same position the Recall Nifong effort would have put us. But the route you chose, delayed the removal of Nifong, and is at least part of the reason we'll all be taxed 30M+.
Recall Nifong -- quixotic? I'll take that...
Random House
quix·ot·ic
1. (sometimes initial capital letter) resembling or befitting Don Quixote.
2. extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary, impractical, or impracticable.
3. impulsive and often rashly unpredictable.
jmoo
KC sorry - can you delete the above post- I'm having technical difficulties this evening...
Debrah 11:28 said:
"We have a hobby--Wonderland.
And we shall bask inside its gates until the Midnight Rider has taken his leave toward Tel Aviv.
We all love being here and will die just missing it.
Most people with real lives do not have to pretend they still roll around in the throes of torrid love-making every night.
LOL!!!
Relax. Go natural.
Nothing to prove here except the fact that JUSTICE is on the mend.
Such Diva madness!"
I'm here...at my usual hours (i.e. after hours) posting away...these guys don't get it; that some of us with mid to high six figure incomes work shift work...AND LOVE IT!!! They can't stand that some of us have a life and live it not by their ideal of 8:30 am to 5 pm Mon thru Fri, but by whatever it takes to produce the revenue!!! I doubt that these schmucks know what it feels like to max out on Social Security tax in a given year is like...been there, done that in less than six months!!!
again...ROFLMNO!!!
m 12:18 said...
...Inman said: It is very difficult to value the damage done to these three young men who arguably had a most promising career awaiting. On Wall Street, the value of that career would have the potential of $25 to $100 million each. And each of the wrongly-accused young men is exactly the focused, smart, objective-driven, personable, confident and hard-working young person that any group on Wall Street would absolutely love to have as an entry-level associate.
...It is my hope that they still have promising careers waiting, and I'm interested in what other posters think about this - particularly those who know more about how Wall Street 'works', which, I assure you, is very probably everyone posting here. :-)
...The case has certainly affected the reputations of the falsely accused. Would anyone like to speculate on how much? On how badly their future careers have been affected? Could the grace they displayed under fire actually help them? Opinions?
::
Sure, I'll try.
The absolute outrage that you read from me is all about my frustration with the practical application of the Constitution of the United States.
The people who wrote the constitution ANTICIPATED that a case such as the Duke lacrosse case could come before the people...and they worked hard to insure that citizens (Reade, Dave, Collin and the other members of the lacrosse team) would never be harmed in such a way to cause us to ponder their future and fate because of their suffering... and the suffering of the system of justice in the United States.
This was not supposed to ever happen.
Could the grace they displayed under fire actually help them? Sure, I guess ...but the writers of the US Constitution did not want them to be under fire in an environment where older people have an obligation to protect and teach them.
We fall back again to prayer and hope that we can make our system of justice...better
Sacred Space
http://www.sacredspace.ie/
::
GP
"Most federal $ goes to hard sciences; particularly the Medical Center. It is money well-spent."
Really? Not according to those, like me, from whom this money is taken by force. Since my effort created my wealth, I consider *my* money "well-spent" if I get to decide how I want to spend it. Why is my money "well-spent" if it is used to satisfy your ends, but not well-spent if it is used to satisfy my ends? You consider scientific pursuit a value, and that's fine. But by what right do you use the government's police power to force me to support your values?
"One shining light in this fiasco is the good work of our hard science faculty. All Duke alums should be proud of them and separate the "arts" from the "sciences" in this debate."
I'll be more proud of Duke scientists -- and, indeed, of all scientists -- when they learn the danger of separating the "arts" (especially morality) from the "sciences." Scientists who abdicate the field of moral values enable G88 types to run amok. Such scientists believe that reason and causality apply to the physical world, but not to people. And then when they witness a G88-type "fiasco," their response is: "What can you do when you deal with people?"
Further, many scientists at Duke, and elsewhere, should be proud of their achievements. But they should also be aware that their achievements are providing unearned prestige and money to ilk such as G88ers. By being blind to the destruction of the humanities, you are paving the road for that destruction.
Duke Prof
Anonymous @ 2:52 pm wrote:
"Now show me a legal citation that approves punitive damages against a public entity."
With regard to a Federal Section 1983 action, here you go:
Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 103 S. Ct. 1625
Also, see 42 USC 1988, which permits the prevailing plaintiff to recover reasonable attorney fees.
To the extent your question implies that punitive damages are not recoverable in a Section 1983 action, in the future, you may want to do some homework before posting.
Because of the near limitless examples connected to this case and examples set by others in unrelated things I've come to believe "progressive" is synonymous with "evil".
One of the earlier posters commented that only a judge or jury, not the AG could declare the players "innocent". If that comment was sincere, it displays a shocking ignorance of how the US justice system works.
In a nutshell, a judge or jury does NOT determine innocence. Every single criminal defendant starts out innocent, and stays in that state until something else happens. Sounds obvious, but apparently Richard Broadhead didn't understand it, and the poster on this thread didn't either. When the AG declared the players "innocent", in a technical legal sense he was only confirming the obvious. Of course, he made the point to emphasize the weakness of the prosecution's case, and to counter any implication that this was a simple case of "insufficient evidence".
Anonymous said...
Because of the near limitless examples connected to this case and examples set by others in unrelated things I've come to believe "progressive" is synonymous with "evil".
9/10/07 2:30 AM
The masquerading Marxists are sure to do to "progressive" what they did to "liberal".
2:30 and 3:04, I feel the same about "conservative." (Sometimes they misrepresent themselves as "moderate.") I think selfish, nasty, bad for the environment, ignorant, intolerant, anti-intellectual, racist (disguised as defending the poor, badly-done-by white guy), gun toting, war mongering, Mac-mansion housed...and that's just for starters. Oh, and they don't want to pay taxes although they use a huge amount of resources. I don't want to live next door to these kind of people. Or anywhere near them.
I resemble that remark. Let's dance. You have no chance. I'm a dumb redneck who will, as someone said, "choke the intellectual shit outta you".
Anonymous said...
2:30 and 3:04, I feel the same about "conservative." (Sometimes they misrepresent themselves as "moderate.") I think selfish, nasty, bad for the environment, ignorant, intolerant, anti-intellectual, racist (disguised as defending the poor, badly-done-by white guy), gun toting, war mongering, Mac-mansion housed...and that's just for starters. Oh, and they don't want to pay taxes although they use a huge amount of resources. I don't want to live next door to these kind of people. Or anywhere near them.
9/10/07 4:02 AM
c'mon white boy ... I got a BIG can of WhupAss for you. Only thing better than stompin on idiots of color is stompin on you rich white dickheads. C'mon ... you cain't resist .. I'm a dumbass redneck ... you gots to challenge me
Dear 4:15 & 4:20,
If you really want to beat me up, fair enough, but I'm not a rich white man. I happen to be a woman. And rich? Probably not.
Sure, feel free to stomp on me together with "idiots of color." I rest my case about racism.
PS 4:15 & 4:20, On your way to "choke me" and/or "stomp me," could you park your gas-guzzling vehicles and take public transportation?
BTW, you identify yourself with red-neck; I wouldn't've thought my description applied. Who knew?
I guess you resort to physical threats because you don't debate well or you just like violence? You've helped the critics of KC Johnson's blog a lot by coming out with your threats. I, for one, have already saved them.
I don't like what you say, so I'll threaten you with violence.
Remember: I didn't threaten you with violence. I didn't threaten to take away the keys to your vehicle, restrict your gas usage, or subdivide your MacMansion.
"Did he or did he not represent OJ Simpson, one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in a long time and a perfect example of a rich person buying their way out of something."
No, a very similar case of dishonest cops making shit up and dishonest DAs and crime labs backing them up. The only difference being that in OJ's case he almost certaily did commit the crime he was accused of. But framing guilty people is still wrong.
Ralph Phelan, OT but, in YHO, does one or does one not buy OJ's book when/if it finally comes out?
engineering prof said...
"Many like to think in terms of massive left-wing conspiracies or whatnot. Perhaps the answers are not so simple in this case. "
Then gimme an alternative hypothesis to explain the silence of your peers.
Debrah says:
The fact that you've spent such an inordinate amount of time on a missing vowel or a displaced consonant--(mistakes made by someone else and were only quoted for blog purposes)--reveals that you might be orgasmically deficient.
There must to someone out there who is willing to sport a blindfold and take you for a ride.
9/9/07 11:03 AM
Cracked me up.
5:55 Ralph Phelan I think that's not so difficult. I'm an academic elsewhere in the country. While I've followed the case, I'm not sure it's my job to sit judgement on people when I don't know all the details. After all, that's what caused the problem, nicht wahr?
Judging from the demands for blood sacrifice (!!!) on this blog, I don't really want to get involved, because I don't want the crowd wrath turned on me if people don't like my opinion.
I don't think this (Duke LAX)is a case against affirmative action. Thus, I stand outside the KCJ strand of thinking.
I am also disgusted by the claims of people here that Women's Studies teaches students to hate half the population, that the G88 and/or any academic who has any sympathy for them "hate/s their students," and/or that Women's Studies/AA Studies/Gender Studies are per force not rigorous. I reject these assertions, so I don't feel I could discuss the core issue with people here. My questions seem to be way outside of much discussion here: what the G88 really mean with their statement, what did they really want to accomplish, and how/if they would defend it now?
I believe that the LAX 3 have come out of this reasonably well (if they wanted it to be over with, they might have chosen not to have their faces on the cover of UPI), I am frankly far more interested in issues like world poverty and global warming. So, shoot me.
6:12, Don't you wonder what Debrah looks like when she's out riding around on her broomstick? That's a thought.
The DA's office is local. Nifong was not the North Carolina DA. Just thought I'd mention that.
The city of Durham should not be bankrupted because of the actions of one or two bad apples.
Yep. Totally correct.
How about the fact that Durham ELECTED Jailfong after the case was starting to show serious holes.
My apologies to those who didn't vote for the Jailfong.
Unlike in the Bible story of Soddom ten good men is not enough. You need a plurality in an election.
anon says:
Shoot, all y'all are going to be paying for this longer than you had to enjoy it.
9/9/07 5:35 PM
Sounds a lot like sex.
hman said...
As things move along, the very same individuals who will be making decisions for the City will be largely the same group who will be brought to understand, as the story continues, just how damaging the inevitable civil discovery process will be - to them. By and by, those people will come back to the Plantiffs and say, "We changed our minds, 30 mil of the Cities money sounds quite fair to us." At which time they will be met with a cold silence. At that point they might finally realize that this was not just about money. Indeed, it would be much better for them if it was.
9/9/07 9:12 PM
Cold. But IMO a good reading of the players. (pun intended)
Gary Packwood,
How about a Department of Forthcoming Studies.
They can spend their days writing reviews of books that were never written.
Given the difficulty of researching such material it could take whole careers and then some before anything is published.
KC wrote:
"The Brodhead administration has consciously chosen an ostrich-like policy—refusing to address the dubious behavior by fringe faculty in spring 2006."
Almost none of their colleagues have stated that what they did was wrong. Some of their colleagues have defended them from outside criticism. They have the full support of the Administration and Board of Trustees. Their programs and departments are being expanded.
In what sense are they "fringe"?
Anon 5:16.
I wouldn't buy OJ's book. I believe he's almost certainly a murderer and I wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire.
Simultaneously, I also believe that the LAPD falsified evidence in obvious ways thus destroying their own credibility and creating far more "reasonable doubt" than would have existed had they stuck to circumstantial evidence that really existed. Their shenanigans are part of why fairly early on in in the Durham case I was willing to believe that the police and DA were telling bald-faced lies.
Anon 6:17
"5:55 Ralph Phelan I think that's not so difficult. I'm an academic elsewhere in the country. While I've followed the case, I'm not sure it's my job to sit judgement on people when I don't know all the details."
Duke faculty knew as much as the signers of the "Listening Statement," knew they knew as much as the signers, and knew enough to know what was being done was wrong.
"After all, that's what caused the problem, nicht wahr?"
No, anybody can make a mistake early on when information is sketchy, incomplete and partially wrong. One shouldn't be too certain in such a case, but being overly certain to soon is a common and forgiveable error. It's those professors' refusal to change their minds no matter how much new data came along that's unforgiveable, as its still ongoing.
"Judging from the demands for blood sacrifice"
I don't want any faculty killed, just fired.
"I am frankly far more interested in issues like world poverty and global warming. "
Go read this.
RE: “Progressives for Police & Prosecutorial-Misconduct (PP&P).”
Actually the full acronym should be
“Progressives for Police & Prosecutorial-Misconduct Sensitivity (PP&PMS)”
algie
KC,
Nowicki was JUST appointed dean. I find it cynical and in poor taste that you would criticize him via the actions of past administrators. How do you expect change will ever occur if we continue to judge new faculty based on the mistakes of old faculty? Shouldn't we wait to see if he is as backwards as the group of 88, etc?
-PG
Thanks to RHH for the kind words, and to Engineering Professor for his response. Gary Packwood is quoting my quote of Engineering Professor at 9:31, and not my answer to EP.
Engineering Professor, Thanks for your answer. Your perception is what it is, but in light of the empirical evidence of massive wrongdoing and failure to act by Duke's faculty and administration, do you think this is no big problem? Would you be as unconcerned about bridge failures that were as widespread as the reports of left of center faculty misdeeds? Or would it just be more alarmists in the media who want a sensational story to sell papers? What interests me is the volume of detail that Johnson and Taylor have compiled. It isn't alone. Comparable data was gathered and presented in the examination of the Michael Bellesiles book, _Arming America_, or the so called scholarship of Ward Churchill. Why did these works get so little skeptical review, since the research behind them is procedurally comparable to that in most creation science books? That fact would seem to at least suggest that Johnson and Taylor have a valid point: That some academics are giving political theory precedence over the evidence generated by careful research, and that they ignore or discount evidence which does not support their preconceived theories. We may have an example of this in the anonymous post at 6:17, quoted directly below:
QUOTE: "I am also disgusted by the claims of people here that Women's Studies teaches students to hate half the population, that the G88 and/or any academic who has any sympathy for them "hate/s their students," and/or that Women's Studies/AA Studies/Gender Studies are per force not rigorous. I reject these assertions, so I don't feel I could discuss the core issue with people here." END QUOTE - Anonymous at 6:17
There are several academics who have offered reasoned arguments that this is a problem with women's studies. Although some of these books have been in circulation for over a decade, I wonder if our anonymous reader has read them, or if she can provide independently verifiable evidence to rebut the detailed descriptions of radical feminism's stifling of academic dissent. I would recommend interested readers, including Anon, might take a look at the following:
Richard J. Ellis. _Dark Side of the Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism in America_, (1998). See Chapter 7 on radical feminism.
Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate,_The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses_, (1998). See Chapter 10 on double standards.
Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, _Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies_ , (1994). Entire book.
Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt. _Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels With Science_ , (1994, 1998). See Chapter 5 regarding feminism and women's studies.
Which brings me back to my original point. A lot of academics have looked the other way, or ignored illiberal behavior by members of their community when they have generally been sympathetic to those persons or groups. I agree with Engineering Professor that there is no central left wing conspiracy. What exists, however, is group-think. A general sympathy for so-called progressive causes that gives them a pass without rigorous intellectual review. A lot of what gets credit for being scholarship in ethnic and gender studies is methodologically questionable, and is better classified as polemic, rather than scholarship. Take a look at the work that many of the 88 signers of the listening statement have posted as scholarship. Johnson and Taylor gathered it into one place to view, and it isn't pretty. Requiring undergraduates to take this kind of intellectually sloppy material is a form of fraud. The students are being coerced to waste their time and money to provide employment for a collective of intellectual light-weights. I would be outraged if I were the parent of a Duke student. Unfortunately, it isn't just Duke, but it is widespread in higher education.
To PG:
That was (I hoped) my point. These remarks--which were banal and what you'd expect from a newly appointed dean in a normal situation--necessarily raise the question I asked, since the administration has neglected, in any way, to rebuke faculty who have engaged in dubious conduct.
I'd love to use the DELETE button on the idiots obsessed with KC's spelling and bowties. KC, that's all they can fault you for!
KC, thanks for bringing so many facts to life in this blog. I have learned a lot about fact checking and investigative reporting. I will miss DIW and you, more than I can say!
Ralph Phelan,
D'accord.
I was saying the same things after OJ got off.
I think the Rampart deal would have been much less severe had the LAPD taken the OJ verdict to heart.
Dear 10:28,
What is your source for stating "A lot of what gets credit for being scholarship in ethnic and genders studies is methodologically questionable, and is better classified as polemic, rather than scholarship." Is this your opinion? Backed up by what study? Which sources?
And, no, I haven't read the three books you mentioned. I googled tham and two of them seem to be addressing gnerational issues that don't affect me. I'm not a 60s academic. My experience with Women's and/or Gender Studies faculties is one of great diversity and a fair amount of tolerance. Oh, and lots of well-regarded scholarship.
And, no, I don't teach at Duke & I've never been to North Carolina.
Re: 10:20
[I disagree. I would rate them about the same. Of course, OJ is a
special case: He can't make a move anymore w/o the papparazi all over
it. But for every criminal that the system negligently leaves free to
walk the street, a dozen or more people are going to be affected: You
say you're offended by "innocent people behind bars"? Go to a lower or
lower-middle class neighborhood; look at the doors and windows of
those little houses: See how many people -- innocent people -- are
"living behind bars" because criminals live free. Notice that I'm not
even talking about people who are actual victims of these criminals;
I'm talking just about the people who have to live in fear of crime
and who have to spend money on protection that could be spent on, say,
their kids' educations.]
I have an apartment right now in one of those lower-class
neighborhoods. I don't see bars on the doors and windows. I walk
around in neighborhoods that aren't the best and it frustrates me that
I can't find better rental property in this particular city. But I
don't particularly worry about my or my son's safety. And he doesn't
seem to worry about it either.
In this particular case, we have an imbalance in the scales of justice
in the crime of rape. And for some reason, there was a maddening rush
to judgement where people checked their reasoning at the door. These
little people that you refer to that have to live in the neighborhoods
of criminals, I would guess, would also be the victims of improper
prosecutions and would have to worry about the police as much as they
would about the criminals.
[Asking which is better, jailing an innocent or freeing the guilty,
strikes me as asking who is worse, the man who steals $100 from one
victim or $4 from 25 victims? (In case it's not clear, I mean should
we judge a greater "system failure" when it wrongly places a great
burden on one person (by jailing an innocent) or when it wrongly
places a more diffused burden on many by freeing a real criminal?)]
Manufacturing quality control has made incredible strides in the last
30 years as has quality science in general. I think about the number
of transistors in Intel's new Penryn chip with 45 nm process
technology and it just amazes me that we could produce these things in
quantity and that they can do such incredible amounts of work. And
that we can look forward to geometries a half that process node in the
next five years. It's obviously much harder to apply these quality
control techniques because people are so highly variable. Both the
accused and the police, prosecution, judge and jury. In industry,
there has been a strong trend to more process and that's mostly good
unless people do their best to thwart process for personal or other
reasons.
When this happens, failures can be catastrophic and punishments should
be commensurate.
As far as your example goes, we should get the person that's guilty
whether it is $100 or $25. As an aside, what would you do with the
hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions that committed mortgage
fraud on liar loans in the subprime bubble that is now in the meltdown
phase?
[Let's pretend that we can turn back the hands of time and have the
system "succeed" as you would want it to: Immediately after the DNA
results come back, Mike Nifong announces that he no longer believes
Crystal or Tara and will drop the case. The black community is
outraged, claiming a special deal, that Nifong was "paid off" by the
rich whities, etc., and the Duke Lacrosse Case becomes a new chapter
in the 88's metanarrative of white men as feral beasts lusting after
innocent maidens of color. Nifong won't be disciplined for any of the
unethical comments he made about the case, and the CCI (Campus Culture
Initiative, aka Full Employment for the 88) will become established
Duke.
Now, how is that better than the final result? Look at the final
result -- the one you call a "failure": The legal system pronounces
the boys innocent and, with complete transparency -- open hearings --
it throws the disbars, disgraces, and throws the prosecutor in jail
(not to mention that a super guy like KC gets to become a famous
author). That's a "failure"? Like I've said, if the legal community
ran its show like academia runs its, Nifong would be AG of the state
by now.]
Sorry but I don't buy your strawman. Success would have been to not
believe Crystal in the first place. From what I gather, most in law
enforcement, or with Duke security didn't believe her. It's when the
juicy aspects of the metanarrative hit the fan and Mike Nifong joined
in that the case gained legs.
[First, you know I don't mean we should throw the innocent under the
bus. I'm saying we shouldn't throw the system under the bus.]
I do a fair amount of SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data]
programming and sometimes algorithms work out well and sometimes they
don't. I personally hate to scrap a lot of work and start over again
but sometimes that's the right thing to do.
[As is well said, "Perfection is the enemy of the good", and I submit
to you that many of those who say they want to "perfect" the system
actually want to destroy it.]
The middle-class and wealthy have enough trouble dealing with the
legal system when it goes wrong. I have a hard time imagining the
impact on the poor where it probably occurs in greater proportion,
simply because the police and procescutors have far more leverage.
Regarding your golf analogy: I had the pleasure of watching Federer
win the US Open yesterday in a pretty good match. When a player thinks
that a call is bad, he can dispute it and they have a computer system
that will analyze the flight path of the ball to determine whether the
ball is in or out. Players have a number of challenges available to
them. Federer used these challenges to great effect as I think that he
was right on all of his challenges. I think that his opponent was
wrong on most of his. The technology takes about 30 seconds to set up
and the results are displayed on a huge TV screen so that the
spectators can all see the analysis and results. What was amazing
about watching this setup is that this seems to have erased the problem
of line call disputes in tennis. These can get pretty heated and having
an arbitration system that everyone believes is fair and fast gets rid
of disputes and gets rid of the problem of players playing poorly after
a bad (perceived or not) call.
Correction: them
Oh, and lots of well-regarded scholarship.
Like what, pray tell?
And who are these people who regard it well?
Bill Anderson wrote at 9:19 PM:
"Since Durham voters overwhelmingly supported Nifong,...."
-
Shame on you, Bill, you should know better. Nifong got less than half the votes.
It is, however, accurate to say that BLACK voters in Durham overwhelmingly supported Nifong. Especially the element among Black Durham voters who will pay few or no taxes to compensate the victims of their stupid, racist votes for a criminal as DA.
11:05 Whatever you may have learned from DIW, I hope you don't really think you've learned fact checking from this blog. KCJ has made errors and is really slow about correcting them, not matter what he claims. And he cites w/o checking that...
Frankly, I don't care if KC wears bowties; but they are another reason why I don't take him seriously.
Anonymous [of course] said...
Dear 10:28,
What is your source for stating "A lot of what gets credit for being scholarship in ethnic and genders studies is methodologically questionable, and is better classified as polemic, rather than scholarship." Is this your opinion? Backed up by what study? Which sources?
He only gave you four books plus other references.
anonymous 9/10/07 11:12 AM said:
What is your source for stating "A lot of what gets credit for being scholarship in ethnic and genders studies is methodologically questionable, and is better classified as polemic, rather than scholarship."
In my case, both the experiences of friends and my own personal experience of using critical judgement on books I read. Noone who esteems the work of Andrea Dworkin, Cynthia MacKinnon or Mary Daly can be anything but both hateful and incapable of logical reasoning. The depiction of groupthink, academic Stalinism and low standards is consistent with what I am directly familiar with.
My experience with Women's and/or Gender Studies faculties is one of great diversity and a fair amount of tolerance.
I'm glad that there are some good programs - which good ones are you directly familiar with? In this diversity do you know of anyone studying the work of the noted American woman philosopoher Ayn Rand? Love her or hate her (I'm not that impressed myself) she was influential, not to mention being a very "interesing" character and a transgresser of the gender norms of her time.
Anyway, the existence of good programs does not disprove the existence of bad ones or make them less of a concern. Physics, economics, mechanical engineering and music instruction don't tolerate incompetence or intellectual thuggery among their number. Why does women's studies?
re:4.02
2:30 and 3:04, I feel the same about "conservative." (Sometimes they misrepresent themselves as "moderate.")
:::::
Please name a conservative who passes themselves as moderate? Now there are lots of moderates who want to say they are conservative -which in GOP speak means they are liberal. A true conservative shouts it from the roof tops--unlike liberals who call themselves "progressive"
On another point, one's reward for thrift and hard work should not be to turn it over to those who refuse to work and save. Please spare me the usual poems about they cannot help it. I've heard them all.
RP,
I assume you mean Catherine McKinnon who was trained in law, I think, yes? Having read little of her work, I hold no brief for Andrea Dworken, but she sure knew how to get people's dander up. I thought that was pretty funny.
I haven't read Ayn Rand since middle school, when I enjoyed it, but I think she [still] attracts the attention of [often right-wing] political theorists and others. I don't think any field is obliged to study the novels/work of a particular figure, popular as s/he may be. Moreover, I'm not sure that my lack of knowledge of anyone studying Rand says much about diversity one way or the other.
I know/have dealt with people who have been involved in women's and gender studies programs all over the world: from Canada, Mexico, and the United States through Bulgaria, Poland, and Africa. If you mean in the US only, people whose work I know are attached to Women's/Gender Studies programs in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina (NOT DUKE),Pennsylvania, among others. As in any field, including music instruction and economics (hardly fields known for the uniformly high quality of the work they produce), some work is better than others.
Many of the commenters here assert a lower level of scholarship from participants in Women's/Gender Studies programs, much of which is in other fields like art history, socialogy, history, and literature, without citing proof (I mean studies, not anecdotes; and, yes, there are personality clashes/political and pedagogical battles in these programs as there are in many other departments/colleges, including at my university, engineering!). Ihave never seen a study that asserts the low quality of Women's Studies resarch.
You could probably get a reading list from one of the bigger programs. If you went into it with an open mind, you might find some of the work interesting and/or useful. And possibly more interesting than Mechanical Engineering, but maybe not...
Anyhoo, that's my 2 cents' worth.
Duke1965 said (at 2:19 AM):
With regard to a Federal Section 1983 action, here you go:
Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 103 S. Ct. 1625
------
OK, fair enough. Now let's go back to the original context of the discussion -- the misguided (if well-intentioned) hallucination that the City of Durham will have to pay a fortune in punitive damages.
Try:
NEWPORT v. FACT CONCERTS, INC., 453 U.S. 247 (1981)
"HELD: A municipality is immune from punitive damages under 1983. Pp. 258-271."
---
I have practiced law for 20 years, and I repeat what I have said before: FORGET ABOUT recovering punies from the City of Durham.
Next time, why don't YOU try doing some research before you post -- pal.
"Having read little of her work, I hold no brief for Andrea Dworken, but she sure knew how to get people's dander up. I thought that was pretty funny."
In a similar vein, even more amusement can by gotten by finding a member of the Christian Identitiy Movement with a mild case of schizophrenia and giving him tenure.
"I haven't read Ayn Rand since middle school, when I enjoyed it, but I think she [still] attracts the attention of [often right-wing] political theorists and others. I don't think any field is obliged to study the novels/work of a particular figure, popular as s/he may be. Moreover, I'm not sure that my lack of knowledge of anyone studying Rand says much about diversity one way or the other."
That nobody's studying someone that influential indicates that your definition of "diversity" leaves out the half of the American population that considers itself more conservative than liberal.
"As in any field, including music instruction and economics (hardly fields known for the uniformly high quality of the work they produce), some work is better than others."
The problem is not the existence of low quality work, whether it be correct vut trivial trivial or a serious attempt to deal with a real problem that fails due to errors on the author's part. The problem is the existence of entire sub-genres devoted to meaningless or patently-false bullshit.
" If you went into it with an open mind, you might find some of the work interesting and/or useful."
I've already tried it, and did not get that result.
"And possibly more interesting than Mechanical Engineering, but maybe not..."
Probably not, and certainly less useful.
1:01: Yep, only four books. And by authors with axes to grind [note chapter title in one], ok? I wouldn't use four books as a basis for dumping on an entire field. If you would, that's your choice. I'd say you probably don't do much research. And, it's probably a good thing.
Do you know the books? Their sources? I didn't think so.
That last item furthers my resolve to never step foot in or around Durham.
Ralph at 3:39, Perhaps, you didn't notice, but you made assertions about something I didn't say: I was clear that while I didn't know if anyone was studying Ayn Rand, that didn't mean no one was. Read your response. That's why I find it not worth my time to engage with you.
Maybe any mechanical engineering project is more important than all the output of Women's/Gender Studies. I don't think so, but you're welcome to your opinion.
Sorry you didn't like what you read. I guess you'll miss out on a very vibrant field of enquiry!
Bella, Your comment doesn't follow. What does the post before yours have to do with Durham? I wrote it & I've never been to Durham in my life. Please clarify.
3:39
"Meaningless or patently false bull shit" would be?
Entire fields? You know, there's plenty of diplomatic history that I consider to fall into that category, but I don't think American diplomatic historians should be strung up or pilloried. I just don't want to read their work...
Ditto economics. And double ditto political science. But, that's ok. Some people don't find the material meaningless or patent bull shit. Adults can disagree.
Marcus says..Case in point was a blog that seems to equate Michael Vick's situation to the accused at Duke. But Johnson quickly reversed course when the evidence started to weigh heavily against Vick,
Say what? I don't remember it that way..I have no idea what he's talking about for the most part, except that he uses most of the article to dump dung on the evil "conservatives" who tried to "canonize" the Duke 3.
This review is useless except to note that even this lefty lightweight scroll can see where this is all heading and doesent want to be caught on the wrong side of history, sort of.
Dear 4:10,
What is your source for stating "And by authors with axes to grind". Is this your opinion? Backed up by what study? Which sources?
1:01
5:22 -- the stop engaging and go away.
1:01--That's an easy one, doof-assssss. Read the books and/or the reviews. If you're too busy, read the intro. Look at the dust jackets. THESIS STATEMENT!!!!!
8:09 just can't stand it, can he?!!! This field isn't going to die out just because you don't like it. What scares you so badly? Back to your cave, CMM!
9/10/07 5:22 PM,
If the engineers of the world disappeared tomorrow the world would be measurably worse off in six months.
If women's studies disappeared tomorrow who would notice?
If a bridge designer makes an error there are serious consequences. Lots of people notice.
If women's studies graduate (what do they do in the real world?) makes an error who notices?
5:22, You've swallowed professionalization hook, line, and sinker. Think of the so-called wonders of the world. Built without "engineers" as you know them.
I suppose if everyone in humanities and social sciences died out, you wouldn't notice. That's your problem. My conclusion, based on your comment, is that you live your life and black and white. More power to you.
I think 5:51 AM means 4:26's late response to 5:22 pm yesterday...
4:26
Your IMHO really stupid rhetorical question demonstrates why many people think those who comment on this blog are sexist. Your question could be posed about most disciplines in arts & sciences, but you choose to attack one discipline. Fair enough, attack away.
You can't destroy those academic disciplines you don't like and it frustrates you and your ilk that you can't do a thing about it. I assume you have permanent heartburn. YIPPEEEEEEE!
No one cares what you think. In fact, you probably annoy people so much they'll support Women's Studies when they wouldn't otherwise.
What'cha 'fraid of little man?
""Meaningless or patently false bull shit" would be?"
"Theory" ,"cultural Criticism" etc. stabbed through the heart in 1996 by Alan Sokal yet somehow still stalking the campus.
Freudian analysis. Go ask the folks in the psychology department. He was wrong. Pretty much completely.
Marxist analysis. Go ask the folks in the economics department. He was wrong.
Or go read any of the 4 books previously dismissed as having "axes to grinde." There is good and detailed work out there supporting my point of view. I don't intend to replicate it here on a blog because you refuse to read it because you have rejected the authors' conclusions before even starting.
The question "Is this whole subgenre a bunch of bullshit" is not, or at least should not be, unusual in academia. It gets asked in healthy fields. Statisticians had that debate about Taguchi methods (still partially ongoing in fact, though Taguchi has mostly won.) Physicists are starting to have that debate about whether string theory is "so bad it isn't even wrong."
You seem to have a problem with the question even being asked. That indicates to me that your home field overvalues collegiality over truth.
"many people think"
Who?
"those who comment on this blog are sexist"
"Sexist" like Larry Summers?
7:37am I share the same home field with your pal KCJ.
Ralphie,
You're demonstrating the narrowness of your education.
Who studies Freud? Historians, so far as I know. Not Women's Studies people.
Who studies Marx? Not only economists. Historians, sociologists and others do.
I actually don't refuse to read books on the arguments about Women's Studies. I've read some. Perhaps more than you. I disagree with them and find them dates. I don't want to read some about arguments I heard about in graduate school just because you suggest a certain four books. Women's Studies is a very healthy field. There's lotsa stuff out there.
Women's Studies isn't a subgenre. It is a genre. If you want to assert there should be debates w/in Women's studies about a variety of questions, I'll tell you it is.
So, what is your problem?
PS You're wrong. I have no problems with questions being asked. Ask away. Go back and read your post. You didn't ask questions. You made assertions. And I don't think you have a clue whereof you speak. I think you've got your head where the sun don't shine.
So, don't waste either of our time. You have a closed mind. Your issue.
"No one cares what you think."
Actually my senators (or at least their staffers) do seem to care - at least the replies I receive to the letters I send them actually respond to the content. I guess that's one of the advantages of living in a small state.
Also, they've correctly figured out that I'm generally a supporter and keep on hitting me up for money.
Said senators will be hearing from me about Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights," Missouri's "Intellectual Diversity Protection Act," and the questionable utility to taxpayers of using the GI bill, Pell grants and guaranteed student loans to subsidize the pursuit of degrees in subjects that are neither personally nor socially profitable.
I should probably start saying "yes" to a few of their donation requests, too.
ralph phelan @ 9:47 AM said:
"...the questionable utility to taxpayers of using the GI bill, Pell grants and guaranteed student loans to subsidize the pursuit of degrees in subjects that are neither personally nor socially profitable."
You make a very interesting point. The US is at war with a hostile, motivated, and well-funded enemy, an enemy that thinks in terms of decades if not centuries. The terrorist acts that we concern ourselves with today date at least to 1993 (first World Trade Center bombing) if not to 1972 (Munich Olympics) or even before (the creation of Israel in 1948) or even much before that...the ebb and flow of Islam and Christianity over the middle east started in 1095 AD.
Extremist and radical people are not going to go away. (And lest I be called a religious bigot, I'm certain I could find other extremist and radical groups equally deserving of these thoughts. The KKK, Hamas, Aryan Nations, Hillary Clinton ... oops, sorry...just kidding).
So, back to your point Ralph, why should the United States fund any educational grant, loan or endeavor that could be viewed in the light of day as being anethema to its long term interests?
I think most would agree that government should not fund a college course on the manufacturing of improvised explosive devices using readily available materials from the local hardware store. In a similar vein (and IMO), I don't think government should fund courses or students that attack the cultural heritage of the United States.
So, where does one draw the line.
As I said earlier, extremist and radicals are not going to go away. So, my view is that the line should be drawn pretty tight. ... right up there next to a strict construction of the Constitution with perhaps a necessary amendment of the right to free speach when sedition or treason are at its core.
"We did not find out it was a 98 % non exclusion until after the case was dropped. You are trying to re-write history but it is not working. Just to show you how close it was, on a standard Dna test, about 17 alleles are tested and a 98% non-exclusion means that the profile had 16/17 alleles matching and some bands on the 17th allele on the DNA gel positive as well."
I realize it's a bit late to respond to this, but considering how often I have found blog postings vectoring significant information well after the fact, I think it's worth it to clarify that the above anon's explanation of the DNA evidence is totally wrong. He/she seems to have assumed that 98% is the percentage of David Evans' DNA that was similar to the DNA mixture found on the fingernail. If that were true, it wouldn't be of significance at all -- 95% of our genetic material is similar to that of chimps and until recently the similarity was thought to be 98.5%, higher than what our anon thought was the similarity between Evans' DNA and the fingernail DNA.
Our anon seems to have thought "oh, everyone's got 17 alleles. 98% of 17 is 16.66 so that means 16 alleles match and .66 of the 17th matched." No, it means that if you took the entire male population of the world and grouped together all the men whose DNA couldn't have matched the fingernail DNA -- that group would be 98% of the population. David Evans happened to be in the other 2%, but so were fourteen people who worked at DNA Security.
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