Friday, February 22, 2008

Lawsuit Summary

“The simple truth is that Brodhead and Duke were indifferent to the truth.” That’s perhaps the most powerful line in a lawsuit filed yesterday behalf of 38 of the unindicted lacrosse players and their families. The suit was filed against President Richard Brodhead, a host of Duke administrators, and the city of Durham. The chief targets, however, were Brodhead and Duke.

The suit’s basic argument: Duke’s actions exhibited a troubling pattern of (a) refusing to enforce its own procedures—whether regarding supervision of SANE nurse-in-training Tara Levicy or upholding the provisions of the University’s anti-harassment code—when doing so would have helped its students who were members of the lacrosse team; and (2) withholding from the public information in its possession that would have cast doubt on Nifong’s theories; and (3) issuing highly misleading statements and perhaps even (in the suit’s most explosive allegation) seeking to manufacture evidence to suggest the players’ guilt.

The suit alleges intentional infliction of emotional distress; fraud and conspiracy to defraud; breach of duty to protect students from known dangers and harassment; breach of contract; and negligent supervision of duke professors and employees. The following passage lays out the suit’s basic claim against Duke:

Throughout the rape hoax crisis, as Nifong, Durham police and city officials, activist Duke professors and student protestors, the media, and others repeatedly publicly declared the players guilty of a savage gang rape and a “wall of silence” designed to conceal the truth, Duke took no action to disclose the exculpatory evidence in Duke’s exclusive possession, or to confirm the players’ full cooperation with the investigation. Rather, Duke took active steps to suppress exculpatory evidence in its possession and to silence its employees who knew of it. Duke also implicitly condoned and approved of, and thereby encouraged, the efforts of Duke faculty members, academic departments, and students to harass and condemn the lacrosse players, even conferring its official imprimatur upon the most inflammatory of faculty statements against the lacrosse team—the so-called “Group of 88” ad . . . At the same time, the Brodhead administration executed a series of carefully timed reprimands and other disciplinary actions against the lacrosse team that were based on Mangum’s rape allegations and that generated a public impression of the players’ guilt.

Nor, the suit notes, can the University claim that the President and Board of Trustees should not be held responsible:

After Mangum’s rape allegations had been publicly exposed as a malicious and tragic hoax, Brodhead admitted that we “had responsibility for the statements the university made and the actions the university took” throughout the rape hoax crisis. Chairman Steel, who had taken an active role in collaborating with President Brodhead throughout the crisis, likewise later acknowledged that throughout the rape hoax crisis, Brodhead “had consulted regularly with the Trustees” and that “the board agreed with the . . . actions he took.” Steel affirmed that “anyone critical of President Brodhead should be similarly critical of the entire board.” Under Brodhead’s and Steel’s direction, Duke capitulated to the various demands and pressures from the media, activist faculty members, and student protestors with a calculated, skillfully executed strategy of statements, actions, and omissions designed to protect Duke’s and their own interests by publicly maligning and punishing the players and distancing Duke from them.

Some of the suit’s key points:

1.) Tara Levicy

Her actions, the suit contends, were malicious, willful and wanton”; her conduct “was intended to and did cause mental anguish and severe emotional distress to the plaintiffs or was committed with reckless disregard for its foreseeable impact on the plaintiffs’ emotional states.”

Levicy is not only a defendant but, as an employee of Duke, is a critical component of the suit. Since Levicy’s actions “were performed in the scope of employment . . . managers, trustees, and/or officers of Defendants Duke University, DUHS, and Duke Hospital participated in, condoned, and ratified Levicy’s actions. Levicy’s conduct is at the heart of the suit’s claims of emotional distress, negligent supervision of employees, and breach of duty of care in conducting and reporting of forensic medical examination.

The filing traces Levicy’s dismal record throughout the case. Her March 16, 2006 assertion—“with an intentional, or at least reckless, disregard for the truth”—that “there were signs consistent with sexual assault,” even though her exam (as the Attorney General’s investigation would make clear) had actually produced no such evidence. Her “crucially false and misleading statements” to Gottlieb on March 21, 2006 that the SANE exam suggested that Crystal Mangum had experienced “blunt force trauma.” Her undocumented contacts with Nifong later in the case.

As the filing makes clear, Levicy’s conduct had an enormous impact: given the inherent unreliability of Mangum’s stories, “the prestige and credibility of Duke University Hospital thus provided the core support for the investigation (and later, the prosecution) against the lacrosse players.” Even more problematic, “Levicy’s statement to the Durham police was later corroborated, falsely, in public statements by Levicy’s supervisor, Theresa Arico, who was the director of Duke Hospital’s SANE program.” The suit notes that Levicy’s false and misleading testimony provided the basis for (1) the March 23, 2006 NTO that launched the case into the media; and (2) Nifong’s publicity barrage over the next ten days.

In short, if Duke Hospital had provided a competent and qualified SANE nurse, rather than Tara Levicy, “the false rape charges would never have become public.”

2.) Duke didn’t enforce its own policies prohibiting the harassment of students.

Lest anyone forget, the suit lays out the atmosphere in which the lacrosse players existed in the spring of 2006.

The combination of faculty animosity, faculty and student protests, community outrage, and a massive invasion of the Duke campus by local and national media, transformed Duke into what CBS News described as a “Campus Under Siege.” The atmosphere was intensely hostile, even dangerous, for the lacrosse players. They were accosted and intimidated at their homes and on campus by large groups of angry, pot-banging student protestors carrying “castrate” signs and yelling threats. Their faces appeared on “Wanted”-style posters that flooded the campus and Durham. Some players were publicly singled out in class by their professors for harassment and condemnation. They were besieged by news reporters and camera crews. They lived in fear of physical attacks, under threats of drive-by shootings and racial violence. Increased police patrols were required in the neighborhood where many of them lived. They were forced to flee from town during their final exams when a menacing radical hate group called the New Black Panthers descended on the campus. And in the midst of this intense community outrage and national media attention, 88 Duke professors took out a full-page ad in the student newspaper publicly thanking student protestors for “not waiting and for making yourselves heard.”

As the suit notes, “Nowhere in his April 5 public statement, nor in any other public utterance throughout the rape hoax crisis, did Brodhead criticize the activist faculty members and student protestors or call upon them to stop their outrageous harassment and threatening behavior and their vitriolic, hate-filled comments toward the lacrosse players.” (Indeed, on April 20, 2006, he actually shared the platform with the one student who had publicly confessed to distributing the vigilante posters, and with Mark Anthony—“thugniggaintellectual”—Neal.) Argue the plaintiffs, “Brodhead thus tacitly condoned and encouraged the activist faculty members and student protestors in their conduct against the lacrosse players. “

At the very least, the suit argues, Duke didn’t enforce its “formal, written policy strictly forbidding harassment of any student ‘for any reason.’” What were the acts that violated this policy? “Myriad public and private statements by Richard Brodhead, Robert Steel, John Burness, the activist faculty members and student protestors, and others condemning the plaintiffs, impugning their integrity, and implying and/or explicitly stating that they were guilty of criminal activity; the ad placed in the Duke Chronicle and subsequent group and individual statements by the Group of 88; harassing student protests on campus and in front of the lacrosse players’ residences, which were conducted and/or organized in part by Duke faculty members and other employees; the ‘Wanted’ and other posters distributed and posted throughout campus because of the acts and/or omissions of Duke and its agents; and in-class condemnations by Duke professors.”

The anti-harassment policy “also specifically prohibits harassment of any student “on any demographic basis,” including among other things race, color, ethnic origin, gender, and class. Throughout the rape hoax crisis, however, Duke made no effort whatever to enforce its anti-harassment policy against the open and flagrant violations of the policy by certain activist faculty members and student protestors . . . [Indeed] numerous statements made by Duke faculty members evinced discrimination and bias against the lacrosse players on the basis of their race, gender, and class.” This behavior, the suit contends, included “in-class harassment on the basis of race and/or gender,” and “Duke took no action to investigate, punish, or otherwise enforce its anti-harassment policies against these clear violations.”

The highest profile example of this pattern, of course, was the Group of 88’s ad. As the suit notes, even some of the ad’s signatories have conceded the deep harm it caused:

Months later, after Mangum’s rape charge, and the ensuing investigation into it, had been exposed as a malicious and tragic hoax, Susan Thorne, an associate professor and associate chair of the Department of History who signed the Group of 88 ad, said of the ad: ‘I deeply regret, deeply regret contributing to tremendous harm that was done to [the plaintiffs]. I can understand any hostility they feel for me.’”

The basic conclusion:

On its face, and when considered in light of all the circumstances surrounding its publication, the ad made unmistakably clear that its faculty signatories and departmental sponsors believed that Mangum’s rape allegations were true, and it wrongfully, knowingly, and willfully subjected the players to notoriety, opprobrium, derision, humiliation, and well-founded fear for their own safety. Due to its defamatory and inflammatory message, its express exhortation to the “protestors making collective noise” to “turn up the volume” and “make yourselves heard,” and its high profile on the Duke campus (and throughout the country), the ad interfered significantly with the players’ work and education, adversely affected their living conditions, and caused the players serious harm—emotional, reputational, and otherwise.

Through its silence, Duke confirmed that the ad represented the official position not only of 15 Duke academic departments and programs, but of Duke University itself. Months later, after Mangum’s rape allegations and Nifong’s investigation had been publicly exposed as a malicious and tragic hoax, Brodhead acknowledged that activist faculty members and student protestors “were quick to speak as if the [rape] charges were true . . . , and some faculty made statements that were ill-judged and divisive.” Brodhead also admitted that “the public as well as the accused students and their families could have thought that those were expressions of the university as a whole.”

3.) Duke administrators not only remained silent in the face of statements by authorities, the media, and Duke professors that the administrators knew were untrue—but administrators took actions that aided the investigation.

This pattern, the suit contends, began at the start of the case, with the March 23 NTO. According to the suit, the “statements in the NTO application, publicly available and widely reported, were false. Moreover, Duke knew or should have known that they were demonstrably false, on the basis of medical evidence in Duke’s exclusive possession. Duke took no action to rebut or correct these public charges.” The pattern of Duke’s withholding exculpatory information in its possession continued through Brodhead’s March 25 statement canceling the Georgetown game, his March 28 statement suspending the season, and especially his April 5 statement canceling the season. That latter statement, it’s worth remembering, effectively presumed guilt.

According to the suit, Duke administrators knew or should have known that: (1) Levicy had provided false or misleading testimony; and (2) the players had cooperated with the investigation, rather than creating a “wall of silence.” Even so, they “watched silently as Nifong characterized the evidence and otherwise commented on the case and the lacrosse players in a way that Duke knew or should have known to be false. To the contrary, Duke improperly provided Nifong’s investigators with critical credibility and cooperation in a number of ways: Duke illegally disclosed the key card reports; Duke took official actions and made official and unofficial statements to the media that were calculated to malign the lacrosse players and to distance Duke from them; Duke took no significant action to ensure that its activist faculty members and student protestors, who were presuming the players’ guilt and inflaming public outrage against the lacrosse team, were adhering to University standards of behavior, including its anti-harassment policy. And Duke would continue, in the ensuing weeks, to fuel these attacks on its own students.”

4.) Duke violated federal law.

The plaintiffs also claim that Duke violated federal law (FERPA) that protects student rights. The suit contends,

At some time on March 31, Investigators Smith and Stotsenberg of the Duke Police handed over to Gottlieb several reports. Among the reports, according to Gottlieb’s later testimony, was “one key card report for the Duke team members from March 13 and March 14.” This report was prepared by the Duke Card Office of Duke University.

The key card reports provided information on when and where the members of the lacrosse team had swiped their Duke ID cards in slots on locations at Duke’s campus during March 13 and March 14. Many of the doors, dining facilities, vending machines, photocopy machines, and so forth on Duke’s campus are operated by these key card slots. For example, to access virtually any exterior door of Duke’s dormitories and academic buildings requires the swiping of a Duke key card. The key card reports thus allowed the Durham Investigators to roughly track the movements of lacrosse players on Duke’s campus on March 13 and 14. These reports therefore aided the Durham Investigators in their effort to determine which lacrosse players had been in Durham on the night of the alleged rape and had likely attended the party.

No subpoena had been issued for these reports. In the absence of a subpoena (and the opportunity for the interested parties to quash the subpoena), the disclosure of information in these reports -- most notably, but not necessarily limited to, the key card report -- was a clear violation of the Family Educational Records and Privacy Act (FERPA), as well as Duke’s own privacy policies.

The University then, the suit argued, conspired with Durham investigators to fraudulently conceal Duke’s FERPA violations.”

And, finally, the most explosive allegation, regarding the report of Duke Police officer Christopher Day, who (accurately) reported that he overheard a DPD officer (John Shelton) state that Mangum claim to have been raped by 20 people.

Duke, the suit contends, “took two actions directed toward bolstering the credibility of Mangum’s rape allegations. First, Officer Day of the Duke Police added a “continuation page” as an addendum to his police report prepared at Duke Hospital on March 14, in which he had noted the manifest inconsistencies in Mangum’s allegations. Day’s ‘continuation page’ purported to cast doubt on the reliability of his own contemporaneous report, which Duke had not yet disclosed to the lacrosse players or the public, by indicating that it was based on hearsay and imperfectly overheard conversations. Upon information and belief, Day was coerced to write this continuation page by Duke administration officials, who had previously prevented his exculpatory version of events from becoming public.

“On information and belief, in addition to suppressing the Day report, Duke police officials, at Nifong’s request, also directed Duke police officers who had been present at Duke Hospital on March 14 to write deliberately misleading accounts of what they witnessed that night. The Duke police officers were directed to prepare statements that suppressed exculpatory facts about Mangum’s lack of credibility, selectively asserted facts suggesting the guilt of the players, and mischaracterized their own conduct that night by casting the Duke police as mere bystanders. In particular, on information and belief, one Duke officer who prepared such a statement later admitted that, based on his observation at the time, Mangum was ‘faking’ the whole thing; and another Duke officer was directed to suppress the fact that she had overheard a Durham Police sergeant, upon emerging from Mangum’s hospital room, say loudly, ‘I think she is lying!’”

Duke’s response: “If these plaintiffs have a complaint, it is with Mr. Nifong.” This is, to put it mildly, a peculiar argument: it’s not clear to me how Nifong was responsible for Duke’s decision to allow its faculty and students to violate the University’s anti-harassment policy; or for Officer Day to rewrite his report; or for Duke’s failure to supervise Tara Levicy; or for Duke’s decision to supply federally protected student records to the police.

103 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your continuing coverage. Duke is scum. Shame, shame, shame.

Duke’s response: “If these plaintiffs have a complaint, it is with Mr. Nifong.”

My response to that would be...well just what they did--file a lawsuit.

I repeat, shame on Duke. Shame on Duke. Shame on Duke.

Anonymous said...

We will remember not the words

of our enemies, but the silence

of our friends.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

mac said...

That's a good chunk, but someone still needs to file a suit against Mangum, the NY Times, Nancy Grace, Wendy Murphy, Georgia Goslee, Bob Ashley and the HS, 88 professors and the NBPP, the NCNAACP, individual potbangers (particularly the ones who held the "castrate" sign) and others.

Still, it's encouraging to see the blame for violating the students' rights laid out as it is, with the agenda-driven Levity given credit/blame for her part in the process, and for Bob Steele to be held accountable as a collaborator.

Finally!

Still hoping someone's saving ammunition for the others, though. Especially the news media who declared unequivocally that the entire team was "stonewalling" and covering up for each other, and that the accused were guilty of "something."

"Something" should happen: an eventual suit should extend the reach a little further.

Anonymous said...

We are dealing with crimes here, but no one will be punished. Duke seems to be banking on its influence with the courts in order to get away with these crimes.

By coercing people to write false reports, the Duke administration stepped into another dimension. If there were justice in this country, some officials at Duke would be in handcuffs at this very minute.

Anonymous said...

My goodness, lions and tigers and bears. It was all front-loaded and primed to do these young men in. It was easy . . . too easy . . . having integrity and standing upright was just too difficult . . . welcome to Duke . . . welcome to Durham . . . welcome to North Carolina . . . welcome to America. Thank God there were those who did stand up. Thak you KC, thank you very much . . . came to Duke . . . heard you speak . . . bought four of your books . . . got them autographed. Thanks . . . please keep up the good work and good luck.

Anonymous said...

Duke should have settled this suit as well. As an alum of Duke and Trinity, I have activated the $.88 policy for annual giving; Trinity gets $.88 a year until Brodhead is gone and someone is hired to clean up the renegades. Continuing to act as if all is well is an unacceptable solution.

Anonymous said...

Shoot, I won't even spend the money for a stamp to send Duke an 88 cent check (but I still want to go back for my reunion next year)...hopefully Brodhead will be gone by then!

Joey said...

mac said...
That's a good chunk, but someone still needs to file a suit against Mangum, the NY Times, Nancy Grace, Wendy Murphy, Georgia Goslee, Bob Ashley and the HS, 88 professors and the NBPP, the NCNAACP, individual potbangers (particularly the ones who held the "castrate" sign) and others.
////////Agreed, Mac. Also sam Hummell, Serena Sebring, Christina Headrick, Amanda Marcotte.....let's hope there is still something waiting in the wings for all of them.

Anonymous said...

Thanks again KC for your typically clear and concise summary of the facts of the new lawsuit. To paraphrase another poster, Duke acted the way that it did because it wanted the allegations to be true. Why would a university want to bear the shame of admitting that many of its young men were predatory perverts? Because they were white men, and because they came from upper-middle class backgrounds. If the allegations had been true, they would have validated the twisted worldview based on identity politics that infects so many of our institutions. I hope that this lawsuit finally results in a discovery phase that exposes all of the bullshit that Duke thought it could get away with in the name of political correctness.

Gracksnip

Tim Murray said...

I am overjoyed by this suit. No one sued civilly likes it. Now finally some of the persons who practiced unbridled misandry and allowed political correctness to run amok will be held accountable for their reign of terror. But I wonder how these Duke and Durham individuals are going to be covered under the school's or city's insurance policies if it is found they committed intentional misconduct, as opposed to negligence. Hmm. Maybe they won't be covered.

Anonymous said...

Brodhead and the Duke Administration are monumentally incompetent for all the reasons described in this lawsuit, but these dunderheads just compounded their liabilty risk with the breathtakingly inappropriate "sex show" these fools ran on campus recently.

I am sure the 38 plaintiffs will soon add some memorable litigation commentary, analyzing the hypocrisy and deceit of these geniuses. Who is legally advising Duke? It is a job I would not relish, after their seemingly endless capacity for bad administrative behavior.

Don't they have the slightest clue as to proper University Administration demeanor? Does anyone in authority at Duke have any personal capacity for insight? The 38 plaintiffs are going to have an absolute field day with this crew of arrogant, unrepentant, intellectually challenged losers.

Ed Sodaro MD

Anonymous said...

How Duke did not fire some of the 88 group is beyond me. The racial, inflammatory statements some of them made would lead to INSTANT dismissal anywhere else (Don Imus will tell you). How can Duke even think that a white male athlete can get a fair shake in any of their classes after the comments some of them made. Personally, I would have fired or sanctioned any of those idiots that made public, racist statements of the nature they did.
The only person who lost a job was probably one of the most honorable men at the institution (Mike Pressler). Luckily for Duke students (not for students elsewhere), some of these radical professors (and I use the term professors lightly here) have moved on to other institutions. Sadly however, some remain. How wold you like to be a scholarshipped white athlete in one of their classes today, it would be like being a jewish student in class on foreign affairs being taught by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Tara Levicy takes a huge hit on this one. Not only is she alleged to have made false statements to the police, but also falsifying medcal records. I suspect this is the reason she is no longer at Duke Medical Center. Falsifying medical records is a very big NO NO. Seems to me she can/should be charged with obstruction of justice. Her actions should have been reported to the nursing board in NC, I wonder if they were. The AG report made it fairly clear that the medical evidence of rape was non-existant.
Duke is in deep doo-doo, they are up against seasoned litigators, clearly violated their own policies, and violated Federal law (FERPA). I don't see them (Duke) going to trial, can you imagine the examination of some of the professors on the stand, they will be made to look like complete idiots and their own public statements will be used against them. Tara Levicy wold be fried on the stand, literally torn apart. The administration will be made to look completely incompetent (which they seem to be). My bet is therefore that Duke tries to settle (which has been their history in this case).

BDay

Anonymous said...

One of the most unintentionally ludicrous aspects of Duke's recent behavior is that the Board of Trustees--who as KC notes were clearly up to their eyeballs in all this--recently gave Brodhead glowing accolades on his three-year performance review. While they praised his "compelling vision" for the university, Dan Blue and company were guilty of compelling blindness in their evaluation. If an independent panel had judged Brodhead and the BOT, perhaps we would not need this embarrassing lawsuit.

Anonymous said...

what I do not understand was Duke's "the prosecutor must be right, must have something if he is making these statements" stance.

Is it not common for universities to qurstion authorities? So why were they in lock step this time?

Anonymous said...

Must admit, I was disapointed to see the lawsuit and ready to simply 'play ball'.....but having read the gist of it I had to change my mind.

It is right that the Duke Admin be pulled out onto the carpet. After all, they had no problem establishing "committees" to identify the "wrongs" of the players, but NOT their own wrongs....guess that's why there are lawyers....but would have preferred a cleaner end to it all

drew said...

I've already commented on the case in another blog; however, I hadn't until now copped to the response that Duke has apparently made.

Duke’s response: “If these plaintiffs have a complaint, it is with Mr. Nifong.” I would submit in response that it appears that they have a complaint with Duke - the University's hubris is merely pathetic. In fact, the disdain shown in their response to this case is indicative of their disdain to the entire matter - precisely what is going to force a jury to find for the plaintiffs in the suit.

If the Duke BOT has any sense at all, and/or if they're being represented by competent counsel (which doesn't appear to be the case just yet), their lawyers should be fitting the entire administrative staff's lips with zippers. Statements like the one that Duke apparently (officially?) made are only going to enflame the jury pool and enrich the plaintiffs.

Sometimes in a lawsuit, it is just best to shut up, rather than to fight back with woefully inadequate ammunition. Well, in this case, the gun went off at Duke, and another toe seems to be missing.

Anonymous said...

I think it's interesting that one of the alleged actions for which Duke is being sued -- improperly giving protected information to law enforcement authorites -- is just what the Bush administration is trying to get Congress to immunize the phone companies for doing.

Ken Duke

Anonymous said...

Miramar,

Is there a public record of his evaluation? As an alum, I was (randomly?) solicited to provide input, and I delivered both barrels. Brodhead has neither the moral courage or conviction to lead a preschool, much less a university of Duke's (former?) stature.

I guess I was not heard, nor were other alums expressing similar disgust.

ES Duke 1990

Anonymous said...

It will be interesting to see what turns up as discovery proceeds, particularly since Duke will finally have to disgorge the contents of its email archives. It will be amusing to compare the public statements of the administration and faculty with their private emails. They can't possibly have thought these emails would ever see the light of day; when they do it should be quite a show.

Anonymous said...

Duke has the additional issues of the black phat house rape and the recent stripper show.

The jury will see a dual standard in how the admin handled the other instances, and Duke will lose.

Anonymous said...

I will be shocked if we do not see yet another secret undisclosed settlement reached by the parties. The University has a habit of writing checks to keep unsavory behavior secret. Duke wants anything but the egregious actions of their administrators and Professors to be aired publicly.

The interesting part will be to see whether these plaintiffs accept a payment for their silence or if they insist on trial. With the size of the Duke endowment the payoff could be very large.

I would think by now that Duke students, parents, and alums would be tired of their money being used to protect inept leaders from having to answer for their actions.

Anonymous said...

Actually this quoted official sttement comes right from the top legal post at Duke: ///Pam Bernard, vice president and University counsel, however, said the suit was misdirected at Duke.

"We have now seen the lawsuit and as we said before, if these plaintiffs have a complaint, it is with [former Durham district attorney Mike] Nifong," Bernard said in a statement. "Their legal strategy-attacking Duke-is misdirected and without merit. To help these families move on, Duke offered to cover the cost of any attorneys' fees or other out-of-pocket expenses, but they rejected this offer. We will vigorously defend the University against these claims."

Go figure

Anonymous said...

"How Duke did not fire some of the 88 group is beyond me. "

Are you seriously asking this?
They are black or part of protected class (white liberals). Everything is allowed to them. They can commit financial fraud, academic fraud, noose incidents (see Columbia U) and hate crimes anytime they want.

Unfortunately, one major political party and mainstream media are actively supporting this sick travesty.

Anonymous said...

So far the only mention of this lawsuit in the New York Times is an AP story. I'm going to reserve judgment on the whole thing until the authoritative Duff Wilson weighs in :-)

Debrah said...

"I think it's interesting that one of the alleged actions for which Duke is being sued -- improperly giving protected information to law enforcement authorites -- is just what the Bush administration is trying to get Congress to immunize the phone companies for doing."

Ken, give it up, buddy.

Many of us are supporting Obama even though we disagree with some things he outlines in his platform.

I do so because I like him on a gut level and am thoroughly relieved to see a politician who can rise above the scum.

I also realize that if he is elected president, just to be able to govern, he will have to move more to the center and come to terms with the reality in the Middle East.

Please don't continue to beat the GWB issue. Soon you "won't have him to kick around anymore".

Then for whom will you aim your well-stuffed boot?

Debrah said...

The unbelievable lightness of being inside the world of Dicky Bro.

It's going to get bumpy and rough so the Diva has provided some very special mood music for Dicky as he works on his rhymin' before the storm.

Anonymous said...

I simply cannot imagine what life must have been like for these boys. How terrifying it must have been, how degrading, how desperate. I sincerely hope this goes to trial, everything is exposed and those responsible are held accountable, both financially and in the arena of public opinion. The 88 especially should be put on the stand and publically humiliated. No mercy.

Anonymous said...

Everyone should read Joan Foster at Liestoppers. A very powerful piece.

Anonymous said...

ok so 38 just sued...
plus Colin, Reade and Dave [the three]
and then the other three that sued a little while ago [Breck Archer, Matt Wilson, and Ryan McFadyen]
....So that equals 44...47-44=3...
which three haven't sued?

Anonymous said...

To ES Duke 1990 at 11:47 AM

Here is the link to an article from the Chronicle:

http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2007/12/10/News/Brodhead.Review.Is.Positive-3140920.shtml

I also sent in my two bits, but I knew that despite the courteous, personal response from Dan Blue, it was hardly going to be an independent review. In fact, I think at this point their main concern is to protect the Duke Brand (which is certainly important) so the last thing they wanted to do was to get at the truth. As a result, the article indicates that the negative reaction from alumni was communicated to him, but would not be made public (“He [Brodhead] declined to list any of the areas for improvement suggested to him by the report”).

Anonymous said...

Brodhead sits alone in his study with a scotch and wonders where the courage and grace came from in those young men who played lacrosse at Duke, and the women lacrosse players and their coaches as well. He knows it is a part of American culture he cannot fathom. His post modern training and mind set have now traveled too far from the Greek and Renaissance and Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian inheritance of the West. He looks back but all is fog and mist. And even as the light of the world shines brightly upon, him his shadow is strangely disappearing.

Anonymous said...

Duke giving doing well.Endowment growing. Applications up.

Durham, NC -- Duke University received $380,059,931 in philanthropic gifts between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007, eclipsing by approximately 11 percent the previous year’s record total of $341.9 million.

Gifts came from about 98,000 donors, nearly 41,000 of them Duke alumni.
Also

Durham, NC -- Duke University has received more than 20,250 applications for admission to the class entering this fall -- the largest number in school history. Applicants will be competing for about 1,665 places for first-year students.



Whats to be unhappy with the president and board? Product demand is up, approval is up based on dollars given and by alumni too.
The total endowment is near
$6,000,000,000.00 dollars and had an incredible 30% return last year. The plutocrats at Duke are doing great!

IF each litigant was reached a settlement for $10,000,000.00 the total cost of $370,000,000 would represent 6 percent of the total endowment and would more than be made up in one years worth of gifts and endowment growth.
Que "Shiny Happy People" by REM.

How much of a bite do you think it would take to make The Establishment to pay attention? The world wonders.

Anonymous said...

Duke Law 72.
KC just a note to thank you for taking up your pen again. Your efforts and insight are valuable and appreciated. Thank you

Anonymous said...

Ken Duke,

I was thinking the same thing! That an administration kow-towing to political correctness and a rogue prosecutor is EXACTLY the same thing as phone companies allowing the NSA to eavesdrop for bomb-dropping terrorists.

Wait. That doesn't make any sense at all. In fact, this is utter nonsense.

Sorry, Ken. My bad.

Jack Straw

mac said...

3:06 pm

"How much of a bite do you think it would take to make The Establishment...pay attention?"

Well, maybe someone should do a MacDonald's hot-coffee calculation, but with the understanding that real harm (to reputations, to careers, to the perception of innocence) was done to all of the young men.

Let's see...how many cups of coffee a day did MacDonald's serve...how much is in the cashbox at Duke, past present and forseable future, based upon your current calculations...?

It would add up to a lot, if you used the comparison. But you ask: how much to get them to pay attention?

As someone already said: when Duke officials start to serve time in jail for breaking the law, after discovery of evidence they've allegedly hidden gets them put behind bars. Then they'll pay attention. Yes sir, straight-up attention.

The "privileged" BoT et al may not be able to buy themselves and their cronies out of this one. No matter how many donors write checks.

Anonymous said...

Those statistics about Duke's endowment and annual gifts are EXACTLY what a good trial lawyer will use to get monster-sized punitives out of a jury. "$50 million or $100 million will not persuade anyone to do anything differently the next time. We need a level of punitive damages that will prompt them to pay attention."
This lawsuit is obviously well funded. The discovery process will be hell on Duke and the defendants. Can't wait to see the internal emails as the Duke administration discusses tactics and response ideas....or better yet, they have already deleted them. Then it's criminal complaint time, baby!

Anonymous said...

Thanx for the summation, KC!

I simply cannot imagine why Duke would ever have let this get to where it is today. Surely, the Levicy and FERPA vulnerabilities alone would have driven Duke authorities to want to settle. Can they really want to have this go to discovery and to have their vulnerable folk put on the witness stand?

Did they sleep through the Nifong case?

Now, even if Duke settles, not only will the price have gone up, but their filthy linen has once again been put out on public lines.

Anonymous said...

Will an attorney in the case file a complaint with the NC Bar Association against Duke in-house Pam Bernard? She appears to have violated ethical provisions dealing with pretrial publicity by stating that Duke tried to settle with the students. This is what the North Carolina rules for professional conduct require:

"Rule 3.6 Trial Publicity

(a) A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter."

Bernard knows that any mention of a settlement offer would NEVER be allowed at a trial of the case. Every lawyer knows this. She also knows that the reason it would not be allowed at a trial is because the topic has a "substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter."

This is the second time that Duke University appears to have violated this rule. Bernard seems to have taken on the mantle of Mike Nifong.

I believe that Duke has already responded to this lawsuit in an unethical manner.

These are my opinions.


________________


*********paid advertisement********

These people are shouting and whispering about what happened to the 47 young students; this is a SOCIAL DISASTER.

"I wasn't even in Durham at the time of the party, yet, they put my picture on the wanted poster." -- Duke lax player

"Will the 88 faculty members come after me next? What about all those guilt-presuming university departments and programs? Why do they hate us so much?" -- Duke football player

"This has been going on for a long time, this prejudice and hatred of students by professors. It has to stop." -- Duke '08

WHAT DOES A SOCIAL DISASTER SOUND LIKE?

"This is not a different experience for us here at Duke University. We go to class to be taught by racist professors, we go to gym with people who are racists and genderists… It’s part of the experience." [Independent, 20 February 2008]

We are listening to the students. We’re also listening to the national media make fun of Duke's politically correct ways. Regardless of the results of the civil lawsuits, what is apparent everyday now is the anger and hatred of many professors who see things only in terms of racism and sexism; who saw illuminated in that moment’s extraordinary spotlight a way to grind their political axes against the throats of innocent students. They know that it isn’t just Duke, it isn’t everybody, and it isn’t just professors making this disaster. It's whole departments, programs and the administration at Duke University.

THIS IS A SOCIAL DISASTER.

Anonymous said...

I guess Duke did not settle because their lawyers do not agree with the conclusions or allegations filed in the suits. Anxious to read the depositions.

Anonymous said...

Duke is so similar to Nifong. They keep holding steadfast to their lies and keep trying to cover up their cover ups. Liars and cheats eventually get caught. They continue to try to blame their actions on Nifong. They are as much to blame as Nifong. But they will take it to the very end. A civil trial will be very interesting, there is so much information on what they did behind the scenes that is not even out in the press yet. Judgement day will come soon. The board of directors played a major role in the hoax and the Broadhead was their puppet.

Anonymous said...

WOW!

Duke will want to settle. I would implore these young men not to. The country needs to see this case go to trial. We need to see the discovery. Such an event might help weaken the double standards on racism and sexism.

Also, the payoff should be large. As others have pointed out Duke has a big nest egg and a lot of earning ability. When one considers rewards women have received for sexual harassment suits, 11.6 million was the reward for the woman who sued because Isiah Thomas told her he loved her and made sexual advances at the workplace, then a reward of 100 million each would not be too high for all these guys went through.

Take this thing to trial!!!

Anonymous said...

This country has a long and ugly history of false charges of “structural racism”, culminating most recently in the Duke, the Jena, and the Columbia University outrages. Long ago, it was said that “patriotism” was the “last refuge of scoundrels.” Today that can be modified to “victimhood is the last refuge of scoundrels” – from Jena’s Mychal Bell to the plagiarizing Columbia “noose” professor to the ringleaders of Duke's Group of 88. We have to hope that the latest lawsuit will bring our nation closer to ending this disgraceful legacy.

RRH

Anonymous said...

I must admit that I am confused about the portion of the lawsuit that relates to FERPA. I am not necessarily confused about whether the alleged behavior violates FERPA, but the basis for the suit. The Supreme Court has ruled clearly that individuals (or groups of individuals) cannot sue in federal court for violations of FEPRA in Gonzaga v. Doe?

Anonymous said...

Re: Debra's "Please don't continue to beat the GWB issue. Soon you "won't have him to kick around anymore".

Then for whom will you aim your well-stuffed boot?"

Hey Debra, I was just throwing that out for discussion, a la SNL's "Coffee Talk." But I'll try to stay on topic from now on....

PS to Jack Straw: If you'd send me your email address, I'd like to discuss your response. My email is kennethduke.attorney@verizon.net
Ken

Michael said...

I think that we looked into the FERPA issue and determined that there is no recourse for the student in these violations though the school can be punished by congress or the department of education.

It would be fun to see Brodhead on the stand. And Burness. And Dean Sue. Any mention of Dean Sue and telling the students not to hire lawyers?

Thanks for the update.

Anonymous said...

Too damned funny...we received a letter from Pam Jones, Director of Donor Relations for The Duke Annual Fund today. They are indeed acting on the Greater Fool theory.

Inre: to the annual giving, I recall someone posting that a large chunk of that giving was sent over from the endowment. Am I recalling events correctly?

Besides, would you trust these people with the books?

Inre: the # of applicants. All schools are seeing massive increases due to multiple applications by one applicant. Candidates are applying to ten schools instead of three or four.

The real issue is not who they are accepting, or even who they are admitting, but rather the quality of who they are losing.

We all better understand how Duke defines what they consider to be an elite faculty. We've also seen who they deem worthy of student awards.

This isn't the Duke of days gone by.

Anonymous said...

This can be great!!! The discovery process with plaintiffs getting access to e-mails, Duke’s internal memos, Group of 88 members in depositions, under oath – what did you know? when did you know it? how did you decide to ignore evidence?! If we are REALLY LUCKY, one of them flips on the others and rats them out – hey, these are not hardened wise guys from Brooklyn or Jersey City! These are A C A D E M I C S – they can rationalize A N Y T H I N G, as long as it suits them!!! Will be something to see!

Stuart McGeady said...

To the 2:29 PM...

From Chelsea Allison's article in today's Chronicle:

"Thirty-eight of the 47 members of the 2006 team are plaintiffs in the suit, leaving only three former players - graduate student Matt Danowski, Trinity '07, senior Kevin Mayer and Matt Zash, Trinity '06 - who have not engaged in any litigation. There are 47 plaintiffs listed in the filing including nine parents and 20 current Duke students."

Graduate student and 5th year star Matt Danowski is Duke Lax Coach John Danowski's son.

Attorney Chuck Cooper was questioned at yesterday's press conference on this topic, but he refused to answer due to the privacy considerations of those not party to the suit.

Anonymous said...

I hope there is no 'secret settlement'

These administartive pukes need to have their deceit receive a full open air hearing -- if any good is to come of this.

Anonymous said...

Miramar and Duke 1990: I disagree. I didn't see it as a glowing review at all. Didn't previous Presidents get a 2-year contract extension at their 3-year review? I didn't see Brodhead getting any contract extention. Maybe I'm just being overly optimistic but I was taking this as a sign that maybe things weren't all that rosy behind closed doors.

Peggy Harper
Duke 1974

Anonymous said...

Miramar,

Many thanks...I had missed this.

I am not sure what is more disturbing, the article itself or the banal discussion on the message board that followed (both sides).

For the record, I have heard from maybe 2% of the purported 500 respondants in some form or another, and they UNIFORMLY bashed Brodhead and/or requested his removal. Not a statistical sampling (the data set is likely skewed in a negative direction toward Brodhead becuase of WHERE I heard from them, i.e. places like DIW), but it is still highly suspect.

COVERUP.

I guess they new the lawsuits were not over, and chose to innoculate against any self-reporting in terms of management culpability.

How much will this cost my alma mater this time?

Sigh.

ES Duke 1990

Christy said...

In what jurisdiction was the suit filed. Who are the pool of jurors?

I remember reading about the increase in donations last year. It was right about the time the Dow was bouncing over 14,000. Therefore, I am choosing to believe Duke took the opportunity to value their stocks at a historic high. Normalized, I'm betting donations were actually flat.

I also know one young woman who was initially turned down by Duke who got an invitation to join the class of 2011. How common is that?

Anonymous said...

I assume Duke isn't hiring lawyers to assist in its handling of this matter. As we all know, you don't need a lawyer if you're innocent.

Anonymous said...

As usual, K.C., an absolutely fantastic job. A couple of comments, ovservations, etc. To anon at 7:38am, I think the idea of giving Duke a check for .88 is great. Giving nothing which is what I decided to do makes me invisible. Giving the .88 sends a message.
The letters in this thread make me proud. They sound very similar to what I bave been preaching for the past two years. There ARE people out there who are just as outraged as I am by brodhead and the nutcases in the administration, by the 88 pinheads and by the BOT.
Which brings me to my final point ... which is a question: since the BOT apparently approved of and condoned everything bhead and his people did and are incompetent at a level most of us cannot fanthom, how does one go about getting rid of them and if successful, who oversees the university??

God, what sheer stupidity!!!!! I am embarrassed all over again.

trinity60

becket03 said...

I especially like that Levicy is prominently mentioned in this suit in a way that underlines her crucial role in getting the travesty started.

Levicy deserves to be tied up in court for years, and branded in her profession as an untrustworthy, politically driven incompetent. In fact, a truly just result would have her driven out of the profession altogether.

beckett

Stuart McGeady said...

To Christy @ 11:04 PM...

Your friend may have been deferred from an Early Decision to the later Regular Decision round, or she may have been invited after being placed on a waiting list. She would not have been granted admission or re-invited after having been initially denied.

Anonymous said...

For they have sown the wind, and

they shall reap the whirlwind

-Hosea 8:7 KJV

Anonymous said...

I would make one correction. Brodhead, Steel, and Duke in general were not "indifferent" to the truth; instead, they were hostile to it and sought to suppress it whenever possible.

Until reading the last two complaints in the filed lawsuits, I had not fully realized the role that Duke University's administration played in promoting the lies as truth. Steel's comments that it would be "good for Duke" for the case to go to trial speaks volumes.

It would be good for those who have sought to turn Duke into a PC re-education camp, as a Durham jury would have gladly convicted on no evidence at all. After the conviction, those in the hardcore PC camp at Duke would have said, "See, we told you that these lacrosse players are evil rapists," and would have then had liberty to make Duke into something akin to Antioch College (which is closing, by the way, as we find that an utter PC atmosphere is so chaotic that it is not conducive to any learning at all).

Anonymous said...

Prof. Johnson,

I am a pretty non-political person. I've followed the Duke case solely because the issues involved affect me personally. This continued governmentally sponsored attack on white men has repercussions in my workplace.

You've repeatedly stated that you support the candidacy of Barack Obama. I've got to question how you can do this, in light of what you have learned at Duke.

Obama's candidacy, as far as I can determine, is based entirely on the presumption that electing a black man president would cure some historic grievance. In fact, his primary qualification for being president seems to be that he is black.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but it appears to me that Obama's candidacy is just more of the vicious race politics you've covered so admirably at Duke.

Debrah said...

Monica Chen's report explains a lot.

Every time I had a conversation with Geoff Moser about the H-S coverage of the lacrosse case the past year and a half, he was always so detached.

Always extremely nice, but detached.

It's clear that Paxton just brought him to the H-S to fill the spot of the ailing--now deceased--former publisher Robert Childress.

Moser couldn't have cared less about Duke and Durham. He's been biding time until his retirement.

Just another piece to add to the "perfect storm" which allowed a whole host of things to occur and be sustained.

IMO, if a hands-on publisher had been at the H-S, Bob Ashley might have been held to a different standard.

Or at least his shoddy journalism might have been questioned.

This new guy, Rick Bean, seems like another drip.


Herald-Sun publisher to retire June 1

By Monica Chen : The Herald-Sun
Feb 22, 2008

DURHAM -- The Herald-Sun's publisher will be stepping down June 1 after 21 months with the paper, the company announced Thursday.

Publisher Geoff Moser is retiring after 40 years in the newspaper industry, and Rick Bean, publisher of the High Point Enterprise, will take his place.

Editor Bob Ashley announced the change in an e-mail to newsroom staffers at mid-afternoon, saying that Moser, 63, and his wife, Christy, plan to move to a home they built in northern Minnesota and spend more time with their granddaughter.

"The Herald-Sun is a great paper for the Durham market and this has been a great place to live," Moser said.

Bean has been the Enterprise publisher for three and a half years, and before that, publisher of The Daily Dispatch of Henderson for 10 years.

Bean, who had overseen all PMG North Carolina papers except The Herald-Sun, will maintain that role and add The Herald-Sun to that portfolio when he assumes his new post here. The move will be a promotion for Bean, as The Herald-Sun is Paxton Media Group's largeswt paper.

Bean will be the third publisher for The Herald-Sun since 2005 when PMG bought the previously family-owned paper. Moser's predecessor was Bob Childress, a Durham native who died in October, about a year after retiring.

The 56-year-old Bean, originally from Ohio, has been in the news business for 32 years after a brief stint as a high school teacher.

Bean said he will meet with top managers during the transition. "You need to be here to understand where the growth areas are," he said.

Bean and his wife, Trish, will be moving to the Durham area. They have two grown sons and three grandsons who live in Raleigh and Henderson.

Anonymous said...

To KC... thanks for keeping your blog going.

To trinity60 12:48am... I've lost the link, but the DU website has a page on the hoax that contains all of Duke's offical statements plus, in my opinion, a "blow-off" of all of the charges that critics levy at them. They tout record high levels of donations, applications, and enrollment (if I remember correctly). To me, their message is that the event was inconsequential to them and to anyone considering Duke. If their statistics are correct, why should they care? Why would the BoT want to make a change? I don't think it will happen, and the best I am expecting is that policies and processes will change. Time will tell.
Joe K

Debrah said...

The N&O just moves right along with their desire to elevate members of Duke's Gang of 88 and others who exploit race, gender, and class.

For years they bathed and diapered Gene Nichol on their editorial pages.

Almost every week, he was given half pages to write Leftist bile and his personal opinions.

So great to have seen him tossed at W&M.

The only way that the N&O will change is when enough people make serious and consistent complaints to McClatchey.

Read this latest from big Karla FC.

That woman makes me sick to the core.

Imagine this scurrilous excuse for a human being lecturing the public on the subject of using race promiscuously.

This horrific woman tried to do great harm to the sons of other mothers simply because of their race.....

......and the fact that her own son was raised to be a monster by using race as her Bible.

Michael said...

Regarding applications: an office coworker is going through the selection process for colleges and has taken a few trips recently. I asked him how many schools his son applied to and he said 17. I was floored. It appears that many students are applying to more colleges to increase their options.

Anonymous said...

"Inre: the # of applicants. All schools are seeing massive increases due to multiple applications by one applicant. Candidates are applying to ten schools instead of three or four.

And due to four other market factors: 1) a huge increase in the college-age population (projected to rise until about 2013), due to the "echo boom;" 2) foreign students and immigrants seeking admission to U.S. colleges; historically non-college attending populations seeking a higher degree; no corresponding increase in the supply of colleges. (It is very, very difficult to start a new college, as opposed to, say, opening a new Wal-Mart.)

What's wrong with this picture? A basketball coach, a CEO, a talk show host all get fired for gross negligence. But the "leaders" and
G88 at Duke? They get rewarded.

Duke Prof

Anonymous said...

"Regarding applications: an office coworker is going through the selection process for colleges and has taken a few trips recently. I asked him how many schools his son applied to and he said 17. I was floored. It appears that many students are applying to more colleges to increase their options."

Yes, and many colleges *encourage* this scam because the number of applicants *rejected* is an important factor in determining college rankings.

Duke Prof

Anonymous said...

I don't know what kind of challenges grease-face Dickhead had faced while at Yale, but his actions in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case are not indicative of anything he might have learned from those challenges. Yet, there was opportunity for him to rise and shine but he failed to deliver. Which makes me wonder what exactly the BOT found in Dickhead that made them think he'd be a good leader.

I'm still proud of Duke but not of its president or of its BOT. Every board member who was around during this incident should just step down and take Dickhead with them too.

Serine
Duke PhD

Anonymous said...

I went back and re-read the 5600 word butcher job by Wilson of the NYTs last night. It's clear that the NYTs aided and abetted Duke and Durham in this legal travesty. It's also clear that both the NYT's journalistic PC templates as well as Duke's PC templates are both forms of institutionalized racism designed to deny due process on an equal basis.

While this lawsuit is a start, the chickens will not come home to roost until the NYTs and the rest of the media are held accountable for their actions.

Hopefully KC, through this blog, you can convince the Duke LAX and their attornys that the media needs to be the next group to feel the pain.

Debrah said...

TO Shouting Thomas--

Things are much more complicated than you describe. I can see, however, how some might have your opinion.

My own personal Diva outlook on the campaign is an example of the complexity of Obama's broad appeal.

I have always been a registered Democrat, but haven't voted for one in a long time. I have often had to hold my nose because some of the people I supported for one issue or another were too conservative for my tastes on other issues.

I am a pro-choice, fiscally circumspect, socially progressive, and always an individually expressive Diva!

Not one of the candidates on either side of the aisle does it for me totally.

If you think that those conservative politicians whom you support do not bounce all over the politically-expedient spectrum when it's beneficial to them, think again.

I do not agree with Obama on Iraq and his fetish for believing that he can just chat with rabid Israeli-hating leaders of the world.

I do not care for his wife at times, who, when in unguarded moments, shows what she learned in those Sociology and African American Studies classes at Princeton in which she majored. The last thing this country needs is a "grievance queen" in the White House.

I have no doubt that Obama will cool her jets on this matter. It will be difficult, but Michelle should learn to keep her mouth shut on occasion. If for no other reason than to not harm her husband.

I also know that something MUST be done about health care in this country. Obama's approach of making sure that it's available to those who cannot afford it, but does not force a program on people the way Hillary's does, might bring some success to this complicated issue.

Ultimately, if Obama is elected, he will have to move away from many of the far left positions and he knows that.

He's no dummy. To be a viable Democratic candidate from Chicago you cannot vote Huckabee-style; however, Obama is not a loony left wing nut.

His wife carries that water for him well. She gives the message to the Afro-centric voters that "I'm a strong Sista and will keep the government programs coming".

Obama can then be himself. Unencumbered by much of anything.

As Shelby Steele so eloquently pointed out, Barack Obama doesn't make white people feel as though they have to apologize for anything. He's not a race hustler. He engages people without constructing borders that most blacks like to construct as a form of constant emotional, psychological, and financial extortion.

Obama leaves everyone with a feeling that we all can be better people. His mother obviously did a magnificent job.

Sure, some of it is showmanship. That--along with his sensual voice--is something you can't buy and something every politician would love to possess.

And, as the Diva always says--"If you've got it, flaunt it! Not everyone possesses the panoramic cluster."

(It should be noted that Obama was one of few politicians who called for the FEDS to investigate the violation of the lacrosse players' civil rights. John Edwards sat on his flat duff with a can of hairspray in hand and did nothing!)

Anonymous said...

After following this case closely, reading KC's summary of the lawsuit was music to my eyes!

I hope Duke has a huge Umbrella Liability insurance policy, because it looks like it will be raining buckets - of money on the plaintiffs, and rightly so.

Best of luck to those 38 lacrosse players and their families.

Anonymous said...

Why do I have this lingering concern that what we witnessed with DIW is soon to happen on a national scale following the upcoming Presidential campaign?

Call it ObamaNation.

I do have my doubts!

Anonymous said...

Peggy,

Thanks for your perspective...I was latching onto the comments in the chronical article that mention Brodhead's "leadership" and affirming his "Vision" for Duke.

Nan K basically stripped any social life out of Duke, removing any real fun or joy from the place. Now Brodhead seems to be looking to kill its soul and replcae it with smary PC politicos.

Any positive comments about his work make me sick.

I hope, however, that you are right that this was pro forma praise and that he is not getting the real benefits (contract extension, etc.) he would expect at this juncture.

ES Duke 1990

Debrah said...

You see, Obama can't win with those who want him to be a presidential candidate for just a segment of the country.

He's really quite brilliant in how he remains above it all.

This Tavis Smiley-organized event will be televised on cable and in past years I have watched it.

More often than not, it is a very polarizing orgy.

Obama is very wise to have declined the invitation.

Great move!

Anonymous said...

These guys can not even get the SANE - SANE in training part right or that Dr Manly did the exam. This will bite them in the nose, can't see a jury being sympathetic to these comlaints. Waiting for the depositions to "tell all".

Anonymous said...

K.C. writes:

"Duke’s response: “If these plaintiffs have a complaint, it is with Mr. Nifong.” This is, to put it mildly, a peculiar argument: it’s not clear to me how Nifong was responsible for Duke’s decision to allow its faculty and students to violate the University’s anti-harassment policy; or for Officer Day to rewrite his report; or for Duke’s failure to supervise Tara Levicy; or for Duke’s decision to supply federally protected student records to the police."

K.C., I think this falls into the "We don't need no stinkin' badges!" category. From what I can tell, there are people at Duke who believe they are above the law and above everyone else. Thus, they can do what they want, and they give everyone else the finger.

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, a lot of the mystery of this case was dissipated when I read the text of the lawsuit plus some comments over in Liestoppers.
It seems that the Chairman of the Duke BoDs was in the midst of his conformation for a cabinet post right as the publicity surrounding this case was taking off. He came to believe that his confirmation depended on avoiding any public appearance that Duke was siding with or helping in any way the very un-PC LAX kids. So he pushed for their persecution - as a way to rule out any hint of his Duke being supportive.
Of course Brodhead had his reasons for acting in the same way - the case of L. Sumners and his own proclivities - but he did not call the shots.
Everything else that happened at Duke was just another depressing example of how large groups of people can act in totally sadistic, irrational ways if the authority figures signal their approval.
The above story does not account, however, for what T. Levicy did. She needs to be seen as a free-lance, opportunistic focus of evil, all on her own. But many layers of management over her were clearly unwilling to cross their own higher-ups by doing the right thing.
The world would be a better place if heroism, or at least solid character, were more common.

Anonymous said...

It use to be my opinion that Duke had to settle the lawsuits since discovery would be to embarrassing for the university. Is this still the case? Will email et al finally see the light of day?

Jhn1 said...

Jim2, and others, Duke cannot settle.

Next will be the damaged class of all Duke white male nonLAX athletes as the faculty demonized them too. After that is the white male physically fit athletic appearing students who were mistaken for the Duke white male athletes.

Since the "corrective actions" were to lie about faculty actions punitive against students, and cover for those actions, and allow those actions to continue to occur, Duke has an extraordinarily large damaged class to either fight or make things right for.
And a minority of bad faculty that is vehemently supported by significant majority of the faculty.
Larry Summers found out how strong that combination is.
I expect Duke to badmouth the litigants until the wrong items are asked for during discovery, then try to settle with nondisclosure terms.
Again.
John

Anonymous said...

What a Complaint from the newest group of Plaintiffs. With these allegations the plaintiffs' lawyers have gone all the way out on the limb. Are the allegations true? By far the most incendiary set of allegations is that Duke aided Durham in narrowing the "suspect" pool with the student "key" information, and did so by violating the personal records law (FERPA); and then conspired with Nifong to lie to a Court in order to cover up the Duke/Durham complicity (by cooperating in a later sham subpoena exercise after Duke had already provided the private records to Durham); and also, that a local judge actually denied the subpoena request on the merits. These allegations, if substantial enough not to be summarily disproven by Duke, should preempt Duke's "It was all Nifong" defense and open up discovery in the case. If full discovery is to be allowed, and also if these allegations are not just substantial but in fact true, Duke will either have to pay whatever it takes to settle before discovery, or offer a tidal wave of resignations, a full admission of what happened, and of course some money. Better the latter. If a Duke/Durham complicity of this magnitude actually occurred, the whole story needs to be told or the situation only gets worse for the guilty. And for the University. Proof of aggressive complicity in these events by top University officials - especially a fraud upon a court - would leave the earlier story line of a rogue local prosecutor, some mean-spirited hard-left professors, and an ostensibly "weak" administration, an incidental footnote. These allegations are incendiary enough that, if proven, Duke will become a far less attractive school to many people in the future unless the current regime is removed. Plaintiffs' lawyers usually have no reason to file something so incendiary without the goods to back it up. They have a huge personal stake in being able to prove what they allege. Let the discovery begin and the truth come out. Duke Law - 25 years ago

Anonymous said...

Debrah inre: Tavis Smiley "polarizing orgy".

Quite by accident I happened upon Dick Gregory's part. He's one funny s.o.b. and did an excellent job. If you didn't catch it, I'm sure c-Span will be airing it again or have it on their web site.

I have neither the time, nor stomach for the balance of those presenting.

Anonymous said...

One wonders if Duke released their medical records...

A double, double of sorts...HIPAA and FERPA.

Anonymous said...

duke law - 25 years ago...a respectful suggestion for an edit

Change:
"Duke will become a far less attractive school to many people in the future unless the current regime is removed."

to:
Duke HAS become a far less attractive school to many people NOW AND the current regime MUST BE removed.

By the way I'm off to confer the Eagle Scout award to two young men. One wonders if any within the Klan of 88 have ever witnessed an Eagle Scout ceremony...

Anonymous said...

KC> thanks for resurfacing to keep us up todate. Thanks, Duke law 25 years, I hope it goes as you outlined as I have no doubt about the truth of the lawsuit. I do wonder though with everyone involved probably on high alert for possible lawsuits, that most if not all of the email and inter-department actions can be easily destroyed by Duke. I'm hoping they had enough evidence to go forward. At least they will spend some of the fortune Duke is sitting on and maybe a few high school applicants will be warned. Other schools should be taking notes.

Joey said...

I know this blog isn't directly about the presidential politics, but...just my 2 cents: I don't dislike Obama, but I don't think he has the capability to be President that either Clinton or McCain do. That said, again it's good to give credit where it's due and remember Obama was the ONLY Democrat candidate who even spoke up about the Duke case. (Edwards, right there in N.C., was useless).

Anonymous said...

Again, the decision to omit the lying stripper from this lawsuit as a party, while tactically sound (it removes most of the racial element), is disappointing.

The Left is now reaping what it sewed for years by its soft bigotry of low expectations, identity politics and above all, insertion of race in the place of fact and reason.

The way the media and the Left handled the Dook rape hoax is the perfect epilogue to the 1960's.

Clear eyed historians will be unmerciful.

Anonymous said...

Many of us had thought of Duke as an excellent university run by people with skill and integrity.
Brodhead and Steel and Duke: in a word, disgraceful.

Anonymous said...

Re: Tara Levicy
DUMC employee-in-training

“…Her undergraduate degree, from the University of Maine, came in women’s studies—the discipline that produced copious Group of 88 members, and home of feminist law theory, which contends that women never lie about rape.” (D-I-W)

IMO: Duke has operated a special room for sexual assault victims since 1999. That is quite a few years to have tweaked the system into at least competence. The Duke SANE program took part in the irreparable damage done to three innocent men.

What if this is not an isolated incident? What if radical feminists, and their talking vaginas, have commandeered some SANE units? How can they help prosecute rape cases at all with the likes of Levicy and her prejudgments? The malpractice insurance cost for these so-called experts might be more after this case.
--------------------
Flashback: Duke Med News 1999-
New Room in Duke Hospital Emergency Department Established for Care of Victims of Sexual Assault

Excerpts:

“With the specially trained nurses and new equipment, we're hoping to be able to [prosecute rape cases even more effectively."]

***“As part of their training, the nurses learn how to [provide expert testimony] for cases that make it to court.“
---------
(Oddly enough, when I rechecked the link below today, it was no longer active, after some seven years?)
http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=283

Jim in San Diego said...

To: Duke Law 25 years ago:

Isn't the most incendiary allegation that Duke employees actively sought to convict innocent Duke students by coercing Duke police to change evidence of their innocence?

Isn't this obstruction of justice?
Isn't this a crime? Isn't this a FELONY?

Where is the law Law School, ca 2006-2008? Why does it take Duke Law 25 years ago to speak out? What in the world is going on at Duke?

Just asking.

Jim Peterson

Anonymous said...

Duke University: You get what you DESERVE.

City of Durham: Doctor, Heal Thyself! (lol)

mac said...

For anyone wondering why the young men ought to be suing Duke...

It's already been imagined what would've happened if the accused and their teammates were of a different race. That analogy is well-worn, and clearly represented by past and present events.

But...
What would Duke and the Hoaxers do if the accused were young women, and protests with signs "rape" (instead of "castrate") were on display by loud, potbanging protesters? What if the women were subjected to daily harrassment by professors, called vile names by some students, had to literally escape campus, had their education put on hold, were declared guilty by the national news media, allowed to be openly threatened in a court of law, and humiliated by the national press hungry for a salacious story...?

What if a woman-hating, agenda-driven nurse or doctor provided the investigators a continually-changing narrative of the alleged injuries, each version changing to meet the context of the new versions of non-evidence?

What if the University Administration went into the private things of the students, their hallways, their rooms, their computers, and allowed the Durham Police Department illegal access to private living areas of the students?

Think this all would be a different story? What if these were daughters of Duke, and not sons?

Anonymous said...

There was something satisfying about reading this post. Seeing the same level of highly articulate attention to detail that we saw from the lawyers for the three young men is wonderful to see now in this suit. From reading this it seems highly likely that this suit will be successful and importantly that Duke will be publically exposed for its willingness to side with bigots and those trumpeting hateful sexist messages rather than side with the truth and their own students.

Thanks KC for posting this. I can't tell you how good it feels to read this.

river rat said...

Perhaps I WILL live long enough to see justice dealt with a heavy hand to Duke University, its Administration, its Board of Directors, the offending faculty and the city of Durham..

They all deserve to be whipped into a frenzy, rode hard and put away wet, bankrupt and publicly condemned..

In cases like this -- Justice MUST take on the "smell of revenge and victory" over the evil...

Anonymous said...

Hi Jim (in San Diego);
I agree with you wholeheartedly. First, I must say you add excellent commentary on your posts here and elsewhere. It's the obstructions of justice that are blaring here. If what is alleged in the civil suits is true, then, Tatra Levicy obstructed justice, Duke (with many individuals) obstructed justice, Durham investigators and police obstructed justice, and we all know Mr. Nifong obstructed justice. It seems you are a lawyer (I am not), however, I find it difficult to logically exclude Wes Covington from commiting some sort of ethical violation (Perhaps Dean Sue as well). I am assuming witness tampering also falls under the heading of obstruction of justice as well.
So, are some of these defendants still in legal jeopardy for these crimes? If so, can they claim the 5th on deposition in a civil proceeding ? This could slow the process down considerably?
Should we collectivley be writing the NC Attorney general demandng an investigation into these charges ??

Take Care
BDay MD (also in San Diego !!)

Jim in San Diego said...

To: BDay MD

I am a civil attorney, not a criminal attorney.

However, it is apparent this case badly needs a criminal investigation. That apparently will not happen. The only available jurisdiction for a criminal investigation appears to be Federal.

However, the current administration is unlikely to conduct an investigation in which a prime object of the investigation, Mr. Robert Steel, is a member of the administration. That would be politically embarassing, in an election year.

This is not a political commentary, as it would be true, I believe, of any administration. That is the way it is.

The picture of a dozen or so members of the current Duke administration taking the 5th Amendment for fear of criminal prosecution for their behavior towards their own students is one to look forward to.

Jim Peterson

Gary Packwood said...

KC Said,

...“The simple truth is that Brodhead and Duke were indifferent to the truth.” That’s perhaps the most powerful line in a lawsuit filed yesterday behalf of 38 of the unindicted lacrosse players and their families.
::
And two days this article appeared in the LA Times which speaks to that indifference to the truth or ever more importantly, the indifference to searching for the truth.
::
GP

L A T i m e s

What campus rape crisis?

Promiscuity and hype have created a phony epidemic at colleges.

By Heather Mac Donald

February 24, 2008

It's a lonely job, working the phones at a college rape crisis center. Day after day, you wait for the casualties to show up from the alleged campus rape epidemic -- but no one calls. Could this mean that the crisis is overblown? No. It means, according to campus sexual-assault organizations, that the abuse of coeds is worse than anyone had ever imagined. It means that consultants and counselors need more funding to persuade student rape victims to break the silence of their suffering.

It is a central claim of these organizations that between a fifth and a quarter of all college women will be raped or will be the targets of attempted rape by the end of their college years. Harvard's Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response uses the 20% to 25% statistic. Websites at New York University, Syracuse University, Penn State and the University of Virginia, among many other places, use the figures as well.

And who will be the assailants of these women? Not terrifying strangers who will grab them in dark alleys, but the guys sitting next to them in class or at the cafeteria.

If the one-in-four statistic is correct, campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No felony, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20% or 25%, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in the U.S., was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants -- a rate of 2.4%.

Such a crime wave -- in which millions of young women would graduate having suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience -- would require nothing less than a state of emergency. Admissions policies, which if the numbers are true are allowing in tens of thousands of vicious criminals, would require a complete revision, perhaps banning male students entirely. The nation's nearly 10 million female undergraduates would need to take the most stringent safety precautions.

None of this crisis response occurs, of course -- because the crisis doesn't exist.

So where do the numbers come from? During the 1980s, feminist researchers committed to the rape-culture theory discovered that asking women directly if they had been raped yielded disappointing results -- very few women said that they had been. So Ms. magazine commissioned University of Arizona public health professor Mary Koss to develop a different way to measure the prevalence of rape.

Rather than asking female students about rape per se, Koss asked them if they had ever experienced actions that she then classified as rape. One question, for example, asked, "Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?" -- a question that is ambiguous on several fronts, including the woman's degree of incapacitation, the causal relation between being given a drink and having sexual intercourse, and the man's intentions. Koss' method produced the 25% rate, which Ms. then published.

It was a flawed study on a number of levels, but the most powerful refutation came from her own subjects: 73% of the women whom the study characterized as rape victims told the researchers that they hadn't been raped. Further, 42% of the study's supposed victims said they had had intercourse again with their alleged assailants -- though it is highly unlikely that a raped woman would have sex again with the fiend who attacked her.

Despite all this, the numbers have stuck. Today, John Foubert, an education professor at William and Mary College (and founder of a group called One-in-Four, which works on sexual assault issues and has chapters on 17 campuses), says, "The one-in-four statistic has been replicated in several studies for several decades. To the extent that social science can prove anything, which I believe it can, the one-in-four statistic has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt. My instincts tell me that the statistic is actually much higher."

Yet subsequent campus rape studies keep turning up the pesky divergence between the victims' and the researchers' point of view.

A 2006 survey of sorority women at the University of Virginia, for example, found that only 23% of the subjects whom the survey characterized as rape victims felt that they had been raped -- a result that the university's director of sexual and domestic violence services calls "discouraging." Equally damning was a 2000 campus rape study conducted under the aegis of the Department of Justice. Sixty-five percent of those whom the researchers called "completed rape" victims and three-quarters of "attempted rape" victims said that they did not think that their experiences were "serious enough to report."

Believing in the campus rape epidemic, it turns out, requires ignoring women's own interpretations of their experiences.

Nevertheless, none of the weaknesses in the research has had the slightest drag on the campus "anti-rape" movement, because the movement is political, not empirical. In a rape culture, which "condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as a norm," sexual assault will wind up underreported, argued Carole Goldberg, the director of Yale's Sexual Harassment and Assault Resources and Education Center, in a March 2007 newsletter. Campus rape centers and 24-hour hotlines, aided by tens of millions of dollars of federal funding, are ubiquitous.

Needless to say, those facilities don't appear to get a tremendous amount of use. For example, Hillary Wing-Richards, the associate director of sexual-assault prevention at James Madison University, said the school's campus rape "help line" gets a varying number of calls, some of which are "request-for-information calls" -- where to go, who to talk to and the like.

"Some months there are 10 and others, one or two," she said.

Referring to rape hotlines, risk management consultant Brett Sokolow laments: "The problem is, on so many of our campuses, very few people ever call. And mostly we've resigned ourselves to the underutilization of these resources."

Federal law requires colleges to publish reported crimes affecting their students. The numbers of reported sexual assaults -- the law does not require their confirmation -- usually run under half a dozen a year on private campuses, and maybe two to three times that at large public universities.

So what reality does lie behind the rape hype? I believe that it's the booze-fueled hookup culture of one-night, or sometimes just partial-night, stands. Students in the '60s demanded that college administrators stop setting rules for fraternization. The colleges meekly complied and opened a Pandora's box of boorish, promiscuous behavior that gets cruder each year.

This culture has been written about widely. College women -- as well as men -- reportedly drink heavily before and during parties. For the women, that drinking is often goal-oriented, suggests Karin Agness, a recent University of Virginia graduate and founder of NeW, a club for conservative university women: It frees the drinker from responsibility and "provides an excuse for engaging in behavior that she ordinarily wouldn't." Nights can include a meaningless sexual encounter with a guy whom the girl may not even know.

In all these drunken couplings, there may be some deplorable instances of forced and truly non-consensual sex. But most campus "rape" cases exist in the gray area of seeming cooperation and tacit consent, which is why they are almost never prosecuted criminally.

"Ninety-nine percent of all college rape cases would be thrown out of court in a twinkling," observes University of Pennsylvania history professor Alan Kors.

Many students hold on to the view that women usually have the power to determine whether a campus social event ends with intercourse. A female Rutgers student expressed a common sentiment in a university sexual-assault survey: "When we go out to parties and I see girls and the way they dress and the way they act ... and just the way they are, under the influence and um, then they like accuse them of like, 'Oh yeah, my boyfriend did this to me' or whatever, I honestly always think it's their fault."

But suggest to a rape bureaucrat that female students share responsibility for the outcome of an evening and that greater sexual restraint would prevent campus "rape," and you might as well be saying that women should don the burka.

College officials have responded to the fallout of the college sexual revolution not with sound advice but with bizarre and anachronistic legalisms for responding to postcoital second thoughts.

University of Virginia students, for example, may demand a formal adjudication before the Sexual Assault Board; they can request a "structured meeting" with the Office of the Dean of Students by filing a formal complaint; or they can seek voluntary mediation.

Risk-management consultants travel the country to help colleges craft legal rules for student sexual congress.

"If one partner puts a condom on the other, does that signify that they are consenting to intercourse?" asks Alan D. Berkowitz, a campus rape consultant. Short of guiding the thus-sheathed instrumentality to port, it's hard to imagine a clearer signal of consent, although Berkowitz apparently finds it "inherently ambiguous."

And even as the campus rape industry decries alleged male predation, a parallel campus sex bureaucracy sends the message that students should have recreational sex at every opportunity.

New York University offers workshops on orgasms and "Sex Toys for Safer Sex" ("an evening with rubber, silicone and vibrating toys") in residence halls and various student clubs. Brown University's Student Services helps students answer the compelling question: "How can I bring sex toys into my relationship?" Princeton University's "Safer Sex Jeopardy" game for freshmen lists six types of vibrators and eight kinds of penile toys.

Why, exactly, are schools offering workshops on orgasms? Are students already so saturated with knowledge of the evolution of constitutional democracy, say, that colleges should reroute their resources to matters available on porn websites?

Remarkably, many students emerge from this farrago of mixed messages with common sense intact.

In a November column in the University of Virginia's student newspaper, a third-year student gave the real scoop on frat parties: They're filled with men hoping to have sex. Rather than calling these men "rapists," columnist Katelyn Kiley offered some practical wisdom to the women trooping off to Virginia's fraternity row:

"It's probably a good idea to keep your clothes on, and at the end of the night, to go home to your own bed. Interestingly enough, that's how you get [the guys] to keep asking you back."

Maybe such young iconoclasts can take up another discredited idea: College is for learning. Fighting male dominance or catering to the libidinal impulses released in the 1960s are sorry substitutes for the pursuit of knowledge.

Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor of City Journal, from which this is adapted.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-opmac_donald24feb24,0,4173776.story?page=1

From the Los Angeles Times

Debrah said...

TO NJNP--

Yes, I did have on C-SPAN in the background and I saw and heard snippets of that program.

Tavis Smiley is an overall nice guy. I sometimes enjoy his show on PBS and the guests he has on; however, without fail, people who show up for this particular event behave like loons.

As I said, it reminds me of an orgy where everyone is massaging one another with the same old rhetoric that is now many decades old.

I guess you could say that Dick Gregory is funny. He used to be.

I was busy doing several things around here at once so I just heard bits of his talk. What I did hear was gross.

He was making excuses for black crime by saying that chemicals were being put into soft drinks and other kinds of liquids....which he alleged caused the aggressive behavior.

He further cited a community in Australia--(making a HUGE deal that the people there were "white") LOL!!!--with a high crime rate. Supposedly high levels of magnesium are in that location.

Then I just went into another room and tuned out.

Big Hillary was there....with her lapdog Sheila Jackson Lee.

Obama knows that he doesn't have to play their game. He's got support from all over the country from every group in existence.

Unknown said...

To Duke Law - 25 years ago:

I admit to having sympathies with the players and families in this lawsuit, but when I read the allegations about the key card subpoena, I got this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yes, indeed, this in incendiary! In my heart of hearts, as a Duke alum and current Duke parent, I really hope it is not true.

What has the repeated lesson been from many of the major scandals of the last 35 years? The coverup is always worse than the crime (or alleged crime)! Why can't those in positions of responsibility learn this, and face the (unpleasant) truth from the get go?

Not being a lawyer, it is hard for me to judge whether carrying on through the motions of responding to a meaningless subpoena would constitute a "fraud upon the court", but I can't believe judges who took so unkindly to Nifong's fraud upon the court when he lied to the judge's direct question that he had turned over everything, would have any less patience with this situation. Is this something for the NC Bar to investigate?

"A Duke/Durham complicity of this magnitude" or "proof of aggressive complicity in these events by top University officials" would be a set of facts that would equal (perhaps not overshadow as you suggest) the ethical failings of Nifong.

I do think this is explosive stuff. Any Duke Trustee reading the suit would have to think that this specific allegation - if there are any shreds of truth to any of the details that make it up - needs a careful review and understanding of who knew what when, and how the decisions were made that led to Duke's legal actions.

Maybe the plaintiffs' attorneys have gone way over the top with this one. It doesn't seem like 38 players and a number of their parents - many of whom dearly love Duke - would sign on to something like this if it was just a throwaway designed to squeeze the defendants. We need to presume that there is a reasonable explanation here, and not rush to judgment on this one. I hope we hear one, soon. The other thing we have learned about coverups is that they only get worse for everyone, the more they are prolonged.

Duke 30 years ago

Anonymous said...

Thanks to all for responses to earlier post. Read paragraphs 324-330 and 433-443 of the Complaint at www.dukelawsuit.com. (Parts 4 of 6, and 5 of 6, in pdf files) It is all devastating to Duke if true. You have Duke officials writing the players to tell them about the (sham) subpoena request, to "give them a chance to respond" (which the players' lawyers successfully did at a court hearing), without disclosing the earlier secret release of the info by Duke to Durham. In paragraph 441, you even have an allegation that Duke's own lawyers were present in the audience at the court hearing when Nifong strenuously and unsuccessfully argued for the subpoenas in an attempt to cover up the earlier illegal release of the private information. If para. 441 is true -- the high probability is that the presence of Dukes's own lawyers means some if not all of Duke's highest officials knew about what paragraph 441 describes as the "fraud on the court."

Hence my two main points from the earlier post if the plaintiffs' allegations hold up:

1. Duke's defense that it was "all Nifong" is eviscerated. Any honest judge will open up full discovery to Plaintiffs.

2. In the real world unscrupulous prosecutors, mean hard-left professors, and merely weak University administrations are, regrettably, common enough. However, top officials of a top University purposefully complicit if not outright conspiratorial with a prosecutor in a serious corruption of the criminal process or possibly even obstruction of justice, is not.

Duke Law - 25 years ago

Anonymous said...

The other repeated lesson about conspiracy and frames is that they are a secret for less than 24 hours - then someone starts to talk. In this case, in spite of the blog predictions, none of the Current Defendents have turned on each other. This thing took off like a snowball down a hill and just kept increasing its momentum -fueled by the Fong. I do think Brodhead and Steel need to resign -for the good of Duke. There are lots of bads here, all around, However, Brodhead refusing to meet with the parents shows such lack of character on his part. For that alone, he should be punished.

Anonymous said...

Applications are up because of the Common Application for Undergraduate College Admissions. Instead of filling out 15 different applications, high-school seniors can now apply to many different member schools, including Duke, at once using this application. Check out their member list...it's pretty impressive.

https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Members.aspx

Anonymous said...

To Duke 30 years ago.
I can tell that you are new to this story. You still want to believe that the leadership of a proud, elite American University would never behave like a gang of drunken used-car salesmen.
Those of us who have grown accustomed to the darkness in this room long ago accepted that the folks who orchestrated this nightmare have more in common with reptiles than warm blooded creatures. Welcome to the land of the Lizard-People.

Anonymous said...

The university hid the exculpatory Day report.
The university hid the fact that it had breached FERPA by releasing key card usage data to the police, probably making this evidence inadmissible.
So there was a wall of silence after all, but not the one the potbangers are thinking about.

Unknown said...

To Duke Law - 25 years ago...

Thanks for the reply back.

Like I said, IF the allegations are true - and that is a BIG IF that we have to reserve conclusion on, like all coverups, it becomes a "who knew what when" question, as I suggested in my earlier post. You say there is a high probability that some if not all of Duke's highest officials knew about all this.

So you then start asking (IF TRUE), how high up did it go? It is hard to imagine low level officials "flying alone" on this one. Did Drummond or others provide the key card data to Durham Police without at first realizing the implications, and then keep it a secret from other Duke officials. If non-lawyers up the chain of command were advised of the whole situation as alleged, what did they say? Did they rely on the in-house lawyers? Did it get kicked up to Steel - did he take everyone off the hook? Subpoenas are serious stuff. Can Duke say we don't have a dog in this hunt and stay silent? If somebody gave me that advice, I would damn sure want it in writing and have somebody outside the fray back it up, so I could wave it at an angry judge.

What is really hard to fathom is that in July – a long time after the firestorm had blown through - you would get into bed with Nifong. It was pretty obvious he was cutting every corner (e.g. his lineups - very public information) and on shaking ethical grounds for his media behavior. Why enable him on this one? It does not make sense....

Lots of "if's" and a variety of plausible scenarios could be developed. If I was an insider knowledgeable about any of this, I would be speaking with my own attorney, and checking the terms of the D&O coverage. I would find someone with the insight and judgment of you or one of your classmates to represent me!

Duke 30 years ago

Anonymous said...

K.C., I think this falls into the "We don't need no stinkin' badges!" category. From what I can tell, there are people at Duke who believe they are above the law and above everyone else. Thus, they can do what they want, and they give everyone else the finger.

So far nothing has happened to disprove that belief.

Any honest judge will open up full discovery to Plaintiffs.

Unfortunately, although this is being tried in Federal court, int that circuit there is a good chance that the trial will be held in front of a former North Carolina judge.