Thursday, June 11, 2009

The CCI: Summer 2006

During summer 2006, the CCI’s four subcommittees went to work. The initiative’s directors, Bob Thompson and Larry Moneta, made no pretense of balance in selecting subcommittee chairs, instead handing three of the four over to figures on the extremist fringe of discourse about the lacrosse case:

  • Karla Holloway chaired the race subcommittee, just as she was analyzing the case through a take-no-prisoners lens: “White innocence means black guilt. Men’s innocence means women’s guilt.”
  • Anne Allison, partner of Charlie Piot and co-chair of the gender/sexuality committee, had a long record as a campus “activist” and was in the process of developing a course that essentially called for Duke students to dig up dirt on athletes and fraternity members.
  • Peter Wood, who chaired the athletics subcommittee, already had been discredited by the Coleman Committee report, and during the summer preposterously asserted to the New Yorker that a lacrosse player had advocated genocide against Native Americans. (When pressed for evidence, Wood could only supply an anonymous student evaluation form from a class in which 55 of the 65 students weren’t lacrosse players.) No record exists of his being disciplined for making such an accusation against specific Duke students.

With such a lineup, it was little surprise that the three subcommittees explored the fringes of campus thought. The Wood Subcommittee appears to have been a disaster. Wood proposed draft topics that sounded as if they were built for Swarthmore rather than Duke. For instance, he wanted the CCI to explore “how do we balance varsity sports, club sports, and general community fitness(!).”

When his subcommittee members (which included a token representative from the Athletic Department) refused to support his agenda, Wood simply ignored them, and tried to present his ideas as consensus ones to the CCI as a whole. The resulting fiasco led to a change in reporting procedure to avoid putting on the spot any of Wood's fellow subcommittee chairs.

The refusal of Thompson and Moneta to replace Wood ultimately would backfire, although that wouldn’t become clear until much later.

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

While Wood was busy trying to use the CCI to transform Duke into a Division III liberal arts college, the other two subcommittees focused on pushing through an extreme version of the race/class/gender agenda that animated the Group of 88.

Holloway’s race subcommittee began “with the presumption that issues associated with race, color, and culture on this campus do not extend from minority groups, but from the ethos represented in the larger campus community regarding race and culture.” In other words, those who believed that problems in campus culture didn’t come from the racist or sexist behavior of white students in general and white male students in particular had no place in the CCI.

At the subcommittee’s first meeting, on June 22, 2006 (subcommittee members were assigned Nikki Giovanni’s Racism 101 by their chairwoman), Holloway identified four key subissues that she wanted to influence: Duke’s admission policy, the University’s curriculum, regulations regarding student behavior, and the composition of the faculty. In each, she championed an extremist agenda.

On admissions, Holloway framed the issue bluntly: “Can we influence admissions decisions on the types of students Duke recruits and admits, and how readers are reviewing applicants?”

In other words, the Duke student body didn’t seem terribly receptive to the Group of 88’s race/class/gender agenda. But, in Holloway’s mind, the problem wasn’t the unpersuasiveness of the Group’s ideas, it was the composition of the student body. As deliberations proceeded throughout the summer, the Holloway cohort became especially concerned with the admissions office’s tendency to look for “well-rounded” students. Such admittees didn’t fit the Group of 88’s desired profile.

On the curriculum, the Holloway subcommittee desired a “focused course” on diversity that would require all students at Duke to take a course in U.S. diversity. This idea would appear in the CCI’s final report, where it amounted to a Group of 88 Enrollment Initiative.

On student regulations, Holloway was at her most Orwellian. She wanted a “change in a student code of conduct with penalties for conduct that is racially denigrating.” This proposal—which was extreme even for the extremists on the CCI—would have chilled free speech on campus. For instance, an affirmative action bake sale (a common method of student groups to protest racial preferences in the admissions process) is doubtless an event that Holloway and other members of the Group of 88 would interpret as “racially denigrating.” Under her proposal, then, participants in such a protest—a protest addressing a very controversial political issue on which both sides have sincerely held opinions—would have been punished by a student code of conduct.

The Holloway subcommittee also expressed a concern about what it called the “growing problem of cultural ignorance of white students and submerged, silent racism.” The suggestion that ignorance about racial issues is a “growing problem” among college students is belied by virtually every public opinion poll on the subject; the remark only showed that Holloway and her cohort were living in a fantasy world.

Holloway framed the issue in an extraordinarily condescending fashion. The subcommittee needed to address the question of “what does culture mean to someone who is white? Do white students spend time thinking about culture, identity?” Imagine the (appropriate) condemnation if a committee with prominent faculty at an elite university pondered as an agenda item, “Do black students spend time thinking about culture?”

On the faculty, internal deliberations of the Holloway Subcommittee showed a keen interest in exploiting the lacrosse crisis to change Duke’s personnel policies. Subcommittee members detected the need for “a particular initiative regarding a racially diverse faculty and administration,” per the recommendations of the Bowen/Chambers Committee. They also detected a need to confront the question, “Does the teaching faculty’s diversity indicate an administrative interest in and respect for diversity?” The answer, clearly, was no.

Despite her work, Holloway complained that “we’re in the business of trying to fix things and then other people [are] saying things that undermine the message.” (That, of course, is what occurs on a campus that actually values academic freedom and diversity of opinion.) She was particularly upset with a late June 2006 Sports Illustrated article that presented Coach Mike Pressler in a somewhat sympathetic light. Such reports, she realized, would weaken any chance to exploit the case to revolutionize Duke along the model preferred by the Group of 88.

Holloway’s initiatives laid a foundation for CCI meetings with various minority student groups, which occurred in September and October 2006. Usually, these hand-picked groups gave the victimization responses that CCI members desired. CCI records have one such group spinning a wild tale that male students at Duke “tend to travel in a mob and throw alcohol on others who are not drunk (!!).” A female student group demanded that Duke hire more female professors, or “people who look like us teaching in the classroom.” Members of a black student organization sneered that the Student Government and the Chronicle were “an excellent example of an institution by and for the majority culture.”

Occasionally, however, minority student groups got off-message. After a meeting with Asian-American students, the CCI notes recorded “some resentment that despite being the largest underrepresented group of color our existence and issues appear to be eliminated from current discussions.” That was something the CCI didn’t seem to want to hear: like the fleeting concern with Jewish students, Asian-Americans--who, after all, had on average the best scores of any group of applicants to Duke, and therefore stood to lose the most from the racial preferences scheme that Holloway championed--were the forgotten minority for the politically correct CCI leaders.

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

Like the Holloway panel, Anne Allison’s gender and sexuality subcommittee also operated from a “working hypothesis”: that “Duke’s gendered culture is, in no small part, derived from a fundamental lack of respect, fueled by a mix of insecurity, dis-empowerment, and alcohol.”

Translation: Most male students at Duke are sexists.

And like Holloway, the subcommittee targeted the admissions process, detected the need to “reconsider admissions strategy and focus less on the ‘well-rounded.’” At least in the material preserved in the CCI records, neither Holloway, nor Allison, nor any of their allies ever said explicitly what was wrong with seeking “well-rounded” students.

Nonetheless, Allison understood that she needed to work with the student body as it then existed. To create the fiction that the recommendations on changing admissions standards were responding to widespread beliefs around the campus, the CCI commissioned a poll of the Duke student body. But some students were more equal than others: more than 60% of those surveyed in the CCI poll were women, and nearly three-quarters of the respondents were female.

Wildly skewed questions produced meaningless data that nonetheless conformed to the desired results. For instance, the CCI asked questions such as “How important is it to you that there are Black [cap. in original] faculty at Duke?” and “How important is it for the curriculum to offer courses on race and ethnicity?” Unsurprisingly, huge majorities deemed both to be “very important.”

Allison’s beliefs received a strong endorsement from Robyn Wiegman, head of the Duke Women’s Center (and best-known in the lacrosse case for her savage, misleading attack on Steve Baldwin after he criticized the Group of 88). Wiegman, one of the few faculty members to receive an individual meeting with the CCI, demanded that the initiative work to “bring interrogation of social world into the curriculum.”

Even as the case that spawned the CCI collapsed, the race/class/gender ideology that Wiegman, Holloway, Allison and their allies so ardently championed remained unaffected. Monday’s post will examine the CCI’s final months.

62 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holloway is nuts!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Aren't all of these measures slowly taking shape under the Brodhead/Holloway co-presidency? Spineless Richard realized that he couldn't do them all at once, and that (probably more than anything) drove Holloway to quit the CCI, but they're all coming true inch-by-inch.

Anonymous said...

These people shouldn't be in charge of a lunch-time back-alley craps game.

Anonymous said...

Good stuff, KC. You're on target.

Walter Abbott

Anonymous said...

Is Wood a Communist?

Anonymous said...

Does anyone on the Duke University Board of Tustees(other than Brodhead and Steel) know about these cell meetings designed to recommend radical changes to the university? Let's see 1)Tell the Admissions officers specifically who to select and reject based on economic status, sex and ethnicity, 2) force all students to be endoctrinated in a specific political view of America espoused by the G88 and its culture of hatred 3) change the curriculum to emphasize race, gender and equity studies in greater balance when compared to pre-med, pre-law, business, etc and 4) change Duke's athletic programs to those preferred by the G88 and Peter Wood.

Holy cow!!!

Can't wait for the next installment by Professor Johnson. The activities of the CCI sound like a poorly written , third-rate film, made for late night viewing on HBO.

My money says that the Board of Trustees was NEVER advised of these activities brewing hatred and dissent on its campus with the the encouragement and support of Dickie Brodhead and Bobby Steel.

I'd like to see Dickie Brodhead send out the notes and minutes of these meetings in one of his expensive "Development" packages to Alumni and major Corporations requesting financial support od Duke. That surely would produce massive philanthropy.LOL

Anonymous said...

I am trying to reconcile some of the recent posts and comments about Duke and the CCI with the recommendations that CCI made.

It would seem to me that the recommendation about increasing the lower end of admissions standards for athletes got the most negative attention. However if I recall the committee also recommended increasing the lower end of admissions for non-athletes. I don't remember there being an exception in this lower end for minority admissions.

Instead they recommended Duke be more aggressive in the recruitment of under-represented student groups at the high end of standards. It is true that a "well-rounded student" exception is not there but I would imagine that would eliminate some under-represented students as well.

I would agree that some of the other recommendations regarding athletics are poorly thought out as well as some of the housing and alcohol conclusions. The report as a whole would seem to have been given a collective "whatever" by just about everyone.

Perhaps some of the conclusions and recommendations could be considered taking advantage of the situation in order to increase diversity within the faculty but I don't see it that way as far as the student body goes.

William L. Anderson said...

K.C., if nothing else, you have done us a service by exposing the larger agenda of these people. What they wanted was to create a Duke University that would be so oppressive to people the G88 did not like (for reasons of race and sex) that either students would be driven from Duke (to be replaced by people of "proper" backgrounds) or who would be browbeaten into submission.

If you know the history of the "re-education camps" of the old communist era, you will better understand what these faculty members wanted to do. One reason they latched onto the lacrosse sham was that it gave them their excuse to "storm the Winter Palace." This was their moment, but to their horror, the facts of the lacrosse case were coming to light.

Don't ever forget that this endeavor might have had much more "success" had Reade, Collin, and David been found guilty. For all of their protestations otherwise, helping Nifong railroad a guilty verdict was front-and-center to their plans. That was why they resisted the truth in the case, and that was why Karla Holloway threw that fit when Brodhead permitted Reade and Collin to come back to Duke.

After all, as Holloway had written, "white innocence means black guilt." She really meant it.

William L. Anderson said...

As regarding the BOT, my sense is that they did not care. Most boards are self-perpetuating and they are filled with hordes of "yes" men and women. If they are active, it usually is to promote a certain agenda.

Certainly, demonstrating that Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans were not guilty was not on the agenda of anyone at Duke who mattered.

For all of the emphasis on "justice" that we hear from some members of the Duke faculty, they were actively promoting as great an injustice as could exist there. Don't ever forget that they WANTED a guilty verdict, as it would make their job of turning Duke into a re-education camp much easier.

I am sure that they were raging every time more information came forward that demonstrated that this was a hoax and a frame. They were not raging at their Hero Nifong, but rather raging at those people who dared -- dared -- point out the truth in this sorry case.

Anonymous said...

At a school I once taught at there was a diversity or world perspective or culture course requirement - at first this great for some of us in the social sciences (as professors we didn't have a say in the requirement - it was just made by the powers that be) as a couple of my classes met this requirement and your classes (and by extention you) become very sought after.

This obviously angered other profs as they tried to fill classes, so profs from other fields started to argue that classes such as music appreciation (really it could be any course) touches on other cultures, either as is or they would add a week of something related to culture to support their position.

I did not blame them at all - the admin was not is a good place to agrue that the music appreciation (or any other course) didn't meet this requirement as the ideas of diversity and culture are so broad.

So more and more classes get added to the list that fill the requirement. Well, some of the profs that once benefited from this requirement are now wondering how/if some of these course really address diversity/culture and they are mad... In the end you ended up with a huge list of classes and no one was really happy.

I will add, unlike Duke - the profs at my school had very little say, the president had the power and had an agenda - we were along for the ride.

Debrah said...

Reading this is so eerie.

Remembering Holloway's voice---slow, deliberate, and soft---I can just hear her as I read these CCI directives.

When you are actually with most of these people they are so nondescript.

Certainly not threatening.

None are very interesting or possess any degree of charisma.

A lot of the Gang of 88 are not without intelligence and certainly could have something worthwhile to offer students, but they are living in a fantasy world.

Fantasy world is exactly how to phrase this horror which is both comical as well as frightening.

Is the phrase "majority culture" still in use?

I remember that from the 1980's.

It was goofy then, and it's goofy now.

Anonymous said...

You gotta wonder how Coach K survives in this radical PC environment?

Michael said...

Does Duke currently require diversity courses in the core curriculum? Is the US diversity (proposed) course in addition to others or is it an option?

The current state of the economy has a lot of prospective college students and their parents looking at practical majors and we may see a drop in enrollments in the humanities in the future.

miramar said...

It seems that the members of the different committees took it upon themselves to attempt to change the undergraduate curriculum, university admissions policies, intercollegiate athletics, student conduct, faculty hiring policies, undergraduate housing, and student government. The CCI appears to have been little more than an academic putsch, so it is little wonder that even Brodhead had to disavow or at least ignore his own initiative.

The activities of the CCI are also significant because they indicate that that the attitudes of these fringe faculty members do not reflect the attitudes of the university as a whole, something that Brodhead should have recognized from the beginning. Unfortunately, I expect that after the failure of the CCI, these professors will conclude that their agenda is more important than ever. I certainly would not expect them to realize that they were misguided or foolish.

Anonymous said...

Michael said...

"The current state of the economy has a lot of prospective college students and their parents looking at practical majors and we may see a drop in enrollments in the humanities in the future."

Many more Duke undergrads in Arts and Sciences major in Economics than major in anything else. Between Economics and Biology, the fraction of such majors and second majors is around 40-50%.

Gary Packwood said...

KC said...

...Anne Allison, partner of Charlie Piot and co-chair of the gender/sexuality committee, had a long record as a campus “activist” and was in the process of developing a course that essentially called for Duke students to dig up dirt on athletes and fraternity members.
::
How about a peak at Professor Allison's 2006 course summary for Introduction to Cultural Anthropology so we can see how young Duke students are trapped from day # 1.
::
http://tinyurl.com/Duke-Culture

QUOTE:
What is culture, and how does it determine our everyday lives?
::
HOW does IT determine our EVERDAY lives?

I.T.?

Is IT responsible for the grade of 'D' I was given (not earned) last semester; the number of classes I failed to attend along with my lack of a part-time job because I never applied for a part-time job?
::
QUOTING AGAIN:
Students will read works by anthropologists, and they will also be asked to examine other texts (Hollywood films, religious holidays, and Duke sporting events) from anthropological perspectives.
::
Duke Sporting Events?

Oh yes, we just talked about privileged white males in my other courses taught by Professors Holloway and Wood.
::
Pure indoctrination said over and over and over to Duke youngsters by professors they were taught to trust.

If I was a member of the Duke men's lacrosse team, I would help organize an I.T. party just to annoy these silly people.
::
GP

Anonymous said...

Yes, I agree with Bill Anderson that many university Boards of Trustees are populated with "Yes" men and momen who dare not ask tough questions for fear of losing their long sought after positions. Nonetheless, Boards of Trustees are to approve policy, direction, purpose and etc. recommended by its CEO. and the Duke Board, as well as Steel and Brodhead (and his henchmen and women) should be held accountable . For example: the specific votes(by each Board member) on these decisions should be published to the Duke community.I'd love to see Board of Turstee minutes where Dickie Brodhead explained why he needed to pay his attornys in excess od $50 million and who among the Board voted to approve that stupid decision. decision.

Perhaps in Duke's case, folks like Rick Waggoner, John Mack, Bobby Steel(all of whom are current candidates for the Hall of Shame for their dubious and potentially illegal business ethics and practices), family legacies(Mrs Mary D.B.T.Semans and children) and representatives of any company orfamily that donates in excess of $1 million) do not have the backbone to redirect this ship that has gone terribly off course.

In the case of GM and Bank of America, it took the drastic steps of replacing CEOs and Board members before these companies began to turn down their arrogance.

Michael said...

My son has to take 1 diversity course and 1 ethics/diversity course for his science/engineering major so I don't think that having to take one or 1.5 diversity courses is that uncommon. I think that I'd prefer no diversity courses but the barn door is already open.

Anonymous said...

"Holloway’s race subcommittee began 'with the presumption that issues associated with race, color, and culture on this campus do not extend from minority groups, but from the ethos represented in the larger campus community regarding race and culture.'"

Why didn't she just say: "They made me be a racist"? It would have been shorter and clearer.

The push to create tribalism on campus started with Nan (the radical feminist) Keohane and has continued under the feckless Broadhead. It will not change until we get a leadership that rejects tribalism on principle.

"The Holloway subcommittee also expressed a concern about what it called the 'growing problem of cultural ignorance of white students and submerged, silent racism.'"

This is the sort of "logic" behind Inquisitions and Witch Trials. We start with the premise that you're a heretic. The only question to resolve is the degree of your punishment. If you admit your "crimes," you spend the rest of your life in jail. If you deny them, we burn you at the stake.

It is amazing the sorts of "crimes" one can allege when one is allowed to make arbitrary assertions about all individuals in a group.

Duke Prof

a Nice NJ Guy said...

Interesting points on Diversity of Faculty and Student Body.

Is there any distinction between "Diversity" and "Quota" or "Goal" ?

Presumably, it will be necessary to denounce Martin Luther King, Jr., as Diversity can't handle people who will

. "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character"

Better forget the Dream, Martin.

We can easily imagine the Gang88'er minions screaming, "Down with MLK, Diversity Forever."

---

http://www.mlkonline.net/dream.html

Michael said...

What percentage of A&S are the race majors?

Debrah said...

I have on the live coverage of the John Hope and Aurelia Franklin memorial service at Duke Chapel.

Just seeing tidbits, in the beginning Vernon Jordan and Bill Clinton were standing in an area off the altar/stage and Brodhead was there standing behind them with a boyish, sheepish grin as if he's a kid in a candy store.

I'm sure most of the Gang of 88 are there somewhere.

The audience is overwhelmingly a black one; however, all the requisite administrators and faculty from Triangle universities seem to be on hand.

The arrogant smirk of Robert Steel could be seen in the audience alongside Erskine Bowles, president of the UNC system.

Debrah said...

Bill Clinton is finally wrapping it up after a long and winding list of people......Thavolia Glymph, David Lewis Levering, Evelyn Higginbotham from Harvard, Brodhead, who is always nervous and tentative, Vernon Jordan whose talk was more like a sermon, Mary Semans with her tedious and overwrought exaggerations and hyperbole, and many family members and friends.

You gotta love old Bill Clinton.

He's a phony from the word "go" who is an expert in presenting himself as sincere in every way.

Even though you know he's a creep, he is funny and entertaining on occasion.

He knows exactly what to say and exactly how to gesture so that he's a hit in such an atmosphere.

Even though he was supposedly recalling his friendship with JHF, much of Clinton's remarks wound up being about himself and his presidency.

He recalled when he gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to JHF in 1995 and in 1997 appointed him as the chair of his "Race Initiative"---(not exactly a rousing success, IIRC)---and he actually claimed that this initiative helped set the stage for electing America's first black president in 2008.

What total absurdity!

In any case, Duke Chapel was filled with abundance today.

Gary Packwood said...

miramar 6/11/09 :: 9:32 AM and Duke Prof 6/11/09 :: 10:50 AM said...

...The CCI appears to have been little more than an academic putsch...

...The push to create tribalism on campus started with Nan (the radical feminist) Keohane and has continued under the feckless Broadhead. It will not change until we get a leadership that rejects tribalism on principle.
::
The concepts of 'Tribalism' and 'Putsch' just don't seem appropriate for an IRS approved and audited charitable organization. Or at least they seem more appropriate for a Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO).

Are 'Tribal' and 'Putsch' activities audited through the Duke University Special Ventures Fund, Inc....perhaps? The most recent IRS 990 on file is for FY 2007. Odd, that!

www.guidestar.org

Just exactly what do 'Tribal' and 'Putsch' activities have to do with the APPROVED mission of a IRS approved charitable organization?

And just how many people in Durham have been asking the same question for the last decade or so?
::
GP

No justice, no peace said...

Inre: "Is Wood a Communist?"

"...But Guevara's most notable role was as Castro's button-man, presiding over trials and executions not unlike those held after other revolutions in France, Russia and elsewhere. In an article published in February, Cuban-American writer Humberto Fontova noted that, depending on the source, Guevara ordered between 500 and "several thousand" executions during the first few years of the new regime.

"Equally important," Fontova wrote, "his massacre cowed and terrorized. There were all public trials. And the executions, right down to the final shattering of the skull with the coup de grace from a massive .45 slug fired at five paces, were public, too. Guevara made it a policy for his men to parade the families and friends of the executed before the blood-, bone- and brain-spattered paredon," or wall.

No amount of glorification or revisionist history — whether by some misinformed college kid, who maybe doesn't know better, or a Hollywood elite like Robert Redford, who should — can remove the blood from Guevara's rightful legacy..."

"..Rivero, Cuba's leading independent journalist, was arrested on March 18, 2003, as part of a crackdown on about 80 alleged dissidents. Rivero and others had signed an open letter to the government calling for more openness and freedom in Cuba. In a secret one-day trial, he was convicted of assorted "subversions," including collusion with the United States, and sentenced to 20 years in prison..."

-Marc R. Masferrer

The CCI would operate like communists regarding dissent, so you tell me, is he? More likely he is a progressive who neither has the stones to acknowledge that he is a communist, nor has yet learned to fire a .45.

Regardless he is a fraud. Read "The Rape of the Masters" to learn about his metanarrative regarding Homer's painting "The Gulf Stream". His take is complete fiction geared to deconstruct. One wonders how well received dissent is in his class?

af said...

Are these people Communists? The question, no doubt, was asked tongue in cheek but, in point of fact, should be seriously analyzed. The country is taking a fast track toward socialism. Funny that the government can overtake banks, auto dealers, and, coming soon to an office near you, health care but cannot get a handle on the lunacy which has become Duke. These nuts have such a severe case of tunnel vision that any thought that doesn't perfectly align with their agenda is hate speech.
Why don't these people teach--I mean really teach, facts rather than ideologies? Universities, not diversities. Opinions are only allowed if they fit the r/c/g agenda.
I can only hope that the LAX men are getting on with their lives and can, one day, be known for things other than for the lies of a psychopathic nymph.
Come to think of it, maybe that's what's wrong with some of these feminists. That's a topic for another day.
Culture Initiative. Right. The only culture that interests these activists is that of robotic feminists and racists. Should they be taken seriously? Only as seriously as they are willing to be open-minded. Oops, that leaves them out.

William L. Anderson said...

Why did Karla Holloway demand that students be punished according to a draconian student code, but then continues to insist (along with the Duke administration) that faculty members don't have to abide by the faculty code.

I guess Holloway really does believe in two-tiered societies -- as long as she gets to be in the "first" tier.

Debrah said...

Anne Allison seems to have a very strange teaching career.

She's listed as being on leave 2008-9.

And I can't believe the subject matter she chose for the "books" she's written.

Apparently, she wrote one on the hostess clubs of Japan after having worked in one.

Huh?

Has Allison ever really experienced Japanese culture for any length of time and in an authentic way?

Hostess clubs in Tokyo employ a lot of foreign women as well as Japanese women.

Allison wants to create a sexist, sinister patina....and be a new version of Gloria Steinem by working in one the way Steinem worked as a Playboy bunny way back when, and then later did a story on the experience.

LOL!!!

This goes to show that if a Gang of 88-er can't find enough sexism in the States, they will go anywhere on earth to get some material.

But I'm kidding.

Allison probably got a job at a hostess club to make some money.

Living anywhere in Tokyo is a very expensive journey.

This whole aspect of Allison's "scholarship" is curious to me because having lived in Tokyo for a few years myself, I doubt she knows what she's talking about.

A great many Japanese are as Westernized as any American with university degrees to match.

The hostess clubs are the poor man's geisha experience or one on-the-fly.

Women serve as waitresses as well as conversation companions. They pour drinks for the customer and sit at his table. And it's possible that things will progress from there.

How is that any different from a woman going into a bar and being picked up?

At least the ones working in the hostes clubs get paid.

LOL!!!

If Allison really knew what she was talking about, she'd know that the Japanese do everything delicately. The hostess clubs are basically a dressed-up escort service.

There's a hierarchy with different means to reach a similar end.

***************

Geisha supreme which takes years of study

Geisha

Hostess in a club

Escort

****************

How is this so different from what you see anywhere else?

The ridiculous time that such people put into something so simple is hilarious.

Allison is also rated as someone who grades with an inflated curve where a 95 or a 96 is an A-.

From what I've read about her so-called "scholarship", it's a sham.

gwallan said...

@William...

Make no mistake that Karla could filibuster you regarding your own "male privilege".

qa said...

Re af @ 6//11/09: I really liked “Universities, not diversities.”

I am also adding “Initiative” to my list of weasel-words, joining “diversity” [of aptitude, but not of belief, nor of opinion].

I think I do know, from my own experiences, how seriously the r/c/g activists are willing to be open-minded:

as seriously as we are willing to accept that an open-mind is an empty-mind.

Anonymous said...

For a good explanation of the G88's gang psychology, see this article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education: chronicle.com/news/article/6633/mobbing-can-damage-more-than-careers-professors-are-told-at-conference?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

(Paste into your browser without the www)

Duke Prof

Anonymous said...

No matter what we say on this blog, the Group of 88 and their partners continue to advance. This is taking place in politics and government as well as on campus.

Someone asked how Coach K survives in this environment. He does so by the "go along to get along" principle.

DN

Debrah said...

As a side bar.....

.....do what you can to help remove David Price next year.

B. J. Lawson, a Cary businessman and physician, is planning on challenging him.

I don't know anything about Lawson, but anyone is an improvement over the silent-while-his-Durham-constituents-worked-their-racist magic Congressman Price.

Edwards is gone.

Dole is gone.

Price should be next.

Duke 1965 said...

DN @2:53:

I beg to differ :)

Coach K has a very powerful, independent power base at Duke. It's one thing to take on a niche, non-revenue sport like lacrosse, but basketball at Duke is an entirely different matter. The CCI attack on athletics was one of the reasons the CCI ultimately failed. And did you notice Broadhead fawning over Coach K at the Olympics? Broadhead has actively promoted the hiring of a big-time football coach (Cutcliffe) to resurrect Duke's moribund football program.

From my perspective, it's very misleading to characterize Duke as being overrun by nutball A%S Professors. Bear in mind that KC himself is a part of the academy, so his concerns naturally center around the sometimes nasty world of academic politics. That said, Duke is much more than academic politics. There are a number of "power centers", or "tribes", if you like, including the hard sciences, engineering department, economics department, medical school, and the athletic departments. It's quite obvious that Broadhead considers it his main responsibility to run around placating the various tribes to keep them from each others' throats. Whether that constitutes leadership is another question.

Can the radical professors overrun the other power centers? Good question. Personally, I don't think so, because of the tremendous influence of the other tribes. However, there is no question that the various power centers tread very carefully in challenging the radicals, for fear of being labeled backward and racist (particularly in the South). Coach K himself has publically expressed regret over the lacrosse fiasco, saying, "I wish we had supported our kids."

What saddens me is that the agenda of the radical professors is so divisive, and that hurts Duke.

Debrah said...

This may be of interest.

Anonymous said...

It is true that Coach K is in a far stronger position than the lacrosse program, but he still was silent when he had to know what was going on. While he has said, "I wish we had supported our kids," he did not when it might have counted.

DN

Gary Packwood said...

Duke 1965 6/12/09 :: 6:24 PM...said

...
...Can the radical professors overrun the other power centers? Good question. Personally, I don't think so, because of the tremendous influence of the other tribes. However, there is no question that the various power centers tread very carefully in challenging the radicals, for fear of being labeled backward and racist (particularly in the South).
::
This is a near perfect description of a hostile work environment inside a charitable organization of all places without mention of the combat troops who implement the hostility. The folks who do the dirty work.

The troops who take the hostility to the undergraduate students are the employees of Office of Student Affairs - An organization at Duke with a $30M annual budget.

Anger studies professors have no power what-so-ever unless they coordinate with The Office of Student Affairs.

We saw 'combat in action' recently with the University of Delaware 'treatment' propaganda program for students which was carried out by employees of the Office of Student Affairs [The resident life employees].

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J98p_YoD6kg&feature=related

Most people here on DIW were university students prior to the late 1980's when The Office of Student Affairs became a popular new program for many universities across the country. It is just not possible to discuss radical professors in the modern university without linking their propaganda with campus programming via The Office of Student Affairs.

When the alumni along with the BOT and the accreditation body require a curriculum for the work of the Office of Student Affairs which is formally coordinated and approved by the faculty we will begin to see an end to the hostile work environment at universities.

But only for those universities who ...can afford the cost of Anger Studies Professors and employees of the Office of Student Affairs...who function together as a campus mob.

Most faculty members have no idea how the Anger Studies professors and Student Affairs employees are working together to 'program' for students who live in those dorms [residence halls]. Especially freshman level students.
::
GP

Anonymous said...

To Michael: Coach K didn't stand up for the kids. A crisis shows the true fiber of an individual. Coach K has lost my respect.He's a coward!

Anonymous said...

Sports writers must have been waiting for a hint from Coach K about the lax case. He could have given them that hint, off the record, and let them know it was a fraud.

Instead, his silence may have suggested to them the likelihood that there was substance to the charges--if so, he did nothing to dispel those conclusions.

Duke 1965 said...

DN:

Very true, and Coach K lost a lot of respect with many people for his silence, particularly after the hoax became obvious. And regardless of K's influence, there's no question that the radical profs have managed to intimidate and stifle dissenting opinions from the vast majority of the Duke faculty and administration. I've seen a lot of nasty office politics over the years, but it's nothing compared to the Duke academic infighting....... I'm thinking of writing a book entitled, "Mugged by a Radical" :)

Debrah said...

More goofy effulgences from harmony boy.

No justice, no peace said...

Inre: "Coach K didn't stand up for the kids. A crisis shows the true fiber of an individual. Coach K has lost my respect.He's a coward"

Any standing Coach K had on "Leadership" went flying out the window based upon his inaction.

One may argue that it was not his fight. Maybe so. However he no longer has authority to publish broad-based books on leadership, When it got hot he chose to remain silent.

Others may suggest he was pulling strings behind the curtain. If so he hasn't had any impact and abdicated his very public reach.

Coach K is the face of Duke. The fact that he did nothing when a reasoned voice was needed remains deplorable. All he had to do was ask everyone to slow down.

He could have and could still make a difference. He chooses not to.

The acts and omissions of the neo-Marxists within Duke and Durham are very, very predictable. The inaction by Coach K remains a very big downside surprise.

Ironically he could learn some lessons from the women's lacrosse coach and team.

Anonymous said...

Just my 2 cents...my child was a sophomore when the LAX affair began. We had many conversations about the events and the professors.

My perception was that there was a lot of support for RCD on campus though there was a vocal minority with a political agenda.

She took classes with many of the 88 and according to her nobody really believed all the manure being shoveled out by these pseudo-intellectuals.

Really made me feel good at $40K per year!

Debrah said...

"......he no longer has authority to publish broad-based books on leadership. When it got hot he chose to remain silent."
*************

Very astute and a great point.

He's an enigma in so many ways. Or perhaps that's just the way college sports programs operate.

So often Krzyzewski can be seen and heard using the most obscene language on the sidelines.....and then goes out and gives speeches on leadership and being respectful.

I don't really care how many four-letter words he uses. Just don't try to present another picture when the situation warrants.

His team witnesses his behavior all the time.

I just despise to see people try to play it both ways and wax perfection as they wallow in the gutter.

Pick one!


"Coach K is the face of Duke."
*************

To an enormous degree, this is most definitely the case.

Everyone who runs Duke caters to Mike Krzyzewski simply because of the success of his basketball team.

One word from him to Brodhead would have made all the difference.

Brodhead needed a spine when he was making all those inept decisions and Krzyzewski could have easily provided one and also the courage needed to put a halt to the train wreck.

Wonder how Mike Pressler really feels about his friend?

Debrah said...

OMG!

It's just been brought to my attention that this woman who has been childishly defending Timothy Tyson's behavior in the Lacrosse Hoax works for him!

LOL!!!

This is so pathetic.

Does her religious employer know what a sinner poor Melody is?

How she stalks and tries to leave nasty comments on YouTube videos in the wee hours of the morning?

I think this might call for a cleansing of her sins.

She will most definitely have to repent.

The spirit of the lynch mob lived in Melody that night on the YouTube channel as she was going after the righteous Diva.

LOL!!!

William L. Anderson said...

Lest we think that the G88 are toothless at Duke, keep in mind that they either control or are on all of the important university committees. There will be people in the future denied tenure and promotion because the G88 does not think them hard left enough.

It also is clear that Brodhead, if not one in spirit with these faux scholars, nonetheless kowtows to them. I have two children who are very good students, are very intelligent, and who have the "proper" ethnicity characteristics to make them the kind of students that the G88 would want on campus. You can be assured that neither of them will go to Duke University.

Any place that will abuse its students the way that Duke did is not worthy of receiving one penny.

William L. Anderson said...

As for Tim Tyson, the "spirit of the lynch mob" is alive and well with some members of the Duke faculty. The lacrosse players and their families are way too classy to be involved with lynch mobs, but apparently the "sophisticated" faculty members at Duke and their "rent-a-protesters" fit right in.

Durham and Scottsboro deserve each other.

jamil hussein said...

At least some colleges get into trouble for lying in a student handbook:

NY post is reporting that local college was fined $20,000 for lying in a student handbook.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06132009/news/regionalnews/20g_slap_for_rape_college_174043.htm

"In mandated federal reports, Dominican reported one forcible sex crime in 2005, two in 2006 and one in 2007. But the data in students' annual handbook differed from those reports, Cuomo said.

His office issued a letter yesterday to all colleges reminding them that state law requires full reporting of campus crime statistics."

Anonymous said...

Re: Coach K.

There comes a time when a person is called upon to stand up and be counted when those around him would prefer that he not. The lacrosse case was such a time for Coach K. The fact that this very public "face of Duke University" chose to sit on his arse when his best friend was getting the shaft by ther common employer and when the fellow athletes of his very own players were being hounded and accused by the Durham and the university community of unspeakable crimes demonstrates that he is unqualified to speak at all on the subject of leadership.

cks

Anonymous said...

"Coach K has a very powerful, independent power base at Duke. It's one thing to take on a niche, non-revenue sport like lacrosse, but basketball at Duke is an entirely different matter. The CCI attack on athletics was one of the reasons the CCI ultimately failed."

I agree with this completely, but not the the rest of the picture painted by Duke 1965. The Group of 88 has gone on record to say that they intend to infiltrate the real sciences, and as Prof. Anderson has noted, they are on all the major committees on campus. As Gary Packwood wrote, the Group of 88 are tied at the waist to the Office of Student Affairs. Finally, even Duke 1965 subsequently acknowledged that other professors on campus were silenced by the 88.

To think they are satisfied with their little fiefdom, after reading about the minutes from some of these CCI meetings, is to ignore reality. They sought control of admissions, curriculum, extra-curricular activities, faculty hirings (the need for “a particular initiative regarding a racially diverse faculty and administration”), and the conduct of students (through the student code of conduct).

What exactly would have been left? Do you think they've surrendered suddenly?

Anonymous said...

re: coach K

It is easy to take cheap shots now particularly when you imply that he is a man of great personal power that can influence large numbers of people by simply raising his hand.

I don't think that is the case. His power is within a narrow scope and does not extend into the academic circles where many of the poor decisions were being made at Duke. On those issues Broadhead could brush him aside with the nearest flick of a finger.

He would also have no ability to change the view of the Nancy Grace's of the msm. All he would have done is add another target for the anti-lax to attack. And it would have been a high value target at that. Everyone would pile on and just make things worse for all involved.

We all wish there would have been a "king" to step in and set things right early on. But this is just part of ournatural reaction to bad events. It is more fantasy than reality.

Duke 1965 said...

No, I don't think the radical professors are satisfied with their little fiefdom. But as the ultimate failure of the CCI demonstrated, there are very clear "limits" at Duke beyond which, at least at the present time, the radical professors pass at their own risk (as Houston Baker and others found out). Will these battle lines hold? Who knows? But there are a number of factors which argue against the radicals storming the Winter Palace. Division 1 athletics is one factor. Perhaps more importantly, Duke students as a group are extremely apolitical..... frankly, they've got more important issues to worry about than activism, like getting into grad school and partying.......... they "just don't get it" to quote Baker/Chambers. Could this passivity be a breeding ground for further radical entrenchment? Perhaps............ on the other hand, over time the "activist fringe" may well become increasingly irrelevant, given the sharp changes in attitudes among today's college students compared to those of a generation or 2 ago. Time will tell............

Anonymous said...

For the commentator who wrote that people have a "more fantasy than reality" view of the hypothetical involvement of Coach K in the Lax Hoax, it seems that your words are more fantasy than reality. In the comments above, posters have said that Coach K could have asked everyone to slow down or that he could have talked to a couple of sports writers.

The only commentators who claimed Coach K might have actually had any effect on the Hoax suggested that a couple of sports writers might have seen the light. Or, that a word with Brodhead might have made a "difference." Hardly the reaction to a "King."

To say that everyone here expected Coach K to be "a 'king' to step in and set things right early on" is a bit of a strawman.

There is no disputing that he is the "face of Duke University." For me, there is no disputing my disappointment that he didn't say anything after it became apparent the students were innocent (waiting until it was too late). I also believe that there is no disputing that a brave public word from Coach K would have helped and not hurt. I personally think it would have taken more than a word from Coach K to Brodhead to make a "real difference," perhaps a very public threat to leave or the like. There was no other threat that would have sufficiently counter-balanced Brodhead's fear of the radical professors.

It can be disputed whether he can give lectures on leadership after his showing in the fiasco. Coach K is obviously an exceptional leader on the hardcourt. The way he can get 18-year-old kids to play defense is a true marvel, and he manages it every year. But, he did drop the ball on lacrosse.

Debrah said...

The "Truth Minsta" of Durham, Paul Scott, explains on his blog in an earlier post the thug intellectual issue.

Some might find the rest of the blog, No Warning Shots Fired! informative.

A flavor of Durham that is most definitely a pervasive one.

Debrah said...

Peter Wood is apparently among an inordinate number of the Duke faculty who have taken up residence in the pristine little town of Hillsborough.

Wonder why they don't choose to live in Durham?

Even Holloway doesn't choose to live in Durham.

Also, I might be out of touch....so someone might need to help me on this one.

Is growing gourds a most unusual hobby to anyone but me?

William L. Anderson said...

While Coach K has a lot of respect in Durham, somehow I doubt that had he spoken up early, the case would have turned out differently. More likely, he would have been subject to huge amounts of abuse in the press and among some of the Duke faculty.

Now, had he spoken up early and then have been proven right, he would have even more credibility now. It would have turned out good for him, but he will have to live with his early silence.

From what I remember, he did offer his services to Brodhead, and Brodhead turned him down. (I guess Brodhead preferred people like Houston Baker, Wahneema Lubiano, William Chafe, and Karla Holloway.)

Furthermore, Nifong wanted to win an election, and the only way to do it was to push ahead with the charges. And don't forget the shameful NAACP actions. Durham's leadership wanted this case, and now they have the lawsuit.

Debrah said...

"All he would have done is add another target for the anti-lax to attack."
***********************

Of course many of the Gang of 88 and a few of their mascots like Orin Starn who put such an effort into trashing college sports would have screamed loudly for a while.......

......however, if Mike Krzyzewski had taken a serious role in helping achieve fairness for some fellow members of the Duke athletics department as well as making sure that Brodhead step back and take a close look at the harm being done and assure him that he (Coach K) would be behind him all the way if he stood up to the radical faculty.......

......it could have changed everything.

But you know the real reason he didn't?

Coach K had a dose of fear himself.

He didn't want to take the risk of turning off even one potential black recruit or perhaps alienating some current Duke players who were black.

I totally believe that.

The black community knows these things very well.

Even as they "poor mouth" constantly and complain, they know they can use the race issue like a platinum credit card with people in power.....

.......if those people have no real-life experience on such issues and are as nervous and tentative as Brodhead.

Everyone knows it's true.

That's why I say that the only people who need to evolve a bit more are the ones who are still pretending that we're back in the mid-20th century.

Coach K kept quiet because he's also a coward.

He wasn't sure how things would turn out in the end and he wanted to be viewed as staying on "the right side".

The PC side.

Anonymous said...

"All he would have done is add another target for the anti-lax to attack."

And would have proven by his action that:

-- he believes in justice.
-- he has a backbone.
-- he helps innocent student/athletes during a horrific nightmare.
-- he supports the parents living through the nightmare.
-- he supports his (supposed) friend, Pressler and his abused family.
-- he is able to rally others to support justice.
-- he takes a stand against a media frenzy.
-- he isn't afraid of bullies, and actually understands more about higher education than just how to coach basketball.


Duke Prof

Chris Halkides said...

Bill,

Your recollection is similar to what Nader Baydoun reports Coach K said on Bob Costas' show (pp. 226-227). Coach K holds the title of Special Assistant, and he offered his services in that capacity but was turned down. Mr. Baydoun also commends Coach K for using the word "we" when he said, "People felt we left the kids unsupported." Apparently Coach K spoke out first in June of 2006. His interview with Costas took place in March of 2007 and he was critical of the G88. I am not taking a position here, just summarizing what Mr. Baydoun wrote.

Chris

Jim in San Diego said...

re: Moral courage

Many years ago I was taking a "leadership" class with a very junior bunch of Army officers. The instructor was a grizzled, very senior and highly decorated Non Commissioned Officer, with much combat experience.

In theory, each of us very junior officers outranked the senior NCO.

In practice, we did not. Had we tried to assert our "authority" we would have been standing in front of the Regimental Commander pronto.

The first question we were asked in the leadership class was, "What do soldiers want most to see in their leaders?"

Our class responded with answers like, "professional competence", "willingness to work", "fairness", etc.

We got it wrong. The answer was, "moral courage".

Why? As we were told in some remarkably forceful language, supported by real world examples from someone who had been there when it really counted, "because it is so rare".

Duke is not so different from any other large institution. There are heroes, but not many. There are rogues, but not many. There is a large unwashed middle which is apolitical, or at least cautious.

In retrospect, we now are able to sort out the heroes, from the rogues, from the indifferent.

Select faculty and admin members branded themselves as rogues by their behavior. They simply chose to be rogues.

Coach K, among many others, was not a hero. It is hard to be a hero, & he was not one of them.

In retrospect, we now have to marvel at the moral courage of Prof Jim Coleman. He knew the culture. He also knew what was right.

His sense of right prevailed, at an important time, over the culture. This was true moral courage.

Character may be defined as "what you do when no one is looking".

Moral courage is even more difficult. It is doing what is right when doing right carries important risks to you.

Very few anywhere will ever display moral courage. It is too rare.

Jim Peterson

Anonymous said...

As a parent of a member of the 2006 team, Coach K spoke after it was safe, directly after the notes were published from the 15 December 2006 hearing. You may recall, the hearing revealed the complete results of the DNA testing, showing there was no evidence of any Duke student having ANY CONTACT with the accusor!

Debrah said...

TO Jim Peterson--

I do wish you could have a conversation with Stuart Taylor.

You overstate a few things.