Farred, Chafe, and Presumers of Guilt

One of the more intriguing admissions about the Group of 88 came in 2007, from a prominent member of the Group, history professor (and former Duke administrator) William Chafe.  “Most of us,” he told the Chronicle, “never presumed guilt.”

In one respect, the remark was preposterous, given that the statement Chafe and the other 87 signed stated without equivocation that they believed something “happened” to false accuser Crystal Mangum. But the remark was nonetheless revealing, given that it came at a time when some Duke apologists were falsely claiming that the statement had nothing to do with the lacrosse case. (It might have been, Charlie Piot mused, a response to Hurricane Katrina’s(!) aftermath.)

Chafe never said which member of the Group even he was willing to concede “presumed guilt.” A few months after Chafe’s remarks, it became clear that one Group member to whom the history professor possibly referred was Grant Farred, who (falsely) told a Williams College audience that unnamed lacrosse players had committed perjury. Farred soon departed Duke for Cornell, which offered him a position as tenured full professor. The reckless hiring, however, backfired on the school after Farred attracted fierce criticism for referring to two students as “black bitches.”

I recently came across a post from one of the few people to speak up on Farred’s behalf, a Cornell colleague of his named Riché Richardson. Richardson—a Duke Ph.D. who specializes in (of course) race and gender, and whose most recent tweet praised a "brilliant talk" by the Group member and "thugniggaintellectual," Mark Anthony Neal—is perhaps the only professor I ever have encountered to have praised herself for her . . . course syllabi, which she claims “can take a long time to research and days to write” and “and are valued by students on their own terms as research and learning tools.”

In the event, long after the Farred controversy, Richardson posted a tribute to Farred on her blog, in which she expressed concern about “a climate on campus that creates an intimidating or hostile environment for Professor Farred.” She would not, huffed Richardson, “appreciate having my own credentials or attitudes misrepresented in the way that his have been in some instances, which is also unsettling given my concerns about protecting academic freedom, collegiality and all the things that reflect the basic values of academia.”

Richardson’s post is most interesting for her comments about Farred and the lacrosse case. The man who called two African-American students “black bitches,” she argued, shouldn’t be deemed “somehow dismissive of black women.” Why not? Because “in the situation regarding the black woman stripper who alleged rape in 2006 by members of the Duke Lacrosse team, he spoke up in her defense by writing a letter clarifying some of the implications of the situation [link to at http://friendsofdukeuniversity.blogspot.com/2006/03/expired-documents-2.html ]. Many of the faculty who had the courage to speak out about this situation, which made national headlines, were threatened, harassed, criticized publicly and were victimized by a very calculated smear campaign. Some eventually moved on, including Professor Farred. I respect the very principled and courageous statement that Professor Farred chose to make in Durham on this case involving the black woman stripper, and do not take the sacrifices that he made in the wake of it lightly. The truth is that Professor Farred put everything on the line at a very prestigious job that he valued to support and help defend a black woman who he at the time believed had been the victim of rape and racist epithets.”

The most significant item, of course, from Richardson’s statement is her last line—even a defender of Farred has publicly conceded that the Group member presumed guilt: he “believed” Mangum was raped. Richardson’s claim of Group victimization is as unsurprising as it is unsubstantiated. But I was struck by her claim that “Professor Farred put everything on the line at a very prestigious job that he valued.” As far as I know, Farred put nothing “on the line” related to his job (other than, I suppose, his reputation). Richardson’s insinuation that there was some sort of connection between Farred having “moved on” and his having put anything job-related “on the line” prompted me to ask if she had any evidence about Farred and Duke.

Richardson declined a direct reply to my question. Instead, she wrote, “The consequences at Duke did not necessarily relate to jobs, but there were definitely reprisals (i.e. hate mail and other negative reactions) for faculty who spoke out about that case at the time, some of whom I know. And even if I indeed defended his comments, would that be any worse than defending perceived rapists and racists, as your scholarship suggests?”

“Negative reactions” constitute reprisals! By Richardson’s standards, Mitt Romney has experienced more “reprisals” than any American alive in the past week, given the “negative reactions” (whether deserved or not) to his comments about the attack on the embassy in Libya. Somehow, though, I doubt that Richardson would apply her “negative reactions” standard to figures with whom she disagrees.

I admit that I had never previously heard the lacrosse players described as “perceived rapists.” For Professor Richardson, it seems, no amount of evidence can overcome a false initial perception.

But to answer the professor’s question: yes, I would say that defending a professor who made materially false statements (that unnamed students at his own university had committed perjury) and in the process likely violated the terms of his school’s Faculty Handbook is worse that defending people who were falsely accused of a serious crime.