Posted on 06/22/2007 8:12:22 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
This week Duke University reached a “non-disclosed settlement” with the three lacrosse players who were savaged by the District Attorney in Durham, Mike Nifong. He wanted to hoodwink black voters into putting him back in office. That succeeded, but he has now been removed from office, and disbarred.
These three students were also slandered by the Duke administration and by 87 bigoted professors. (88 professors signed a newspaper ad that, in effect, found the students guilty before trial. One of the 88 admitted he was wrong, and apologized.) The apparently-fat settlement released the University and all its assorted minions from further liability to the students and their families.
Is Duke now off the hook? I hope not. I’m doing my part to keep them on the hook.
For those who’ve been out of the country, or under a rock, here’s a quick recap: A year ago, a stripper who’d been hired by members of the Duke lacrosse team claimed that she had been raped at a team party where she and a friend were hired to perform. DA Nifong then held the first of a series of press conferences, saying that there was definitely a rape and he expected to charge some students. He set up a line-up with only Duke players in it and charged three players with rape.
The President of Duke then cancelled the lacrosse season and fired the coach. A group of 88 professors jointly signed a full-page ad in the campus newspaper, the Chronicle, saying that what the students did was part of the climate of racism at Duke, and presuming that the students were guilty.
In time, the stripper’s story changed, her companion denied her version, and DNA evidence showed the stripper’d had sex with several men recently, but not any Duke players. In time, the NC Attorney General took over the case and did his own review. He dismissed the charges, apologized to the students, and started the investigation of Nifong which led to his dismissal and disbarment. From the President and 87 faculty members at Duke, however, there was no retraction, no apology.
Dr. Thomas Sowell is one of the great minds in understanding American society and politics. Anyone unfamiliar with his work and books should go here to see what he has to offer. [http://www.tsowell.com/] I suggest you begin with Sowell’s Basic Economics. His latest column is about Duke, “Unfinished Business,”
That is a scathing indictment of the University. You can find it here: [http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/] I decided that Sowell’s words should appear in front of the whole Duke community. So, I called the Chronicle, the campus newspaper.
I found out that none of three Duke students I talked with had ever heard of Dr. Sowell. They have black professors who fill their students’ heads with the sort of bigoted claptrap that appeared in the infamous newspaper ad. The students know lesser professors, but not the nation’s best.
I also learned was that it would cost almost a thousand dollars to reprint Dr. Sowell’s column full-page in the Duke newspaper. The last issue of the paper is not only circulated on campus, it is also mailed to the homes of all students. There, the students’ parents, who are paying upwards of $30,000 a year to put their children in the care of this faculty and administration, have a right to see what is happening to their children and their money.
So, I got in touch with my friends. As this is written, it looks like we’ll make the target, and Dr. Sowell’s column will appear in front of, and be read by, almost every member of the Duke community. If that happens, it may be that some people who deserve to be fired, will be fired. It may be that some who stay might learn what it means to seek the truth, rather than biased political advantage, and change their ways.
As Dr. Sowell notes, the correction of the bias in the Duke community is far more important than the millions which the students and their families have received from the coffers of a university that has lost its way. I write as well as I can, but I do not hold a candle to my colleague, Dr. Thomas Sowell. So here are his closing words. I’ll see to it these are read by the people at Duke.
“...be aware of how wide and how deep the moral dry rot goes.
“That such people are teaching students at an elite university is a chilling thought. That they promote a campus atmosphere where political correctness trumps the search for truth is painful.
“That such attitudes and such atmospheres are not peculiar to Duke University, but are common on elite college campuses from coast to coast is a time bomb with the potential to destroy individuals and ultimately undermine the whole society.”
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About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He lives in the 11th District of North Carolina.
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Under JimRob's rules, the only discussion of fund-raising on open threads should be about FreeRepublic itself. Please stay within this rule.
Comment on Duke, on Sowell, on this article to your heart's content. But if you want to talk about you-know-what, please use freepmail only. Okay?
Thank you.
John / Billybob
The intellectual dishonesty of this group of Duke professors is telling.
I am glad my kids did not go to this University, where they would have encountered very well paid idealogues who reach erroneous conclusions based on their warped ideas of social justice.
Ward Churchill would fit in well with this group of bozos with PhDs.
I thought the semester ended awhile ago. What’s up with that?
When you are intellectually vapid it’s hard to be honest or dishonest.
That's the goal John. That's always been the goal.
I'm suprised you didn't know that.
L
Don't be redundant.
I expect Duke alumni to tie up the loose ends by slamming their wallets shut. Leftists bow to the almighty dollar as much as everyone else. For starters, that bozo of a president (Broadhead?) needs to be sent packing.
;-)
Some Post-hole-diggers are smart.
John
My impression from having dealt with special editions of the Yale Daily News (back when ice covered the Earth), is that this one at Duke may be made available to students and parents considering Duke in the fall, and/or it might be in the welcoming materials for freshmen in the fall. Either way, it is an ideal venue to put Dr. Sowell’s column in front of the Duke community.
John / Billybob
**But Senator Sessions is on C-Span LIVE, Senate Floor....talking ilegal immigration
Nice!
The past generations of mindless affirmative action, ethnic pandering, reducing standards and curriculum to the lowest common denominator, ignoring pertinent history or teaching revisionist “history” and refusing to see the lights before their own eyes -— have had a devastating effect on the major pillars of our society, including the entire education system.
In a sane world, desiring to survive — the Duke administration should experience a prompt and thorough house cleaning, starting with the President and the “88”.
Given the circumstance that very few members of faculty expressed outrage at the “88” or reminded others of the simple CONSTITUTIONAL provision of “Innocent until proved Guilty”......the cancer surely extended beyond the President and the “88”, so they should be considered the really low hanging “fruit” to be plucked immediately.....but don't assume all the cancer has been removed.
Now, can someone explain to me how we can homeschool at the University level? A friend has a kid at Tufts, and the boy is afraid to express his views because the Professors will mark his grades down or he’ll be tarred and feathered in front of the class.
The University system (like government schools) is hopelessly corrupt. Conservatives need their own universities.
John / Billybob
“The University system (like government schools) is hopelessly corrupt. Conservatives need their own universities.”
Hillsdale College
www.hillsdale.edu
Beat me to it.
Great idea. It used to be that “88” was shorthand used by NeoNazis. Now it’s used to describe a gang of Nazis on the Duke faculty.
Broadhead? He sounds like a Pinhead.
I think a couple of the worst things to happen to our education system are: tenure and the unions. I was amazed when I found out the school our foreman’s boys were attending had teachers teaching courses without certification.
There are some bastions of sanity in the world of higher educatiion. My youngest kid attends Lehigh. They recently had two live video conferences with students and soldiers in Iraq.
The school newspaper covered it, and the soldiers were complaining about the mainstream media bias constantly.
Another school that I believe is not infected is Pepperdine, in California.
In my own experience, sociology, political “science,” and other departments are the most infected. When you major in the real sciences, there is less PC group think.
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