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http://www.nysun.com/article/42409
Brooklyn College Professor's Web Log Defends Duke Players

BY ELIANA JOHNSON - Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 27, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/42409

Before April, Brooklyn College's K.C. Johnson didn't have any ties to Duke University or Durham, N.C. Then, three members of the Duke lacrosse team were indicted for raping a black stripper who performed at a party.

Ever since, the professor of American history has used his Web log, called Durham in Wonderland, to chronicle the developments in the case, castigate university administrators, and cast aspersion on the motivations and actions of Durham's district attorney, Mike Nifong.

Mr. Johnson told The New York Sun that Duke faculty members have "gone out of their way to harm the players, none have defended them." He said Mr. Nifong's prosecutorial work is "one of the worst instances of prosecutorial indiscretion in American history."

"Professors at Duke should be doing what I'm doing," Mr. Johnson said. "But since the Duke faculty isn't doing it, I think it's important that a faculty member somewhere be doing it."

Mr. Johnson, a Harvard Ph.D. who won tenure at Brooklyn College in 2003 after a much-publicized battle, has been to Durham several times now; he was there yesterday, speaking before Duke's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He still posts about 1000 words a day on the case. His work on the Duke case has received national press attention in the online magazine Slate. "I had to immerse myself in the case to do this well," Mr. Johnson said.

He surged into action when 88 Duke professors signed a letter in support of an advertisement published in Duke's student newspaper, the Duke Chronicle. The advertisement, titled "We're Listening," featured statements from Duke students indirectly condemning the players and exculpating the victim.

Students were "upset about what happened to this young woman and to themselves" the ad began. The statements included: "We go to class with racist classmates, we go to the gym with people who are racists"; and "no one is really talking about how to keep the young woman herself central to this conversation, how to keep her humanity before us."

As for Mr. Nifong, Mr. Johnson said he has politicized and racialized the case because his November re-election bid rests on it. "If the case goes up in flames, he's not likely to win in November," Mr. Johnson said.

The Duke case may well provide a record of "how many procedural irregularities a prosecutor could commit in a single case," Mr. Johnson wrote on his Web site. Mr. Nifong demanded DNA samples not only from the suspects, but from all 46 members of the lacrosse team; he let an officer working the case conduct a March photo identification session with the victim — an independent investigator is to preside over the procedure; and he failed to include photos of non-suspects, known as "filler photos," in an April photo lineup. All acts, said Mr. Johnson, violate North Carolina police procedure.

DNA tests produced no matches and the victim failed to identify her alleged perpetrators in either lineup.

A law professor at Duke, James Coleman, corroborated Mr. Johnson's assertions. The DNA tests, Mr. Coleman said, were "a way to bring the students down, to make them do what looks like a perp walk." Mr. Coleman said "The lineups were even more objectionable."

Mr. Nifong told the Raleigh News, "I'm confident a sexual assault took place in that house." Mr. Johnson's presence at and commentary about Duke have not been well-received by many Duke faculty members. "I don't want to dignify that baloney," the dean of the faculty at Duke, William Chafe, said in an e-mail. A professor of philosophy, Alex Rosenberg, said he received an e-mail from Mr. Johnson accusing him of prejudging the case. Mr. Johnson noted that Mr. Rosenberg signed the letter supporting the "We're Listening" advertisement. Mr. Rosenberg said he did so because he was concerned with the prevalence of alcohol on campus and bothered by "affluent kids violating the law to get exploited women to take their clothes off when they could get as much hookup as they wanted from rich and attractive Duke coeds."

Mr. Johnson, who's tried to keep up with his scholarship in American history while devoting hours to his Web log, says he looks forward to life after the case. "It'll be nice when things go back to normal," he said. On that score, certainly Mr. Johnson and the Duke professors share common ground.