[Howlin]

Duke is acting like a bunch of weak kneeded Anderson Cooper types.

They have done NOTHING for the players, except suspend them.

I'm thinking they are going to be in a LOT of trouble with their alumni.

[bvw]

They (Duke U.) need to shoulder their burdern and do so quickly and assuredly. To support the students is primary -- in the trial and in life, that is by setting and making stick higher expecations of behaviour and mutual concern from both the University and the student body. The University MUST support the team, the boys the athletes and students sucked into this vortex of prosecutorial proceedings. That is simple LOYALTY and DUTY.

I'm meaning honest support -- you don't support a student doing a crime, you support the student, YOUR student. As a teacher, as a educational institution there are ways of showing sauch support that avoid, and should avoid, the direct issues of the crime.

And then Duke has to bridge -- not pander, not roll-over -- to the black community in a firm way, a way that shows a promise of better relations and involvement of the University and the student body in and with the Durham community. The community, the community of which the black community is a significant and included part.

No more late phone calls "reaching out", that's one. Daytime relations. Year-round, strong, inclusive.

The ball, and the boy's fate, and it's own fate are really in the hands of Duke's higher adminstrators and trustees. They need to act with some dispatch.

[OrinocoJack]

First post on Free Republic. Long time reader.

Phew, finally I registered to find some sanity on the web. The other forums I go to regarding this case, the Court TV one, the WTVD one, the talkleft one, are all infested by some "true believers". They may be femnazis, black racists, or just schadenfreund jealous jerks. They are probably the same two or three people.

At least here sanity drowns out the insane and obstinate. I'm home.