Recall Nifong - Vote Cheek (DukeLax Developments)

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee

If your senator is among these, and you have anything you want to get off your chest about these cases, don't let them be a stranger; they'd LOVE to hear from you ...
over and over again.

ARLEN SPECTOR (CHAIRMAN) Penn.

ORRIN HATCH Utah

CHARLES GRASSLEY Iowa

JOHN KLY Arizona

MIKE DeWINE Ohio

JEFF SESSIONS Alabama

LINDSEY GRAHAM S. Carolina

JOHN CORNYN Texas

SAM BROWNBACK Kansas

TOM COBURN Oklahoma

PATRICK LEAHY Vermont

EDWARD M. KENEDY Massachusetts

JOSEPH BIDEN Delaware

HERBERT KOHL Wisconsin

DIANE FEINSTEIN California

RUSSELL FEINGOLD Wisconsin

CHARLES SCHUMER New York

RICHARD DURBAN Illinois

LB wrote: Duke's minimums are way way above the NCAA minimums and always have been and have always had to be.

This asserton requires data. I gave you one example for UF. I have NEVER heard of Duke not accepting someone who immediately enrolled in another four year D1A NCAA institution. Enrollment in such an institution shows they met the NCAA minimum. I can give you several other examples of people who signed with UF, were not admitted or recruits who wanted to go to UF but were not even allowed to visit but who enrolled in other NCAA institutions showing they met the minimum requirements.

LB wrote: To do anything less would result in a 0% graduation rate. For example, if Pressler had been a screw-your-studies-you're-here-to-play-ball kind of coach there's no way the lax players would have 100% graduation.

Of course it would not have led to a zero graduation rate. Athletics departments set up study halls, tutoring etc to help along their athletes who are not up to the schools standards, but who are interested in graduation or at least staying eligible. But I did say in my prior post that revenue sports are different than nonrevenue sports. So I would not expect Duke NOR ANYONE ELSE to admit as many marginal students in lacrosse as they might in basketball or football.

JSL wrote:UF may be harder for an athlete to get into than Duke. But UF is very hard for undergrads to get into these day, someplace in the UNC range, harder than NCSU but probably not quite Duke admission.

LB wrote: The fact that you could even make this comparison says you don't know what you're talking about. There are a ton of players that go to large state schools that Duke cannot even begin to consider for the simple reason that there are no crip majors in which to hide the jocks.

Clearly I am a sports fan. Clearly I am an academic. [I believe maybe you are an engineer who was and academic at some point.] Clearly I know chapter an verse about players signing and qualifying at UF. I do not know the Duke case as well. As I have told you UF does not admit and sometimes does not even let visit players who sign with other D1A NCAA institutions that same year. That is because UF has certain academic standards above the NCAA minimum. [I can explain the UF standards if you like. Can you explain how Duke's admission FOR ATHLETES is different than the NCAA minimus?

I have never heard of Duke having such standards. Clearly Duke backs off some players they think will not qualify, but everyone does this. Can you give me a single example of a player Duke signed to a scholarship but did not admit or who was qualified but Duke did not sign? [The former is much much more convincing because we know a school wanted the player if they signed him and we know the player met NCAA minimum requirements if they were immediately able to go elsewhere as a full qualifier.] I am not talking about Duke passing on a player they did not think would qualify, but who surprisingly did and went to another D1A NCAA program, that too happens to everyone.

If you would like to make a better argument, the Duke's, Vandy's etc of the NCAA world may be at a slight disadvantage because there are fewer majors and maybe no really easy majors like PE etc. Private schools tend to be more arts and sciences oriented and that limits the number of "jock" majors. This has to do with keeping a player eligible, but not in getting them admitted. And of course there are always majors like sociology or other PC majors at private schools that may cater to minority athletes.

They uncovered it off of the internet....

Yes, they discovered the "secret code" that allowed access to FreeRepublic...

Long, but interesting article on the state of modern PR and one of its best practitioners...
http://www.lamag.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=14D5B253DB1D499F9AD38F459D8E926A&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=05BC108A15F446D5B7A9BA0DFED8BE31

on Durham Police officers taking underprivileged Durham kids camping. Anybody have an article on how the lacrosse team used to coach underprivileged Durham kids on weekends, and even provided the equipment for them?
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

The left the part out where the beat the shit out of them when they asked for more marshmallows !

[Understanding Durham politics]*

"NEGRO Leadership in a Southern City"
Burgess, M. Elaine, author.
The University of North Carolina Press 1960, 1962 ppb 1964
ex libris, Malcolm X Liberation University Library.

[*This 1950's study is based on Durham, North Carolina.
The Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People
is thinly disguised as the Crescent Negro Council.
The author changed names to protect anonymity.]

Bloc voting, Negro p. 66.

"The political strength of the sub-community lies with
the Democratic Party organization. Negro leaders feel that
this is where it must remain, at least for the present, if they
are to have access to bargaining power. But as V. O. Key
has pointed out, the politics of the "one-party" South is
actually a politics of faction. This is true in Mid-South
State at the local, county, and state levels. Conservative
and moderate-liberal wings of the party vie for control of
party committees. Though city politics is supposedly non-
partisan, there too the anti-Negro and anti-labor factions
of the conservative wing exist, and the party has often taken
the views of these two factions into account, as well as those
of the moderate businessmen and professionals. It
is with this latter faction that the bulk of the Negro com-
munity has allied itself politically.

In 1953 political organization was effective enough in
the minority community to elect the first Negro to city
office. As in many urban centers of the South, Negroes
in Crescent City now hold the balance of power because of
their block voting, a situation that irritates and frustrates
many of the whites. The white newspapers usually make
much of the united Negro political activity in their reports
on community elections and often suggest that certain is-
sues are doomed by virtue of Negro opposition even before
votes have actually been cast. One has only to scrutinize
the tabulations of voting by precincts to see that bloc
voting has been, in reality, quite effective. For example,
in the 1957 elections the moderate candidate for mayor,
incumbent Murphy, received 621 out of 658 votes in the
largest Negro precinct and 549 out of 573 in the
second largest Negro precinct.

It is, in many respects, difficult to define a political
structure in the sub-community that is distinct from other
socially significant institutions and associations. By far
the most powerful political group is the Crescent Negro
Council, with its Political Action Committee. Political
scientists have tended to define such Negro organizations in
purely political terms--but to do so is to simplify, reduce,
and obscure their broader social significance. As we have
observed, the Council operates effectively in many institu-
tional areas of Negro social organization. One of its major
functions is political action, and its endeavors in this area
have been increasingly successful. The local chapter of
the N.A.A.C.P. also has a political orientation, but its
membership overlaps that of the Crescent Negro Council
(i.e., the chairman of the Legal Redress Committee of
N.A.A.C.P. is the chairman of the Political Action Com-
mittee, O. G. Sherwood) and its leaders work within the
Council framework. The Council's Political Action Com-
mittee solicits aid from a wide variety of groups in its
political program. I have mentioned the role of the
churches, fraternal groups, and labor unions, which are
channels through which the masses of the sub-community
can be reached. Decisions about which candidates to back,
which issues to favor or oppose, and which Negroes to run
for office, are made by the Council Executive Committee in
conjunction with the Political Action Committee. Policies
made and decisions reached are presented before the total
Council membership (which includes representatives of all
Negro associations and organizations, plus all interested
citizens). Once the Council as a whole has given its
formal approval, precinct committeemen, representatives
of other organizations, and Council leaders communicate
that approval to the sub-community as a whole. Negro
voters are "assisted" in making their choices by the type
of flyer shown in Fig. 2 [sample ballot]. In contrast to the
"assistance" given in the days when Jackson Alder, Sr., and
Dr. Stoddard held control, the citizens of the sub-community
are no longer told for whom they must vote."

* * * *

[The present committee boss, Dr. Allison, has known all
previous leaders since inception. The state NAACP is
now headquartered in Durham. Prof. Joyner at NCCU
must be pleased.]

Ruth Sheehan is back from vacation, and the topic of her blog today is the Recall Nifong - Vote Cheek PAC. Go Ruth!

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/ruth/index.php?title=committee_to_recall_nifong_now_a_pac&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

__________________________________________

MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 2006

Media alert

WRAL's Julia Lewis interviewed Committee to Recall Nifong - Vote Cheek's Beth Brewer this afternoon. The interview will run on tonight's 5pm WRAL newscast.

-- http://recallnifong.blogspot.com/

Vaden still trying to flog the dead horse...
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/readers/index.php?title=duke_lacrosse_error_column&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

In two separate instances I have been a long term insider at both a state school (14 years as a faculty member at a flagship state land grant - NCSU) and a small highly selective private school (9 years undergrad/grad at Duke including a very good friend who let me know what was going on the the admissions office). I've also compared notes many times with faculty at other schools. I'm in a very good position to compare the academic/athletic culture of both. You admit you are not.

You gave me one example of athletic admissions. Big deal. I'll give you a whole book. If you have the time go read "Admissions Confidential". It's a year in the life "expose' " of an admissions officer at Duke. Duke does its admissions "blind". That means the admissions officers don't know anything but the academic record of the applicant (financial status, legacy, athletic information, ethnicity is omitted). Admit/deny is done on that basis alone. For a very small number of applicants, e.g. athletes, there is a "second look" where the coach has to make a case to the admissions office that the athlete can do the work. The admissions officers fight like hell to keep those applicants out. The writer of the book hated the fact that they even had to do "second looks".

For the general student population, you can't compare difficulty of admission at a highly competitive small private school (DU = 6,200 students) that recruits the cream of the crop nationwide with a state school (UF = 49,000?) that also recruits the cream of the crop but mostly statewide. If you know UF so well tell me how many UF students come there from out of state and pay the out-of-state tuition? I'll bet it's less than 10%.

Once a Duke-type school gets those highly qualified students admitted, since they are so uniformly well prepared, they are able to push the hell out of them and the academic environment is very very competitive if not to say cut-throat. I know. I lived it.

And that's true for every major whether it's Engineering, Biology or English. There are no "kick back and relax" majors nor are there any "kick back and relax courses". Everything's hard. Since I've been associated with Duke they've, for example, eliminated the undergraduate Nursing School and the undergraduate Management Science major as not being rigorous enough. The vast majority of students graduate in 4 years. (At those prices who wants to pay even one more semester of tuition!)

If you take an unprepared or unqualified athlete and throw them in that mix they die no matter what help you give them. The fact that the Duke athletes don't die in that environment, and in fact almost all succeed, is testimony to admissions doing their job and then the university does its job by following up on them including the study halls, etc. that you mention.

Private schools tend to be more arts and sciences oriented and that limits the number of "jock" majors. This has to do with keeping a player eligible, but not in getting them admitted.

Actually, it has plenty to do with it. At least at Duke it does. I can't believe you think they are separate issues. I hope it's not a separte issue at UF. No admissions department worth its salt should admit a student, athlete or not, that they know can't do the work. Admissions and eligibility are part and parcel of the same thing. At Duke there's no place for the athletic department to hide the "underperformers" and so they are not admitted in the first place (see above).

You admit "I do not know the Duke case as well." Well I do. I'll take your word about UF if you'll take my word about Duke.

Look, this has degenerated into a pissing match about Duke vs. UF. Both are fine academic institutions with, naturally enough, different charters. I'm glad to learn that UF is taking its charter seriously. Duke is as well. I wish more schools would do the same. The main part of the charter is to admit students who are up to university level work and then follow up to make sure they succeed in their academic work and receive a fine education. That includes athletes. That both schools do so should be a source of pride to both of us.

08/14/06 at 15:30

Let it go, Ted. You've done your best to throw up a smokescreen. Neff's mistake isn't the story - the story is the lynch mob led by Nifong and company. Write about that for a change...

--Well said.

This just in...

http://recallnifong.blogspot.com/
Media Alert
WRAL's Julia Lewis interviewed Committee to Recall Nifong - Vote Cheek's Beth Brewer this afternoon. The interview will run on tonight's 5pm WRAL newscast.

New article by Cash Michaels.

http://wilmingtonjournal.blackpressusa.com/News/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=71765&sID=4

Wow, even Cash is bailing out of this smoking wreck of a case.....

That was my impression upon reading the article. I had read his comments on the WTVD forum and wasn't sure how his new article would lean, but I'd say he has some doubts concerning the handling of the investigation.

Looks like the guys are scheduled in court on Monday, August 21 at 2:30 p.m.

http://www.nccourts.org/County/Durham/Documents/CMS_082106.doc

I noticed that in the July 21 motion, they appear to be waiving their right to whatever Nifong thinks he has left for discovery, allowing him to hold it until trial. They are saying that Nifong can't have anything that will bother us, I guess.

8. The Defendant requests that this Court place this matter on "Third Setting," immediately even if the State claims that all discovery has not been provided. Furthermore, the Defendant requests this Court to set a date on which the Defendant's Motion to Suppress Non-
Testimonial Identification Photographs and Motion to Suppress Identification Testimony can be
heard.

Wow indeed. The article summarizes much of what posters on this site have been arguing for 5 months. This cannot be good for Nifong. The last sentence suggests that there are members of the AA community who are going to hold Nifong accountable for his demeaning manipulation of their outrage and their votes.

I sincerely hope that is the case.

In two separate instances I have been a long term insider at both a state school (14 years as a faculty member at a flagship state land grant - NCSU) and a small highly selective private school (9 years undergrad/grad at Duke including a very good friend who let me know what was going on the the admissions office). I've also compared notes many times with faculty at other schools. I'm in a very good position to compare the academic/athletic culture of both. You admit you are not.

Since your READING COMPREHENSION has FAILED you, I am now going to be blunt. [As an aside, flagship is not a technical term but the flagship university of NC is not NCSU.]

You dont know what you are talking about. As I pointed out to you I AM AN ACADEMIC. I have been one longer than you. I have met new minted NCSU PhDs who studied my work at NCSU.

What I said previously is that I am an academic AND a sports fan who has followed recruiting and recruit qualifying for years. You apparently are ignorant in several aspects of this.

You gave me one example of athletic admissions. Big deal. I'll give you a whole book. If you have the time go read "Admissions Confidential". It's a year in the life "expose' " of an admissions officer at Duke. Duke does its admissions "blind". That means the admissions officers don't know anything but the academic record of the applicant (financial status, legacy, athletic information, ethnicity is omitted). Admit/deny is done on that basis alone. For a very small number of applicants, e.g. athletes, there is a "second look" where the coach has to make a case to the admissions office that the athlete can do the work. The admissions officers fight like hell to keep those applicants out. The writer of the book hated the fact that they even had to do "second looks".

Duke does NOT do admissions blind. You are out of your mind if you think Duke players had to go through the same exact admission process as every other student at Duke. It is just laughable that you would say something so ignorant. How in the world would Duke coaches know who to recruit and sign. BTW, it does not count that admissions officer don't like it that they have to admit all the Duke athletic signees. It is not a "second look." It is which of these athletes that don't meet Duke standards have the Duke coaches signed and we must admit.

For the general student population, you can't compare difficulty of admission at a highly competitive small private school (DU = 6,200 students) that recruits the cream of the crop nationwide with a state school (UF = 49,000?) that also recruits the cream of the crop but mostly statewide. If you know UF so well tell me how many UF students come there from out of state and pay the out-of-state tuition? I'll bet it's less than 10%.

Why does out of state tuition matter? Look at the frosh classes of both places. Look at the number of national merit scholars. I am not sure why I have to keep making your arguments for you other than you apparently know nothing about this subject and little about data, but ANOTHER case you could make is that while UF and Duke SAT scores are not that much different, with Duke's higher, that Duke has about 15% of the undergrad student body of UF and Duke and UF probably have a similar number of scholarship athletes means that the Duke average SAT is more impacted by special admit students, ie athletes, than UF's average SAT is. But then this is not a discussion of UF v. Duke no matter how much you try to make it one. [BTW, your failure to recognize my arguments and pretending when I weaken my own arguments make me wonder if you actually were ever an academic. You certainly do not seem to understand how academics discuss issue and generally accept the weaknesses on their side of a point of view.]

Once a Duke-type school gets those highly qualified students admitted, since they are so uniformly well prepared, they are able to push the hell out of them and the academic environment is very very competitive if not to say cut-throat. I know. I lived it.

Yawn. Duke like very place else has easy majors and hard majors. Duke like every place else has hard professors teaching in easy departments and easy professors teaching in hard departments. As I said earlier Duke athletes may have fewer choices in majors which could make it harder, but I have NEVER hear the term GENTLEMAN "C" associated with a big public institution either. I too went to a private school and have taught at private school better than Duke and large public schools. I know in which type of institution professors more readily fail students.

And that's true for every major whether it's Engineering, Biology or English. There are no "kick back and relax" majors nor are there any "kick back and relax courses". Everything's hard. Since I've been associated with Duke they've, for example, eliminated the undergraduate Nursing School and the undergraduate Management Science major as not being rigorous enough. The vast majority of students graduate in 4 years. (At those prices who wants to pay even one more semester of tuition!)

Actually forestry was deleted way back when and it was because it was too expensive not its rigor. You are again making a silly silly argument. Duke English is known for PC babble. It is not a serious rigourous Department. I dont care how famous Fish and the gang are in leftist circles it for example is not a serious major. What did the pot banger come from? Duke, I believe. You don't think some of the pot bangers would cut an black Duke athlete some slack. You are kidding yourself.

If you take an unprepared or unqualified athlete and throw them in that mix they die no matter what help you give them. The fact that the Duke athletes don't die in that environment, and in fact almost all succeed, is testimony to admissions doing their job and then the university does its job by following up on them including the study halls, etc. that you mention.

Actually some cheat, some out work others, some look for easier courses, etc. Admissions has little to do with which athletes are admitted to Duke, so them doing their job is meaningless in this case.

JLS said:Private schools tend to be more arts and sciences oriented and that limits the number of "jock" majors. This has to do with keeping a player eligible, but not in getting them admitted.

LB said:Actually, it has plenty to do with it. At least at Duke it does. I can't believe you think they are separate issues. I hope it's not a separte issue at UF. No admissions department worth its salt should admit a student, athlete or not, that they know can't do the work. Admissions and eligibility are part and parcel of the same thing. At Duke there's no place for the athletic department to hide the "underperformers" and so they are not admitted in the first place (see above).

Again, one has to wonder if you are an academic only in your mind. Admissions is who gets in. Initial eligibility is the ability to qualify according to the NCAA. Eligibility is meeting the NCAA rules on making progress towards a degree.

By the way , have you ever heard of cluster analysis? If you took Duke student athletes, their admission standards and their majors, I bet cluster analysis would find us the easy majors right away. I bet the would not be in engineering or physic, but you can never be sure what the easy department is in any school.

You admit "I do not know the Duke case as well." Well I do. I'll take your word about UF if you'll take my word about Duke.

While I don't know the Duke case as well, I apparently know it about 100 times better than you. I tried to tell you from the start that you were out of your depth on this issue, but you took my superior understanding and admitting where my examples were from to be a lack of understanding and bias when in fact it is more evidence that I know more about this than you can even approach. I most certainly will not take your word on Duke admissions not admitting all players who only meet the NCAA minimum. I would need an example. I want to know the name of some recruit that Duke signed, was not admitted but was able to go to some other NCAA program that same fall.

Look, this has degenerated into a pissing match about Duke vs. UF. Both are fine academic institutions with, naturally enough, different charters. I'm glad to learn that UF is taking its charter seriously. Duke is as well. I wish more schools would do the same. The main part of the charter is to admit students who are up to university level work and then follow up to make sure they succeed in their academic work and receive a fine education. That includes athletes. That both schools do so should be a source of pride to both of us.

You made this into a pissing contest. I merely pointed out to you that you were wrong about certain things concerning athletes and admissions. I pointed with a numerical example that even if Duke gets the academically best high level athletes, their students athlete are probably at a greater academic disadvantage than say NCCU or NCSU students athletes. That is the nature of being a top school trying to compete athletically against schools that are not as academically good.

As I said, I only used UF examples to counter your incorrect statements about Duke compared to other schools because I know UF examples off the top of my head. Now perhaps we can get back to the issue at hand. I thought by now it was clear to most that I don't care one way about Duke. I also don't particularly care about the Duke lacrosse team, the three players who were indicted etc. The only thing I care about is that DA is running amok and abusing citizens. These citizens could be NCCU baseball players or nonathletes or black or white or Asian or anyone.

Wow, even Cash is bailing out of this smoking wreck of a case.....

I have to give him credit for reading the discovery and being honest about what it says. As he should if he really is an advocate for poor black who are much more likely to be railroaded, he should be honest about what Nifong has revealed himself to be.