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In Duke's Shadow, a Poor Cousin Struggles to Rise
New YorK Times ^ | 05/01/06 | William Yardley

Posted on 04/30/2006 8:41:33 PM PDT by OakOak

By WILLIAM YARDLEY Published: May 1, 2006

DURHAM, N.C., April 30 — North Carolina Central University does not have a lacrosse team. Students often cannot check out books from the main library, which is being renovated after a mold infestation. The business school is fighting to regain accreditation. Sixty percent of the students receive need-based financial aid. Eighty-one percent are black. Only 28 percent graduate after four years.

Just three miles from Duke University and its master-planned marriage of Gothic elegance and academic excellence, North Carolina Central, a rambling red-brick, historically black institution, is across the tracks, across the highway, across an immeasurable cultural divide. Or so goes the armchair anthropology.

Yet North Carolina Central is also engaged in an ambitious push to enhance its academics and its campus, to remake its image and its mission. At least $121 million in state spending in the last six years has brought new law and science buildings and dormitories, and more projects are planned.

The university is aggressively recruiting top minority students — sometimes competing for them against Duke — and pursuing a niche in biotechnology, hoping to take advantage of its location here next to Research Triangle Park. Enrollment is up to about 8,200, compared with about 5,400 just five years ago. Aspirations have risen, too.

Now, with the universities uncomfortably linked by a North Carolina Central student's accusations that she was raped by members of Duke's lacrosse team, which had hired her as an exotic dancer for a party, some officials, alumni and students at North Carolina Central say perceptions that their school is a struggling academic afterthought in Durham may be the hardest thing to change.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: North Carolina
KEYWORDS: 911; accuser; duke; dukelax; lacrosse; lax; nccu; rape
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To: Mike Darancette

I live in the the white house with the gray roof.


61 posted on 05/01/2006 5:42:06 AM PDT by wbill
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To: Neverforget01

Neverforget01 is right. However, IMO, the reason we are where we are with this case is the Media coverage.

Community Outrage was whipped up
The DA became a celebrity and wasn't asked any hard questions by the Nat'l Media
Duke felt pressured to fire the coach.
The New Black Panther party is marching on the City.
The Players, faces, names, and past was plastered in posters, Newpapers, and TV.

BTW, Shabazz said on National TV that he ate dinner at the Family table and that it's not true they don't want him involved.


62 posted on 05/01/2006 5:43:25 AM PDT by OakOak
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To: Mike Darancette; wbill

"I live in the the white house with the gray roof."


Me too.


63 posted on 05/01/2006 5:45:16 AM PDT by OakOak
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To: Bubba_Leroy

I am not sure what alternative the NYT is proposing in this piece? Close Duke? Build NCCU up to Duke's standards? If the brunt of the article is "inequality exists" I don't think this is news to anyone. Every university is not, cannot, and ought not, be equal. If the standards were substantially raised at NCCU many of its students could not attend. As it is now, somewhat less qualified students can still get a college education at a reasonable rate of tuition. I just don't know what else should be asked.


64 posted on 05/01/2006 5:50:39 AM PDT by NCLaw441
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To: OakOak

-----Neverforget01 is right. However, IMO, the reason we are where we are with this case is the Media coverage.-----

You're leaving out an important component. Although you did mention "community outrage", you neglected to mention the almost sheep-like willingness with which the black community instantly accepted the allegations as true, without even an ounce of skepticism.

Of course, many whites are just as guilty, however...with the preponderance of exculpatory evidence that has come to light, there has still not been a single black voice that has stood up and said "let us NOT rush to judgement".

It's disturbing.


65 posted on 05/01/2006 5:56:09 AM PDT by TruthHurts001
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To: NCLaw441

I am not sure what alternative the NYT is proposing in this piece?


I think this comes from the same train of thought where other news organizations reported the cost of the indicted players family homes and described their neighborhoods - Expansive lawns on Cul-de-sacs.

I think we're supposed to hate 'em.


66 posted on 05/01/2006 5:58:44 AM PDT by OakOak
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To: OakOak; Howlin
unbelievable. Maybe NCCU should charge $20,000 per semester and they would get free ipods. Did the NYT point out that NCCU was a state supported school and Duke a private school?
67 posted on 05/01/2006 6:04:58 AM PDT by Perdogg (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem)
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To: rdb3

North Carolina A&T is a good school.


68 posted on 05/01/2006 6:06:41 AM PDT by Perdogg (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem)
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To: Uddercha0s
Today should be an interesting day there between the panthers and the illegals LEO's will have their hands full. Maybe some libs from Chapel Hill can join in the festivities. I'm just glad I left Raleigh when I did.

All the leftists at UNC-CH will be too busy celebrating May Day and defacing the doors of our ROTC building.

69 posted on 05/01/2006 6:07:19 AM PDT by The Phantom FReeper (Have you hugged your soldier today?)
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To: rdb3

Don't forget North Carolina A&T and Fayetteville State!
***

That is an aspect of NCCU's status that is ignored. There are several predominantly black UNC colleges and universities. A & T is one, and it does a very good job educating its students. NCCU fills a necessary niche, but it cannot expect to have students who compete on a level with Duke (or UNC Chapel Hill, or NC State, or A&T), because students who are capable of performing at those schools ATTEND those schools. What is left is what NCCU, Fayetteville State, Winston-Salem State (which has a very good nursing program, I understand).

All schools cannot be above average.


70 posted on 05/01/2006 6:08:15 AM PDT by NCLaw441
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To: John Geyer

I have no great admiration for Duke, but the times doesn't seem to understand that Duke is a private university - with a huge endowment and supported by the Duke Endowment - and NC Central is a public university that must compete for funds with other public colleges and universities in NC.


71 posted on 05/01/2006 6:10:01 AM PDT by quadrant
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To: Perdogg

-----Maybe NCCU should charge $20,000 per semester and they would get free ipods. Did the NYT point out that NCCU was a state supported school and Duke a private school?-----

HBCU's are just ANOTHER example of the incredible hypocrisy of the black community.

On the one hand, the black community RIGHTEOUSLY wants to be INCLUDED in the mainstream of American society.

On the other hand, the black community wants to have its own "black" colleges, "black" beauty pageants, "black" radio and tv stations, etc etc etc.


72 posted on 05/01/2006 6:10:46 AM PDT by TruthHurts001
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To: TruthHurts001
HBCU's are just ANOTHER example of the incredible hypocrisy of the black community.

NCCU has been around much longer than intergration. 50 years ago, a black student would have had absolutely no chance of going to Duke or UNC no matter what their scores or grades were. When those schools started to accept blacks, should they have closed the other schools? NCCU is apparently 19% nonblack, assuming that most of those students are white that means that a higher percentage of whites go to NCCU than blacks go to Duke.

73 posted on 05/01/2006 6:16:46 AM PDT by LWalk18
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To: OakOak; All

S-o-o-o-o-o-oB! Somebody toss me a box of tissues before my tears short out my keyboard.


74 posted on 05/01/2006 6:21:54 AM PDT by F.J. Mitchell (Hanging and firing squad, was not deemed cruel or inhumane execution by the writers of that clause.)
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To: LWalk18

Um, I don't know what your point is.

-----NCCU has been around much longer than intergration.-----
Okay.

-----50 years ago, a black student would have had absolutely no chance of going to Duke or UNC no matter what their scores or grades were.-----
Okay.

-----When those schools started to accept blacks, should they have closed the other schools?-----
No.

-----NCCU is apparently 19% nonblack, assuming that most of those students are white that means that a higher percentage of whites go to NCCU than blacks go to Duke.-----
Okay.


75 posted on 05/01/2006 6:26:44 AM PDT by TruthHurts001
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To: The Phantom FReeper

Don't forget denying acts of terrorism that occur in town...


76 posted on 05/01/2006 6:28:00 AM PDT by Uddercha0s
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To: TruthHurts001

I don't think NCCU is 19% white. It may be 11% Latino and 8 % white. Or thereabouts


77 posted on 05/01/2006 6:33:01 AM PDT by OakOak
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To: TruthHurts001
My point is that those colleges don't exist just because of a separatist whim, but because they were necessary prior to integration if a black person wanted to go to college in the South. Today they are anachronisms, but it's not like whites can't apply to and attend a HBCU if they so choose.
78 posted on 05/01/2006 6:33:30 AM PDT by LWalk18
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To: NCLaw441
If the standards were substantially raised at NCCU many of its students could not attend.

Um, Only 28 percent graduate after four years. With a number like that, it's a waste of taxpayer dollars if they don't raise their standards.

Perhaps shutting NCCU and replacing it with a trade and vocational college that could provide practical training
and education that would actually benefit the majority of the those that couldn't meet graduation standards
at NCCU?

Me thinks the school serves those employed by the school, rather than the students. And in that regard, they are not unique.

79 posted on 05/01/2006 6:39:16 AM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: LWalk18

but it's not like whites can't apply to and attend a HBCU if they so choose.


And it's not like all white people can afford Duke. It's a very small percentage of all races. If you do have the money, you still have to meet the academic criteria.

It's like on TV sometimes, it WHITE= RICH and powerful
BLACK = Poor, struggling .

I think there are more poor white people (in sheer numbers).


80 posted on 05/01/2006 6:40:30 AM PDT by OakOak
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