[freespirited]

We are in the midst of a social disaster where a brainless lefty moonbat can be awarded an endowed chair at a prestigious university.

[HamiltonJay]

Will African-Americans with legitimate grievances be willing to demand justice in the wake of this public debacle?

Its amazing he worries about this, and mentions the Lacrosse players many times.. but only mentions the accusor what appears to be a blantantly false accusation by a black woman against a group of white men in terms of "She stripped to pay for college."

He modestly chastises NFONG, not nearly to the degree he should be, and not once, not one time does he put the blame for his concern over the impact of future blacks with greivances squarely where it belongs.... on a lying black woman, and a pandering prosecutor and the poverty pimps, and sadly far too much of the black community, that would escalate her to the level of martyr simply because she made an accusation.

This guy seems to be carrying more white guilt, than true concern for overarching social problems.

While the actions of these players may be repugnant, in terms of hiring strippers for their party... the actions of this woman, and those that mindlessly rallied around her, and the prosecutor who didn't care about justice, A university that would expel them from campus with no evidence, just pandering for his own re-election were not only repugnant.. but often ILLEGAL.

[nopardons]

bttt

[PA Engineer]

On the other hand, most of my e-mail comes from right-wing "blog hooligans." These hateful, ranting and sometimes even threatening folks don't care about Duke or the lacrosse players. Their aim is to make academics and liberals look ridiculous and uncaring. They deliberately misrepresent the faculty and manipulate the feelings of those who care about the lacrosse players in order to foster their own demagogic political agenda. They contribute to the problem, not to the solution.

dripping with leftarded projection slime.

[VOA]

...the glaring social disparities implicit in
what we know happened on March 13.

H-ll, even the offended party in this case can't deliver a
consistent and coherent chronology of what happened to her on March 13.

The Duke lacrosse team may have committed crimes that day.

But the prime witness sure doesn't do a convincing job of telling
even an over-eager politicain (DA) of what really happened.

[Locomotive Breath]

Letter:
Published: Jan 06, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 06, 2007 06:28 AM

Changing the subject

Regarding Cathy Davidson's Jan. 5 Point of View article "In the aftermath of a social disaster," about the Duke lacrosse case:
The case isn't a "social disaster" fraught with racial, class and gender power imbalance issues, as Davidson tried to characterize it. It is a politically motivated and unethical district attorney trying to keep his job by pandering to Durham's black and liberal voters.

Like the other 87 faculty members who signed the Duke Chronicle ad, Davidson jumped on the politically correct bandwagon before she had the facts. Now she wants to justify her mistake by pointing out all of society's ills. It reminds me of Otter's defense of the Deltas in "Animal House" -- when you're wrong, change the subject. The reality is she and the rest of the Gang of 88 assumed the athletes were guilty. Instead of writing a long-winded justification for her position, she should write apology notes to the three accused Duke students.

Don Paschal

Raleigh

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/529263.html

[Locomotive Breath]

Gotta' love the engineers. HT: JinC.

http://www.xanga.com/DukeEgr93/560919199/creative-writing.html

---

Friday, January 05, 2007

Creative Writing

Many, including me, originally thought that President Brodhead was, in fact, supporting the students by using the term "innocent until proven guilty." Then I started to read other statements and got a better feel for the context of them (much of this education was at the hands of http://www.johnincarolina.com/ , with whom I still do not always agree, but whom I thank for a broadening perspective!).

Given the recently filed lawsuit against a Duke faculty member, I thought I would re-cast one of President Brodhead's early statements regarding the lacrosse case (the text below is a parody so hopefully covered under fair use). See if you believe it presumes innocence of the charges filed:

“This afternoon the faculty member notified Provost Lange and me that she wished to suspend teaching duties until the grade calculation results come back. I met with the faculty member this morning and she expressed regret for her errors of judgment and the embarrassment she had caused herself, her family, the political science department and the university. She repeated her denial of the criminal allegations that have been widely reported against her.

“Provost Lange and I welcomed these initiatives from the faculty member. We believe that suspension of lecturing is the right course of action, and we also see the importance of her taking responsibility for her conduct. In a slight modification, I have decided that future courses should be suspended until there is a clearer resolution of the legal situation. I shared the decision this afternoon with the trustees, who fully support it.

“Let me explain my own thinking about the suspension of courses. Intellectual coercion and grade tampering are unacceptable in any setting and will not be tolerated at Duke. As none of us would choose to be the object of such conduct, so none of us has the right to subject another person to such behavior. Since they run counter to such fundamental values, the claims against our faculty member, if verified, will warrant very serious penalties, both from the university and in the courts. The university community is based on mutual respect among all its members and for those in the larger community. We are all obliged to live up to these values to create the world where we all can thrive.

“I feel these things deeply; but there is another principle at stake as well. The facts of the Spring, 2006, episode remain unclear and there are very different accounts of the central events. No one has been charged by the police, and we know that many faculty members, including some signed on to the Social Disaster advertisement, did not teach lacrosse players. To determine responsibility, we need to learn the full truth as quickly as possible. While I have urged and do urge everyone to cooperate with this inquiry, unavoidably, we have to look to the Durham police to take the lead in the investigation. Duke does not have the power to compel testimony from citizens of this city, and it lacks access to warrants, judicial board records and other confidential information. I have confidence in the authorities to find the truth and to take whatever legal steps are necessary in the best interests of the community.

“While we await the results of the investigation, I remind everyone that under our system of law, people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. One deep value the university is committed to is protecting us all from capricious grading. An equally central value is that we must not judge each other on the basis of opinion or strong feeling rather than evidence of actual conduct.

“In this painful period of uncertainty, it is clear to me, as it was to the faculty member, that it would be inappropriate to resume the normal schedule of lectures. Classes have their time and place, but when an issue of this gravity is in question, it is not the time to be playing games.”

In my head, I envision this followed by an ad signed by faculty members and staff, and endorsed by Students for Academic Freedom.

[capitalist229]

The 'social disaster' is political correctness brought about by the 19th amendment that cannot be revisited much less repealed.

BUMP

[PhilipFreneau]

>>>We are in the midst of a social disaster where 18 percent of the American population lives below the poverty line.<<<

Since our poor generally own cars, IPods, Nike's, gold chains, and several TV's, I propose the following solution: lower the United States poverty line to the average income of all world citizens and the United States' so-called 'poverty problem' will disappear.

[Dad yer funny]

(reluctant) ping-a-ling , yes ...

. . . such an ongoing American "thing"

[WashingtonSource]

The author of this tripe is a one-woman social disaster.

[GOPJ]

It's a social disaster when a mob - left-wing professors in this case - gang up against a group of powerless outcasts -- innocent team members.

Liberal professors wanted to throw a rope over a tree limb -- the fact they wear black robes instead of white doesn't keep them from being a hate group.

[ozzymandus]

Sort of a long way of saying, "I'm a whining lefty weasel".

[Zebra]

Who is that exotic dancer? A single mother who takes off her clothes for hire partly to pay for tuition at a distinguished historically black college. Of course the lacrosse story makes Americans of conscience cringe.

No, it should make us cringe when a sanctimonious, preachy scold has the gall to portray the "victim" of his bullshit "social disaster" as a tuition earning mother and not a drug-addled, lying sociopath with a history of false accusations.

Absolutely typical liberal dishonesty: reshape the "facts" to fit your comfortable paradigm.

This idiot's "argument" resonates with my post from the other day, which read in part:

The damage to Duke's reputation from the LAX episode is incredible and will increase by at least an order of magnitude as this plays out. The breathtakingly outrageous faux rape case focused the spotlight on the cockroaches that comprise the Duke 88, showed President Brodhead to be the politically correct, appease-the-feminists-and race-pimps administrator that he is and now promises to leave no questionable aspect of Duke University (including its faculty and curricula) unexamined. My guess is that the hubbub surrounding "professor" Curtis and her alleged grade retaliation is just the beginning. Unflattering examples of things like professorial bias, phony classes (like the one Curtis teaches) and suspect faculty credentials will almost certainly emerge.

[sauropod]

I am positive I am not the only professor who was and continues to be adamant about the necessity for fair and impartial legal proceedings for David, Collin and Reade while also being dismayed by the glaring social disparities implicit in what we know happened on March 13.

Dear Cathy,

I don't believe you.

And ruining 3 young mens' lives so you can feel better while you wallow in sanctimony, addressing "social disparities" is hardly a cause for celebration and is definitely not an appropriate function of college "professors."

My daughter wishes to attend Duke.

Over my dead body.

Quite Sincerely,

Sauropod.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

That those women were women of color underscores the appalling power dynamics of the situation.

So this particular moonbat is saying that the Duke lacrosse players specifically called up and ordered 2 black women (I refuse to call them persons of color) so that they could excercise their "power dynamic" on them by having them gyrate and strip while the white boys shout, "Dats right...strip it off for da white Massuh!"

Riiiiight.

[wintertime]

Their aim is to make academics and liberals look ridiculous and uncaring.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Well,,,aren't they ridiculous and uncaring?

[Lancey Howard]

Oh I get it.

This imbecile, Cathy Davidson, is disappointed and humiliated by the turn of events in the malicious prosecution of the lacrosse players, and she is now embarrassed that she signed onto that sniffy, self-important "ad". So now, in order to convince people (and herself?) that, gee, the ad wasn't meant to imply anything about those lacrosse players, she's throwing out a whole lot of weasel words. It's all a big misunderstanding. See, the real problem is institutional racism and sexism and blah blah blah....

Yeah right.

[Locomotive Breath]

Jan. 08, 2007: Why We Dont Have Any More Great University Presidents ...


... because the universities don't want them, that's why.

National Review
David Frum's Diary

From a NYT article on Harvard's search for a new president to replace Larry Summers:

"I think the tough thing for the corporation is they want someone like Derek Bok, who doesn’t cause any unnecessary sparks."

Exactly. Once universities sought out presidents who could write and speak. Today, they prefer experts at hiding and evasion. Hey - do you suppose Lee Bollinger is available?

http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTAyZTgzMDNlZWZhOGQ4ODNhMTkxMWZkOTE5YjViN2M=

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/education/08harvard.html?ex=1168837200&en=fd899045c7070659&ei=5099&partner=TOPIXNEWS

Is it too early to start the search for Brodhead's successor?