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January 17, 2007
Duke Faculty: Too Smart by Half
By Kathleen Parker

When Woody Allen said, "The brain is the most overrated organ,'' he must have had in mind North Carolina's Research Triangle, home both to the scandalous Duke lacrosse team "rape'' fiasco -- and to more Ph.D.s per capita than just about anywhere else in America.

Rarely have so many smart people behaved so dumbly.

Last week, the case took yet a new turn when discredited district attorney Mike Nifong, under pressure from the state prosecutors association, relinquished the case to the state attorney general.

In another development, the stripper who initially claimed she was beaten, raped and sodomized by three Duke University lacrosse team players -- Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann -- has changed her story.

Again.

This time she says Seligmann didn't participate in the alleged assault after all, though she still insists he was there when the others did. She also changed the time of the alleged assault so that it no longer coincides with time-stamped receipts Seligmann produced months ago indicating that he wasn't at the party house when the incident supposedly took place.

A bit earlier, the dancer also decided she might not have been (children stop reading here) vaginally penetrated by a penis, which is required for a rape charge in North Carolina. Nifong dropped the rape charges, but intended to pursue the remaining charges of kidnapping and sexual assault.

And so it has gone for almost a year now. A new day, a new story.

Of all the questions still unanswered in this shameful saga, among the most perplexing is: How did so many smart people allow things to reach the level of hysteria we've witnessed in the past several months?

The answer is implicit in the question. Notwithstanding the rich brain trust created by the three points of North Carolina's "Triangle'' -- Duke in Durham, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University in Raleigh -- university communities are fertile breeding grounds for the totalitarian mindset known as political correctness.

Between a perverse form of liberation feminism that sanctifies strippers, prostitutes and porn stars -- and a dogma of victimology that places blame for all things at the feet of the white patriarchy -- the players were instantaneously presumed guilty by virtue of their being white males and privileged jocks.

By the same reasoning, the dancer was assured victimhood by her status as a black single mother/student, reduced by centuries of white-male oppression to stripping for food and tuition.

What happens next depends on the attorney general's review of evidence. In the meantime, members of the university community who participated in the demonization of the lacrosse team might examine their own souls.

The past year has not been exemplary for the keepers of the flame. Before any charges were brought against the three players, students produced a "wanted'' poster with photos of team members and demonstrated with signs reading, "It's Sunday morning, time to confess.''

Higher up the food chain, Duke faculty formed the "Group of 88'' -- a coalition of 88 faculty members representing 13 departments -- and ran an ad demanding that the lacrosse team players confess.

It's been quite a spectacle. It also has been a damning indictment of an intellectually dishonest culture that pretends to the virtue of enlightened tolerance, but only for a select few. White males are the last remaining group approved for public vilification.

In a March 2006 letter to the Duke administration just days after the alleged rape, English professor Houston A. Baker Jr. brought clarity to the anti-white male, anti-jock bias that is today entrenched on many college campuses. It reads in part:

"How many more people of color must fall victim to violent, white, male, athletic privilege before coaches who make Chevrolet and American Express commercials, athletic directors who engage in Miss Ophelia-styled 'perfectly horrible' rhetoric, higher administrators who are salaried at least in part to keep us safe, and publicists who are supposed not to praise Caesar but to damn the unconscionable ... how many?''

Got that, white-male-capitalist-pig-jocks of the world? Guilty. To Duke's credit, Provost Peter Lange responded to Houston with an eloquent reprimand against prejudgment.

Under pressure from feminist groups, college administrators long have sponsored lectures about date rape and sexual harassment, directed at young males, all of whom are presumed to be potential predators. In light of events at Duke, they might consider adding a new seminar to the roster -- one to review the rules of due process, the evil of mob rule, and the art of apology.

They might invite their faculties to attend.

kparker@orlandosentinel.com
© 2007, Washington Post Writers Group

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Editorials Home / Opinion / Editorials

Editorial: Published: Jan 17, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 17, 2007 04:22 AM

To be fair
Justice must not be hurried, but Duke lacrosse defendants now can look to special prosecutors for a timely review of evidence

So now the Duke lacrosse case - three former players face sexual assault and kidnapping charges - will be in the hands of two experienced prosecutors from the state Attorney General's Office. Jim Coman and Mary Winstead will take a fresh look at all evidence, says their boss, Attorney General Roy Cooper, and without the "distractions" that plagued Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong.
Nifong did make a mess of things. He very publicly announced his certainty that a rape had been committed -- a certainty that turned out to have been unwarranted. He disparaged the defendants. He relied on a photo lineup from which the accuser picked out her alleged attackers that consisted entirely of lacrosse players, potential suspects. That method went against the standard policy of Durham police.

In addition, a lab director said last month that he and Nifong decided to hold back DNA evidence that was favorable to the defense. Because of these problems and others, Nifong now faces ethical charges from the N.C. State Bar that could result in the loss of his law license.

Coman and Winstead are in a tough spot, to put it mildly. For one thing, their main witness, the alleged victim, the woman who says she was attacked at a March 13 party hosted by lacrosse players, has changed her story on several occasions. Nifong, for example, dropped rape charges against the three after the woman decided she could not offer with certainty a description of the episode that met the legal definition of rape.

With a hearing scheduled for Feb. 5 to hear defense motions (including one to throw out the police lineup as a legitimate identification of the players), this case was starting to move a bit. Cooper says it's too early to know whether that hearing will proceed. For Coman and Winstead, the first order of business will be to study the files and to interview potential witnesses. And they'll be talking to defense attorneys, which Nifong was reluctant to do. Obviously, these prosecutors can drop the case after those interviews and a review of the evidence. Or they can move ahead with it.

Defense attorneys indicate they don't object to the new prosecutors taking a thorough look at the case, and the players' lawyers indicate they have confidence in Coman and Winstead in terms of their personal integrity. Their reexamination must be careful and impartial. Ideally for all involved, the handoff to the Attorney General's Office -- which came at Nifong's request -- won't push resolution of the case too far into the future.

In the meantime, Nifong won't be enjoying himself as the State Bar examines his conduct. His fellow district attorneys have indicated their concern over his handling of this case, and indeed, it does reflect poorly on North Carolina's system of justice and what is supposed to be a prosecutor's resolve to find the truth and not just choreograph the system to obtain a conviction. Mike Nifong, of course, deserves the same fairness from the State Bar that the system is supposed to deliver for defendants in the courtroom. Certainly he has some explaining to do.

This episode has been painful for the accuser, the defendants and their families, for Duke University, for the community of Durham. These two prosecutors, however, are by experience appropriate people to look at the core of the case without prejudice toward any group or individual.

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