Posted on 06/20/2007 2:53:32 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets
Duke deal shields faculty
Some spoke out after rape claims
Anne Blythe and Eric Ferreri, Staff Writers DURHAM - Duke University's settlement with exonerated lacrosse players gives legal protection to faculty members, some of whom have been under siege for speaking out in the wake of the gang-rape allegations. Neither side would disclose the terms of the agreement, announced Monday, but Duke's faculty chairman, Paul Haagen, informed professors that one provision is that all faculty members have been released from liability related to the lacrosse case.
That news sparked another round of vitriolic messages from e-mailers and bloggers still exercised over a student newspaper ad signed in the spring of 2006 by 88 Duke professors, who decried a campus culture of racism and sexism.
As Duke shut the door on lawsuits by the players in the lacrosse case, the Durham County sheriff on Tuesday slammed shut District Attorney Mike Nifong's access to the courthouse where he has worked 29 years. Orlando Hudson, the county's chief resident Superior Court judge, entered an order suspending Nifong with pay.
Sheriff Worth Hill went to Nifong's house Tuesday morning, after a courtesy call to let him know he was on his way, and confiscated the district attorney's keys and access card to the courthouse. Arrangements will be made so Nifong can collect his personal belongings from an office he has occupied since April 2005.
Nifong was found guilty last week of ethics violations and professional misconduct in his handling of the lacrosse case by an N.C. State Bar disciplinary panel. The panel ruled that he should be disbarred. The disbarment does not take effect until 30 days after a written order is entered, and that could be several weeks.
Nifong on Monday submitted resignation letters to Hudson and Gov. Mike Easley, laying out a timetable that caused dismay among his critics. Nifong said he would step down July 13 -- not soon enough for people who worried that Nifong's being in office would do more damage to a court system struggling to restore its image.
In Nifong's absence, assistant district attorneys are handling the office's caseload.
"Everything is running smoothly," said Candy Clark, the district attorney's administrative assistant.
Once there is a vacancy, Easley must appoint a replacement. Easley began talking with potential candidates and others Tuesday about who Nifong's successor should be.
"He wants to do that as soon as he can," said Seth Effron, a spokesman for the governor. "Some of the limitations are based on what the law says."
In his order, Judge Hudson said Nifong's conduct in the Duke lacrosse case was "prejudicial to the administration of justice" and had brought disrepute to the District Attorney's Office.
Efforts to reach Nifong failed.
Duke's reasoning
Duke, too, is struggling to restore its image, and that, legal experts say, is one reason the university would settle such a case.
"This was an unprecedented situation, the likes of which we believe will not recur, and it was dealt with accordingly," said John Burness, Duke's chief spokesman. "The settlement covers all matters related to the situation to date involving Duke and its employees, including members of the Duke faculty."
The money came from a legal fund, not an endowment, Burness said, but he would not disclose how much money was in the fund.
Duke trustees, who approved the settlement, either declined to discuss it or could not be reached for comment.
The agreement with the families and the players is the third settlement stemming from the lacrosse case. The university settled with Mike Pressler, the head lacrosse coach forced to resign last spring at the height of the accusations against the players. Recently, the university also settled with Kyle Dowd, a former lacrosse player who complained of receiving a bad grade because of his association with the team.
Paula McClain, a political science professor who on July 1 becomes chairwoman of Duke's Academic Council, said Tuesday that she hopes the settlement allows the university to move forward. Removing faculty members from any liability likely just made good sense, said McClain, who was not part of the legal discussions.
"I don't know if any faculty really felt any liability," she said. "But in a very litigious society, anyone can sue for anything."
In March 2006, lacrosse players hired two escort service dancers for a spring break party that ended with one of the dancers making allegations of gang-rape.
The accusations triggered an uproar in Durham and on the Duke campus.
Word of the settlement apparently sparked an increase in the number of furious e-mail messages that McClain and some of her colleagues have received since endorsing an ad placed in the student newspaper, The Chronicle. The ad featured anonymous quotes from students who described a campus culture of racism and sexism, decrying "what happened to this young woman."
The ad did not mention the lacrosse team, but it was viewed by some as a condemnation of the players. It became a popular target of bloggers, a symbol of political correctness run amok.
The messages -- and the occasional fax -- range from critical to downright racist and threatening. McClain, who is black, reports the worst of them to campus police.
McClain rarely responds to the e-mail messages. "I'm not going to be intimidated into modulating speech," she said.
(Staff writers Benjamin Niolet and Joseph Neff contributed to this report.)
Staff writer Anne Blythe can be reached at 932-8741 or anne.blythe@newsobserver.com. Staff writers Benjamin Niolet and Joseph Neff contributed to this report.
If the race of the victim isn't mentioned then she's white. You can count on it.
What if your parents had mortgaged their homes to pay the lawyers, and this winds up taking them off the hook and giving you a nice piece of change?
The faculty is practically "judgment proof", it'd cost more to sue them than you'd ever be likely to collect. Basically, they're like illegal aliens driving without insurance. No problemo, you wipe out of family of four, take the deportation and come back in a coupla weeks under a new false ID.
A serious academic subject... no, it’s not a serious subject. Engineering is a serious subject...Chemistry is a serious subject. Romance studies is a frivolous subject..no different from Political “science”.
I have undergrad degrees in both PoliSci and Physics... believe me, I only had to study seriously at one of those...
USMA ‘93
When I hear 88 I think of “keys on a piano” or a famous German cannon.
The plaintiffs can agree to not sue third parties as part of the settlement.
You make an excellent point. The $200,000 parents intended to spend at Duke could be put into an investment fund for their child, could buy a house for him/her, could set her/him up in a small business, etc.
I agree that these so-called “Iv League” colleges are nothing more than the American Left’s version of Al Quaeda training camps.
I think the judge just wants to get rid of him as fast as possible. Often suspension with pay is the easiest way, especially when it’s only taxpayer money.
- I see now how serious the study of the so called Romance languages is. I can see where they are an absolute necessity to getting a good paying job. -
Yes they are, if you want to be:
An Ambassador
Work for the State Department
Be an asset to a multi-national company
Work as a translator
Work as an interpretor
Be involved in negotiations with people of those cultures
Believe it or not, people of different nationalities think differently; one of the ways of learning how they think is to study their languages and literature - especially studying literature in the original language gives one insight into the values, mores and pre-conceptions of people born in Europe.
And now we are told that Duke had to shield them with a settlement?
I knew I was being lied to.
I think the word she sought was modify? One can, of course, modulate speech but clearly that’s not what she intended. Anyway, it sure makes her sound smart.
"We libel and slander people so routinely around here we never even give it a second thought," she added.
So, the boys signed away their right to civil action against the 88.
However, is there any standing by the state to persue CRIMINAL action against these people by a new courageous DA?
Wait a minute!!! When did we lose our local paper to Charlotte? Mind you it's not that great but it's ours...dang it Charlotte gets everything in this state...lol
Don’t worry. It cost Duke every penny they had saved in their legal fund. Tens of millions at the very least. By taking the money now, the three victims get to keep more of the money which would otherwise go to their, and Dukes, lawyers if the case went to trial.
Another good point in taking the money now, is that it establishes their case against Durham County and Nifong. Duke, by paying, has strengthened that case and they can now use that money to go after the big bucks. You shouldn’t worry that Duke university is somehow getting off easy either.
This is going to hurt everyone associated with the university for a long time to come. There are going to be layoffs, shrinking enrollments, fewer endowments. Duke will end up a shadow of it’s former self, if it doesn’t go bankrupt entirely.
If the trustees were smart they would clean house and fire the president and all 88 signers of the ad slandering the lacrosse team. However, they aren’t smart or they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place. Stupid university deserves to go down the drain. Good riddance.
PS. you know it cost Duke big bucks to settle. It's standard to keep settlements secret if they are large. Thats so scammers won't see to the payer as a soft target that can be intimidated into paying large settlements. If the settlement were small, Duke wouldn't have any reason to keep it secret.
You are seeing the 88 professors and Duke University as two separate entities. They are not.
The scum bags trustees and the 88 professors are cronies. Of course any settlement would protect their fellow socialist maggots as well as the university.
Maybe the boys, who are now young men, just want to have a life.
OK, I made that up. But ultimately it is the students, and their parents who will pay for this. I doubt that the gang of 88 will even suffer a single consequence.
That is, until admissions drop at Duke, because people don't want to pay for its stupidity.
Charlotte sure has the best airport in the Southeast. If you can avoid Hotlanta, do so.
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