A Rush to Judgment

Newsweek ^ | September 10, 2007 | Evan Thomas

[Puzzleman]

On March 28, 2006, the four co-captains of the Duke lacrosse team accused of gang-raping an exotic dancer met with university president Richard Brodhead. One of the captains, David Evans, emotionally protested that the team was innocent and apologized for the misbegotten stripper party. "Brodhead's eyes filled with tears," write Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson in their new book on the case, "Until Proven Innocent" (420 pages. Thomas Dunne Books. $26.95). Brodhead "said that the captains should think of how difficult it had been for him." The misbehavior of the players, said Duke's president, "had put him in a terrible position." Listening to Brodhead, Robert Ekstrand, a lawyer representing the captains and many of their teammates, "felt his blood starting to boil," write Taylor and Johnson. "Here, he thought, is a comfortable university president wallowing in self-pity in front of four students who are in grave danger of being falsely indicted on charges of gang rape, punishable by decades in prison."

--snip--

[Puzzleman]

A book that had to be written. Hopefully, it will help stop this terrible march into "politically correct" insanity.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Hopefully, it will help stop this terrible march into "politically correct" insanity.

Good luck with that. Not even a road bump.

[JohnLongIsland]

these institutions are where all you parents voluntarily send your kids for indoctrination.

[Al Gator]

Is this a book review or is it a vehicle for Newsweek to try and pretend that they were on the vanguard of vigilence to protect the player’s rights?

I smell a rat here.

[Flintlock]

What a craven buncha cowards—from the Prexy on down.
I’ll bet they stand as representatives of EVERY SINGLE College and University in the country with hardly ANY exceptions.
Pity the poor Undergraduates.
Wanna spend your tuition $ there, folks?
Didn’t think so.

[Enchante]

Most of America's universities are mired in a cesspool of politically correct corruption of moral and intellectual life. The only semi-honest profs are afraid of the firestorm of harassment they will face if they speak up so they keep their heads down and just try to do their own work. The vicious charlatans such as Cornel West or Duke's "Gang of 88" dominate the public arena because they are the ones with the determination and activist dementia to keep on going in the face of the endless refutations of reality. Duke should fire the Gang of 88 and get some honest, decent profs if they can still be found somewhere.

"The authors make the Duke faculty look at once ridiculous and craven. For months, not one of the university's nearly 500-member faculty of arts and sciences stood up to question the rush to judgment against the lacrosse team. So much for the ideal of the liberal-arts university where scholars debate openly and seek the truth."

[Always Right]

Duke is a disgrace. There should have been some firings, including the president. Totally disgusting behavior on the part of the Duke faculty.

[Always Right]

Is this a book review or is it a vehicle for Newsweek to try and pretend that they were on the vanguard of vigilence to protect the player’s rights? I smell a rat here.

The media was Nifong's willing accomplish.

[CTK YKC]

“A book that had to be written. Hopefully, it will help stop this terrible march into “politically correct” insanity.”

What are a few innocents ruined as long as the agenda moves forward?

[nathanbedford]

The co-author of the book, Stuart Taylor Jr., although not a conservative, has demonstrated in the Monica Lewinsky affair that he is a man of intellectual honesty. It was he who blew the whistle on the drive-by media's treatment of Paula Jones' case of sexual assaults against Bill Clinton.

In that case, Stuart Taylor marshaled the facts and applied the law-he went where the logic of both led him, can you imagine a judge in the ninth circuit doing that?-and he concluded that Paula Jones indeed had a persuasive case to make. The mainstream media was exposed then for what it is. Not having read his book about the Duke case, I nevertheless, as an ardent free Republic poster, do not feel the slightest constraint about commenting upon it and I would bet that he has done the same thing to leftist institutions like the media, the criminal law system, and academia with this set of facts.

Stuart Taylor Jr., although not a conservative, serves as an admirable model of what a legal scholar, a legal reporter, or a jurist can be like when he is willing to be intellectually honest.

[GOP_Proud]

bump

[saganite]

Brodhead “said that the captains should think of how difficult it had been for him.” The misbehavior of the players, said Duke’s president, “had put him in a terrible position.”

It’s all about me!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The University president & the Duke 88 are still on the payroll. What’s wrong with this picture ?

[madprof98]

Good luck with that. Not even a road bump.

Exactly. It's gone. Not even a matter of history. The Duke case just didn't happen. CNN is all about the Jena 6 now. Conclusive proof that our society is rotten to the racist core.

[tsomer]

Stuart Taylor Jr., although not a conservative, serves as an admirable model of what a legal scholar, a legal reporter, or a jurist can be like when he is willing to be intellectually honest.

If he keeps that up, he'll become a conservative.

I figured out last week why turned conservative; it's because I'm a liberal.

[quikdrw]

I can’t see either of my sons even applying to Duke. I wonder how many other parents feel the same way.