Posted on 01/10/2007 6:31:28 AM PST by TBBBO
From Diverse Online
Current News Duke Fallout Continues as Top Black Professor Resigns From Race Committee By Christina Asquith Jan 10, 2007, 08:13
The Duke University professor heading a university-appointed committee to investigate race relations on campus in the wake of last spring’s men’s lacrosse scandal has resigned from that committee in protest against the recent decision to invite two of the players back on to campus.
“The decision by the university to readmit the students, especially just before a critical judicial decision on the case, is a clear use of corporate power, and a breach, I think, of ethical citizenship,” says Dr. Karla Holloway, the William R. Kenan Jr., Professor of English and Professor of Law at Duke. “I could no longer work in good faith with this breach of common trust.”
Holloway, who is Black, had agreed to head one of the four committees formed by Duke President Richard H. Brodhead late last spring. She says she’d hoped to improve the racial climate on campus after a Black exotic dancer accused members of Duke’s men’s lacrosse team of rape and racial slurs — prompting a media frenzy and nationwide accusations of racism against the university and its students.
Since that time, though, the prosecutor’s case has all but fallen apart, and public opinion has swung drastically in defense of the lacrosse players. Professors like Holloway — who had condemned the players — are now facing criticism for prematurely assuming the players’ guilt and, ironically, making racist charges against the White players.
In her resignation letter, Holloway criticized the Duke administration for not coming to her defense, as attacks in the form of blogs and letters to the university newspaper have mounted in recent months.
“The public support [the administration] has extended to these students has been absent in regard to faculty who have been under constant and often vicious attack,” she wrote.
University spokespeople did not respond to Diverse’s requests for comment.
Holloway’s resignation is the latest turn in a roller coast ride since last year for those representing Duke’s Black community. By 2006, the Black studies program ought to have been stronger than ever, since the university spent 10 years — from 1993 to 2003 — implementing it’s “Black Faculty Strategic Initiative.” The initiative doubled the number of Black professors, from 44 to 88, and poured millions into funding the Black studies program, which Holloway led for a time.
However, some professors have claimed that the lacrosse scandal shone a spotlight on underlying racism on campus. The accuser was a Black single mother, working her way through college at nearby North Carolina Central University, while the three defendants were all White and from wealthy families. Adding to the racial tension, a neighbor said he overheard the players slinging racial slurs at the dancer.
Initially, many at Duke supported the dancer. Students held candlelight vigils on campus and 88 professors, now known as the “Group of 88” signed an advertisement in the student newspaper calling for the administration to take a stronger stand against the players. The administration “failed to recognize the racial dimensions of this and failed to address it quickly,” wrote Duke political science professor Paula McClain in an article published in the summer of 2006.
Also during the summer, six Black professors left Duke, although most said their departures were unrelated to the scandal. A university spokesman said at the time that 10 more Black professors had been hired for the start of the 2006-2007 academic year, but Holloway claims that number is inflated.
In recent months, the pendulum of public opinion has swung in favor of the lacrosse players as controversy and criticism have dogged district attorney Mike Nifong’s handling of the case. Multiple DNA tests have found no link between the dancer and the players, and it has been revealed that Nifong never met with accuser and hid evidence that would excuse the players. Not long after the charges were filed, many Duke students could be seen wearing blue bracelets with white letters proclaiming “INNOCENT.” In an October editorial, a science professor accused those who had not supported the lacrosse players of abandoning the Duke family.
“The faculty who publicly savaged the character and reputations of specific men’s lacrosse players last spring should be ashamed of themselves. They should be tarred and feathered, ridden out of town on a rail and removed from the academy,” he wrote.
Holloway says she was deeply shocked by that editorial, and the administration’s failure to offer even a note of support to her.
Later in October, however, the board of trustees elevated the Black studies program to a department. While the program already offered undergraduate and graduate degrees, trustees said at the time that the promotion reflected Duke’s “commitment” to its Black students.
Although Nifong dropped the rape charges last month, the kidnapping case against the three players is set to go to court this spring. Many speculate, however, that the case will never make it to court given the seemingly weak evidence. But regardless of what happens in the case, Duke is already feeling some chilling effects from the tide of negative publicity.
Applications have dropped 3.3 percent since the scandal broke, from 19,387 in 2006 to 18,495 in 2007. The university also received 20 percent fewer early decision applications this year compared to last year.
“We must work together to restore the fabric of mutual respect,” said Duke president Brodhead in a recent letter addressed to the Duke community. “One of the things I have most regretted is the way students and faculty have felt themselves disparaged and their views caricatured in ongoing debates.”
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
Looks like sentence first, verdict afterward. She's a student of Lewis Carroll, obviously.
Cynthia McNinney's Evil-er Twin?.......
One stupid lib down, a whole college left to go.
NiFong should be Fitzgeralded........
IMHO, NiFong was primarily prosecuting this case solely for his own political career. Use it as steppingstone to the governor's mansion ala, Spitzer..........
http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/09/travails-of-karla-holloway.html
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The Travails of Karla Holloway
my grandfather's family were sharecroppers too, white also
Too damn bad all the white students and alumni don't withdraw from Duke for employing @ssholes like this professor.
No, Carroll is a Dead White Male. She is a devotee of Judge Lynch. As is typical of "Ethnic Studies" professors and programs of all stripes, she is blind to the blatant hypocrisy of her very profession.
Holloway, "Professor of Law at Duke", ought have known better than to employ her trap before the evidence was presented. She says she "was deeply shocked by the administration’s failure to offer even a note of support to her", when it was she who chose to condemn the accused prematurely.
Yeah, she's a fine example of how America's law ought not be conducted.
She and Nifong apparently went to the same school.
However, in the interest of truth and justice, I, who am a Duke alumnus, have reserved judgment in this case. The Left in the U.S., as it has amply demonstrated time and again, obviously has no such interest in truth and justice and no intention of reserving judgment, on this or any other matter.
Thanks for posting the link.
She's a Professor of Mob Law.
It's clear Holloway believes justice is exacted at the hands of a frenzied mob and not by a decision of weighed evidence examined by a jury of peers.
There is nothing "ironic" about the criticism.
Individuals like Holloway are as racist as any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan except that their racism is directed at whites.
Exactly. And if this professor is so outraged, why doesn't she go after Nifong for using the accuser to get what he wanted?
What's truly frightening to me is, she's a law professor. How far Duke has fallen.
"Why is it that blacks can never be racists? I see this as a blatant case of racism."
We'll be right back in a moment with more news about the acquittal of OJ Simpson.
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