[abb]

http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/s...gepublisher.com

This year, ALE has not targeted off-East house parties. In past years, the agency has written up dozens at these bashes.

---

ALE quiet on Duke front
Catherine Butsch
Posted: 1/23/07
Since a late-September weekend sting in which 13 Duke students were cited for alcohol-related offenses, Alcohol Law Enforcement has kept a noticeably low profile on and around campus.

Officials confirmed this week that fewer than 40 students have been written up by ALE since the start of the fall semester-a figure that marks a significant decline from the start of the 2005-2006 academic year, when more than 200 students were cited.

Stephen Bryan, associate dean of students and director of judicial affairs, said the decrease can be attributed to several factors including ALE's decision not to carry out a "back-to-school operation" this past fall and the University's purchase of a number of off-campus houses that were previously rented by Duke students.

Bryan added that he thought the lacrosse scandal "impacted student's behavior and a number of steps the University took at the beginning of the fall semester to educate students about responsible citizenship off campus."

Mike Robertson, director of the North Carolina ALE Division, confirmed that, despite the decline in citations, ALE continues to maintain a presence in order to deter underage alcohol possession and consumption.

"We are doing as much enforcement activity around every college and university campus as we did the year before," Robertson said.

snip

[abb]

http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/s...gepublisher.com

Time for understanding, not caricatures
Leather-bound books
Dave Kleban
Posted: 1/23/07
A particularly strange aspect of the lacrosse case-in essence, a story about a dishonest prosecutor's stubborn and personally motivated pursuit of a tenuous rape accusation-is that it has generated a noisy battle over academia itself.

As the tide of the case has turned in favor of the three indicted students, members of the "Group of 88" professors have been under increasing pressure to withdraw their support from the "Listening" advertisement they placed in The Chronicle soon after the story broke.

This pressure, says Provost Peter Lange, has come in the form of "viciously personal" and "openly threatening or racist" attacks via e-mail. Cathy Davidson, vice-provost for interdisciplinary studies and a signatory to the advertisement, said the aim of these "blog hooligans" is to "make academics and liberals look ridiculous and uncaring."

Indeed, many of the angry comments posted to blogs and to The Chronicle's web site focus on the "liberal" character of academia (especially of the particular departments that signed the ad), as if such a label is informative or relevant to a legal case in which, I hope the commenters would agree, ideology should take no precedence over actual facts and individual actions.

President Richard Brodhead is correct in noting that the 88 professors have seen their views "caricatured"-portrayed much differently than what it appears they intended. (It is worth noting, however, that this became far easier to do when the advertisement was conspicuously removed from the African and African-American Studies department web site.)

snip