Replies

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534132.html

Letter: Published: Jan 20, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 20, 2007 02:40 AM

She should talk

Regarding Ruth Sheehan's Jan. 15 column "Nifong made call too late":
How can Sheehan criticize Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong for his actions, when just last month she was attacking Cary Academy officials for not speaking to the media until all the facts were known [about a teacher's case] -- while she was the one speaking out too quickly? Maybe Sheehan should take a hint from Nifong and step aside.

Bill Wagner

Cary

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534136.html

Letter: Published: Jan 20, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 20, 2007 02:40 AM

Degrading culture

District Attorney Mike Nifong's sensationalizing of the Duke lacrosse case is reprehensible. If the rape charges were false, it is unforgivable. However, dropping the rape charges does not acquit us from seriously considering the values we teach our children.
There should be little doubt from the underage binge drinking, racial taunts, hired strippers, e-mailed violent sexual fantasies and past criminal offenses that some lacrosse team members would be no one's first choice to date their daughter. But to what extent are these incidents also reflective of our own culture's flaws?

We are bombarded every day by violent and sexual images in the media, many of which are degrading to women. To what extent have we become desensitized? To what degree do we dismiss truly alarming behavior and attitudes as simply youthful indiscretion?

The facts of the Duke lacrosse case -- regardless of guilt or innocence -- will disappear all too quickly from the media. Already the accused are being portrayed as upstanding, wrongfully accused nice guys who have always tried to do the right thing. I hope we do not so easily dismiss the past and its warnings.

Leigh-Anne Krometis

Chapel Hill

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534130.html

Letter: Published: Jan 20, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 20, 2007 02:40 AM

Agenda-driven

Cathy N. Davidson's Jan. 5 opinion piece shows how removed she is from the facts of this issue. The statement she signed with the other 87 at Duke is very clear.
I have a much different definition of "social disaster" than Davidson. The real social disaster here is to heighten race at the expense of reason. District Attorney Mike Nifong could not have found better friends than the Duke 88, who fed the irrational response based on one woman's unproven claims.

Who look the fools now? The backpeddling and damage control has begun, and this opinion piece is just one recent example. Instead of dealing with the facts of the false rape claim, Davidson continues to pound a racial agenda to cover for the ignorance of decisions made earlier.

The more of this mind-set that is exposed, the more potential students who will decide to find a less agenda-driven group of professors at another university.

Nancy McCaffrey

Fuquay-Varina

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534135.html

Letter: Published: Jan 20, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 20, 2007 02:40 AM

Poisoned comments

Regarding the Jan. 12 article "Venom has aftereffects for Duke":
Of all the insults hurled throughout the Duke lacrosse scandal, Tricia Dowd's vitriolic attack on Karla Holloway was among the most revealing. Lacrosse parent Dowd charged Duke professor Holloway with being a selfish, failed mother of her mentally ill son. [The article also quoted Dowd as saying she regrets her comments about Holloway.]

Apparently Dowd defined successful parents as ones whose sons urinate on neighbors' lawns, hire strippers for entertainment and shout racial epithets at minorities. Holloway and her husband, on the other hand, adopted a 4-year-old abused boy with a history of mental illness and gave him a second chance at life.

Choose your definition of success.

Marjorie George

Durham

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534129.html

Letter:

Published: Jan 20, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 20, 2007 02:40 AM

Out of control

Regarding a Jan. 14 People's Forum letter-writer who said the decrease in applications at Duke University may be because mothers are afraid to have their sons suffer the same fate as the accused lacrosse players:
Some of us are afraid to send our daughters to a university that lets student athletes run amok by hiring strippers and allowing underage drinking.

Donna M. Stewart

Raleigh

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534133.html

Letter: Published: Jan 20, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 20, 2007 02:40 AM

Siding with the defense

I am disturbed by the way The N&O, unwittingly or not, has presented lacrosse-case defense team accounts of District Attorney Mike Nifong's conduct as if these were fact. The latest example was your Jan. 15 front-page story headlined "Nifong conduct rebuked early." The headline appears to suggest that there were concerns early on about Nifong's conduct, and the term "rebuke" suggests an official concern, perhaps by the Bar Association.
However, it turns out the rebuke was actually a defense representation of Nifong's conduct. Anyone following this case is aware that from the start a key defense strategy has been to draw questions about Nifong's early remarks on the case, characterizing these as exceptional and unprofessional. What was missing was any outside substantiation of defense attorney Joe Cheshire's account of professional standards and norms. As it stands, you act as a conduit for the defense team's narrative and argument.

David Need

Durham

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534128.html

Letter: Published: Jan 20, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 20, 2007 02:40 AM

Naming the accused

Under no circumstance is there justification for a woman to be raped. But there is a flaw in the policies that protect the accuser's identity.
Until such time as the accused has been tried and convicted, that person should have the same protection -- keeping his name from publication.

The Duke lacrosse players' names and pictures have constantly appeared in the national press. How can they ever be compensated for defamation of character if they are innocent, as it certainly appears?

It is way past time for equal justice under the law to be practiced in all circumstances.

Dolores Collins

Kinston

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534131.html

Letter: Published: Jan 20, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 20, 2007 02:40 AM

Unequal justice

I find People's Forum letters about the lacrosse case very disturbing. The enraged outcry about judicial misconduct in this case was noticeably absent in the case of Alan Gell, who faced the death penalty as a result of prosecutorial skullduggery. Gell was poor, unconnected, without a prestigious legal team. What strikes me about the lacrosse case is how so many are so outraged about three privileged young men experiencing unfairness, and the level of vitriol and hatred directed to those who suggest this case is about more than legal culpability.
I notice that these young men (and their parents) insist on innocence without appearing to take responsibility for team members' behavior at the party on the night in question. Forget the team's culture of longstanding, irresponsible and unaccountable behavior. Forget the elitist, racist, sexist behavior on campus exposed by this case. Forget the larger context of violence against women.

Instead, decry with wrath and resentment any threat to assumed privilege while remaining silent about insidious injustice that happens to nameless people every day. My hope is that we might instead hold equivalent compassion and concern for everyone in this community.

Tema Okun

Durham

http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534134.html

Letter: Published: Jan 20, 2007 12:30 AM
Modified: Jan 20, 2007 02:40 AM

Faculty trouble

Regarding the Jan. 17 article "Duke post seeks to defuse '88' ad":
How much longer must the public endure the train wreck in Durham? Sadly, this travesty has been made even worse by the Group of 88 professors at Duke whose selfish antics only serve to create a constant atmosphere of discord, with whipped-up archaic fantasies of mass victimhood.

The only victims here are the three innocent Duke athletes, Duke alumni, and Duke parents who fund the often six-figure salaries allowed for these troublemakers to teach courses whose subject matter would make anyone interested in serious scholarship laugh out loud.

In the meantime, Duke might consider a new course of study. One that teaches the meaning of due process, the destructiveness of mob rule and the art of giving real victims an apology.

Duke President Richard Brodhead and his administration should work decisively to rein in this madness in order to avoid having to write some very large checks.

Debrah Correll
Chapel Hill