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[The latest installation of a (usually) Friday series profiling Group of 88 members...] Duke’s History Department features three professors who study the history of Hispanic Latin America (Mexico, Central America, and South America outside of Brazil). Pete Sigal, Irene Silverblatt, and Jocelyn Olcott are all members of the Group of 88. Each also signed the statement of the “clarifying” faculty. Pete Sigal has a B.A. from Bucknell and a Ph.D. from UCLA. This coming fall, he’ll be teaching courses in colonial Latin American history and a junior seminar entitled “Sexual History around the Globe.” That course asks, <<“What does it...

The “Duke 88″ (or Group of 88) are a group of faculty members who effectively joined ex-District Attorney Mike Nifong in prejudging lacrosse players who were falsely accused of raping Crystal Gail Mangum. There has been considerable discussion of the consequences these faculty members should suffer, both professionally and civilly, for their actions. Unluckily for them, “88″ is white supremacist shorthand for “Heil Hitler” (H being the eighth letter of the alphabet). As an example, if a white supremacist writes “14/88″ he means “The Fourteen Words” (a white supremacist slogan) followed by “Heil Hitler.” This can be verified from the...

The following is a paid ad placed in the Duke Chronicle yesterday by more than 1000 people. ******** The following petition was endorsed by over 1,000 Duke Students along with recent graduates: WHAT DOES A SOCIAL DISASTER SOUND LIKE? On April 6th of last year a full page ad ran in The Chronicle signed by 88 professors and 16 academic programs and departments at Duke University. Weeks before any indictment was issued, in disregard for due process, our own professors projected guilt onto our peers on the lacrosse team. In the ad they not only tacitly supported the accusations of...

After the rape allegations against three young men from the Duke lacrosse team, 88 professors, including 11 from the history department, signed a public statement that they were "listening" regarding the allegations. Their actions led to campus protestors putting up wanted posters of the young innocent men and branding the lacrosse team as rapists. We all watched in amazement as Attorney General Cooper made a statement a few days ago that is almost unprecedented. He didn't say that there was not enough evidence in the case. He said that the young men were innocent. A short time ago, I spoke...

DURHAM, N.C. - There are days when Duke University President Richard Brodhead can barely bring himself to utter the word "lacrosse." In a February address to a national higher education audience, he referred to "our difficulties this past year." At a recent gathering of Duke faculty, he called it "the event of a year ago." On Wednesday, Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges against the three former Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer. The case may be over, but the pain will linger for the university. ....[snip] [snip]...Just two years into his first college presidency,...

Last spring, at the height of the frenzy over accusations that three Duke University men’s lacrosse players had gang raped a Black exotic dancer during a party, faculty from Duke’s African and African American studies department chose to take a stand. With emotions running high, the faculty decided to take out a full-page advertisement in student newspaper, the Duke Chronicle, quoting the fears that minority students had expressed in a recent campus forum. “I wonder now about everything … if something like this happens to me, what would be used against me? My clothing?” one student had asked. “This is...

Yesterday, Duke students started their fourth week of spring-term classes. Offerings include a cross-listed course in women’s studies and cultural anthropology entitled “Hook-Up Culture at Duke.” An appropriate subtitle would be “Group of 88 for Credit.” Instructor Anne Allison’s syllabus avoided the following sentence from the course’s previously published catalog description: “Finally, what does the lacrosse scandal tell us about power, difference, and raced, classed, gendered and sexed normativity in the US?” But while a casual observer might have speculated that, as the case collapsed, Allison dropped discussion of it from her course, in fact, she just evaded mention of...

Dozens of Duke professors have posted "an open letter to the Duke community" on the Web, explaining an ad last spring that has been widely criticized as a condemnation of lacrosse players. The new letter, signed by 87 faculty and posted at www.concerneddukefaculty.org, refuses to apologize for the ad and reiterates concerns about issues of race and sexual violence on the Duke campus. It says the so-called "Group of 88" ad _ published in the university student newspaper The Chronicle last April _ has been grossly misinterpreted. That ad has been a subject of heated debate on blogs and its...