Reading:
Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case
I was in Virginia when the Duke lacrosse case was really going strong, but I'd get an earful about it from Johnny Quest, who was living down here, whenever I talked to her. Local folks got more information about it than folks just watching it via the national media. And it quickly became clear that something was fishy...and then it rapidly got clearer and clearer that that case was utter bullshit. JQ was livid about the Kafkaesque insanity of the whole thing.
I've been reading Until Proven Innocent by Stuart Taylor Jr. and K. C. Johnson. They seem rather unreliable from time to time, seemingly exaggerating the niceness of the accused, for example...but overall I have a fairly high opinion of this book.
O.k., so here's something. Even as it became clear and clearer that Nifong was maliciously full of shit, not a single one of the approximately 500 professors in Duke's arts and sciences faculty publicly defended the students or criticized Nifong:
Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case
I was in Virginia when the Duke lacrosse case was really going strong, but I'd get an earful about it from Johnny Quest, who was living down here, whenever I talked to her. Local folks got more information about it than folks just watching it via the national media. And it quickly became clear that something was fishy...and then it rapidly got clearer and clearer that that case was utter bullshit. JQ was livid about the Kafkaesque insanity of the whole thing.
I've been reading Until Proven Innocent by Stuart Taylor Jr. and K. C. Johnson. They seem rather unreliable from time to time, seemingly exaggerating the niceness of the accused, for example...but overall I have a fairly high opinion of this book.
O.k., so here's something. Even as it became clear and clearer that Nifong was maliciously full of shit, not a single one of the approximately 500 professors in Duke's arts and sciences faculty publicly defended the students or criticized Nifong:
The majority of Duke's arts and sciences faculty kept quiet as the activists created the impression that Duke professors en masse condemned the lacrosse players. Several months later, John Burness explained their silence: "I think people just go about their business doing what they do and were not paying attention." But, as some admitted privately to friends, they were also afraid to cross the activists--black and female activists especially--lest they be smeared with charges of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, or right-wingism.This is consistent with things I myself have observed in academia. Furthermore, Duke had a reputation, back in the '90's, for hiring lots of extreme lefties into it's humanities programs. If true, that might explain a lot of this.
That's what would happen to a chemistry professor who--months after the team's innocence had become clear--became the first member of the arts and sciences faculty to break ranks with the academic herd. It took less than twenty-four hours for the head of Duke's women's studies program to accuse him of racism in a letter to the Chronicle [this could mean either the Chronicle of Higher Ed. or the Duke student paper]. [105-6]
posted by Winston Smith at
8:22 PM
4 Comments:
Stanley Fish and Frederic Jameson made Duke the mecca of po-mo know-nothing pseudo-philosophy from the eighties. The University Press had a hilarious series of monographs entitled "Post-Contemporary Interventions". A friend of mine asked, "Are all their titles forthcoming?"
Speaking as someone who graduated the year before the incident (sorry!), I can say that the reluctance of faculty and others to speak out in defense of the lacrosse team was probably due to the team's long, long history of completely reprehensible behavior. The lacrosse email list was notorious for the racist comments and the proud boasting of successfully completed date rapes. Most people I knew assumed that they were guilty -- not because they were white and not because they were rich, but because this was exactly the type of shit they did on a regular basis.
In my mind, I have trouble tagging this case as a "Shameful Injustice." The boys were rightfully acquitted, and Nifong was rightfully punished for his incompetence. That's justice to me.
Jimmy--
I've heard of that hilariously-titled series. "All forthcoming"--LOOOL. Excellent.
Duke athlete--
Thanks for the info. This book makes basically every one of the lacrosse players out to be near-saints. Fairly ludicrous and implausible even against the background of a story that demands that one view them fairly sympathetically.
There is no way for Duke faculty members to excuse their jumping on the accusatory bandwagon. Almost as soon as the story hit the newstands, it was obvious that there were problems with evidence. Any responsible intellectual must withhold judgment in such cases.
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