Exactly, which is why it is even more traditional to highlight the beginning and end—it is well understood that most people take away only the beginning and end of ads and that the middle of them is just to get you to hang on until the end.

Now it may be that the professors don’t understand the basics of such things, I guess I can’t speak for their abilities beyond their core areas of presumed competence. And for people so deeply concerned about social context, it would be nice if they would apply that to an understanding of their own actions.

They were injecting themselves into a situation which had already been politically charged by protestors who clearly were presuming guilt.

If they had wanted to distance themselves from that, they could have.

If they wanted to make clear that they were reserving judgment on the case at hand, they could have said something specific about the the presumption of innocence. Instead they made comments “Regardless of the results of the police investigation” which if you know anything at all about the rape literature and the phrases used to discuss it in any of the social sciences is much more likely to be interpreted (and in fact much more likely to be meant to be received) as a suggestion that the allegations are true no matter what the investigation reveals than it is to be a neutral statement.

This type of problem is found throughout your analysis. Certainly you understand that words have to be understood in context. Suggesting that “Regardless of the results of the police investigation” has as a possible meaning of “reserving judgment on the outcome of the case” is ignoring the specific social context of the statement. Even without the context it is at best a 50/50 shot, but with the context the meaning is clearly not to be interpreted in favor of the presumption of innocence.

In the part of your piece that I quote, you express confusion about why the problem of being linked to the protestors isn’t dealt with in the statement or by the faculty involved at the time immediately after the statement came out.

Here it looks like you are letting your conclusion interfere with your analysis. If it were true that the statement was designed to be an even-handed look at the issues surrounding the whole incident I would be confused too. But you don’t seem open to the idea that the reason the signers of the ad don’t seem concerned by the problems you see in linking to the protestors (with the context being that the only protestors around were the presumption of guilt protestors) is that the authors of the ad and the supporters of the ad did not at the time read the ad as largely an even-handed raising of issues.

If it isn’t in fact an even-handed raising of issues, and if the ads designers and most of its signers didn’t think of it as such, there really is no problem to be solved. The problem exists only becuase of your reading. If you read it as expressing support for the presumption of guilt there is no problem.

The middle of the text expresses neutral-seeming raising of issues. The beginning and end don’t. I would be surprised if you have never experienced situations in the academic world where attacks are disguised as ‘raising of issues’. It isn’t fair to automatically assume that ‘raising of issues’ is an attack, but you have to look at the totality of the situation. In this particular case we have a beginning and end which suggests that the raising of issues might be no more than facially neutral. We have a context which suggests that it might only be facially neutral. We have problems (which you note) that only exist in a facially neutral reading, but not in a veiled-attack reading. That strongly suggests that a true neutrality-on-the-issue-of-guilt reading isn’t correct.

This is furthered by the comment from Wahneema Lubiano, who drafted the ad, and writes in the email solicitation “African & African-American Studies is placing an ad in The Chronicle about the lacrosse team incident.” Leiter dismisses this with “It is, to the put matter gently, an unsound hermeneutic principle to ascribe views to 88 people based on a statement in an e-mail by one person that contradicts the explicit text of the ad the rest of them signed. “

But first, this is the author of the ad. Second this is the missive going from the author of the ad to the signers of the ad. It is possible that the 88 signers disagreed with the author of the ad, but that email, circulated with the ad text itself, is certainly evidence that the reading of the ad as deeply about the lacrosse team incident is more plausible than the reading that it isn’t.

And as we are discussing now, framing Wahneema Lubiano’s comments as ‘contradicts the explicit text’ is overdrawing the conclusion about what the ad means and deliberatly ignoring evidence about how it was understood right before and after publishing.

Snore. This should go on the extras page with the other absolutists, but this thread is probably dead so I’ll leave it.

The central message of the ad as I see it doesn’t need a reference to protestors and doesn’t require the rape allegation to be true, so I don’t think either line is necessary as written. The mention of protestors seems especially superfluous, and it’s on that point that I’m most sympathetic to the criticism of the ad—it’s hard to reconcile the blanket endorsement of protestors followed by a long list of faculty signatures with the crowd on the sidewalk at Buchanan Blvd. holding a banner that says “Castrate” and hounding out the lacrosse team as rapists. I find it odd and disappointing that those who signed the ad and continued to speak out and editorialize didn’t meet the issue head on.

The problem I have with your reading of the listening statement is that it wants to discount the two areas of the statement where people typically put the most important thoughts—the introduction and the conclusion.

The introduction assumes the rape to be true and thus sets the tone for how the rest of the statement is intended to be interpreted.

The conclusion offers support for the protestors—summing up the argument of the rest of the statement.

Why do you think it is appropriate to construct a reading of the document which pre-emptively trivializes parts which are found in what are normally the most important sections of such statements?

Whatever you think of Dr. Johnson’s project as a whole, it seems to me that his reading doesn’t have to trivialize the tone and tenor of the listening statement in order to get to his reading.

It’s not a term paper, it’s an ad, and it seems to me that you’re trivializing all but the last sentence of what you call the introduction as well as the text that’s highlighted by the design and typography. Like it or not, this is how I understand the ad—unlike Johnson, I’ve never claimed to offer an absolute and definitive reading. But if you want to see a detailed justification of the way I see it, more or less, take a look at Brian Leiter’s analysis.

Re “What I do want to suggest is that its foolish to expect cardboard cutouts to have much to say for themselves.”

I don’t know about that. The “fabulous lies” speech that Dave Evans gave in front of the jail before he turned himself in is widely regarded as having turned the tide in the case. The world saw that he was not a cardboard cutout, but was a human being who might just be innocent of the all the charges that had been hurled at him and his teammates.

Suppose I am a doctor, and I have been told that a patient at the hospital needs my help. If, on the way, I accidentally run a stop sign and injure another person, I think it would be a good idea to apologize to that other person.

I don’t for a minute think that the endorsers are all bad, or even mostly bad. I know a couple of them personally and will attest that they are nice people. However, I do believe that the endorsers, and others who kept up the prosecution drumbeat, ran a metaphorical stop sign on their way to help someone they thought needed their help. By running that stop sign, they harmed several other people. Why they can’t just end all the drama and apologize for that mistake is a mystery to me.

Ken Duke

PS — That is pretty remarkable that we both used the same “cutout” metaphor. I promise I didn’t plagiarize!

Why no apology? I could speculate, but that’s all it would be. Maybe I will at some point, but I’m not feeling that masochistic at the moment. One way or the other, your comments are helpful in framing the issue, and I appreciate them.

“I wish some of those who were vocal early on would speak up again and address the concerns azng raises.”

I apologize if I am being too flip, but the old saying, “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” applies.

The testimony of Reade Seligman at Mike Nifong’s disbarment hearing shows just how horrible things were on the Duke Campus for the players (please see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeTM1g3xsjo&eurl=http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/). Many people rightfully have pointed out that the accuser — or any woman for that matter — is not an object to be used for enjoyment. Similarly, the players are not cardboard cutouts of rich white males to be used for dart practice — they are flesh and blood people who were literally fighting for their lives while a number of teachers from their own school conspicuously cheered on the prosecution, and most of the remaining faculty stood silently by.

Thank you having this blog, and for being willing to discuss the case. Unfortunately, though, I do not think you have addressed Ms. anzg’s concerns very well. But that is not your fault. Until Duke openly confronts its actions in the lacrosse case (rather than trying to sweep things under the rug with confidential settlements) there will really be no way to address anzg’s concerns.

Ken Duke
Durham, NC

I agree that the lacrosse players were reduced to cardboard cutouts and there’s no excuse for it. Oddly, I was using the same metaphor last night in a comment I made to a review of Until Proven Innocent. The “Group of 88” has been a wonderful collection of cutouts to rain darts on. I don’t say that to drum up sympathy or forgiveness for them. What I do want to suggest is that its foolish to expect cardboard cutouts to have much to say for themselves.

There are a few things I can say. Azng comes across as a reasonable and thoughtful person in her comment—I believe she is such a person. And yet…

I understand the faculty believes I have raised a racist and sexist child who desperately needs their education.

Boy does that make James Coleman and Prasad Kasibhatla’s criticism of KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor ring true! A few faculty may think that way at Duke and at other institutions as well—and if you’re not comparing Duke to other institutions that have been through similar divisive scandals it’s not a very informative comparison. As far as I’m concerned, Coleman and Kasibhatla hit the nail on the head. Duke is not a massive ideological reeducation facility. Faculty don’t look at every class full of students as another batch of potential converts. In thinking about what kind of experience and education a potential student might get from Duke, there are a hundreds of more important things to worry about. This comment from Nick, a recent alum, might be some help.

I would hope that James Coleman’s plainly stated opinion that Duke faculty have been misrepresented would carry some weight. Beyond that, a parent with azng’s concerns should seek out the opinions of people who have personal experience with regular old Duke and not just Duke as seen through the lacrosse scandal. I’m not a Duke recruiter or booster, anyway. It’s a fine school but not right for everyone—it definitely wouldn’t have been the right school for me.

As to azng’s idea that I’m doing some kind of “special pleading” for “nuance and consideration” in thinking about “my fellow faculty members [who] are concerned about racism and sexism,” I’m not. I think nuance and consideration are great things and I hope I model them now and then. But all I’m writing about here is a small piece of the puzzle. My premise is that Lubiano’s “Spectacularity” essay has been misread and misrepresented and that it sheds some light on what she was trying to do when she wrote the “listening” ad. That’s what I get out of the texts, and it’s a matter of interpretation and speculation. I don’t expect it to make the slightest dent on the opinion of anyone who is convinced by DIW’s portrayal of the “Group of 88” (I’ve elaborated on my opinion of the “Group” as a concept in a more recent post). If there’s any opinion that I’m hoping to sway here, it’s the one on the other side that all of the controversy about the “listening” ad is the result of the way it’s been misread and attacked.

A couple of days ago I posted a comment on “The Other Duke Lacrosse Prosecutor” thread. Later, I ran across your post, and I hope you won’t mind me saying that it expresses many of my own concerns, but much more gracefully and eloquently than I did in my brief post. You obviously put a lot of thought into what you wrote, and I look forward to reading Prof. Zimmerman’s response.

Ken Duke
Attorney at Law
Durham, NC

1. List of grievances against protestors and Duke faculty.
2. Interpretation of the “listening” ad.

Lubiano took this second-hand news and crafted the Listening ad. It was denied that the Lisening ad was about the Duke rape case, but Lubiano was later found to have specifically alluded to the alleged rape in her e-mail to faculty members she wanted to have sign on to it. Lubiano specifically mentioned the alleged rape, and gave it primary significance for the need for a Listening ad.

Lubiano apparently purposefully rushed the other faculty members to sign on to the Listening ad. In her e-mail to colleagues, she included a very short deadline. The deadline was coincidentally timed with Nifong’s expected announcement about DNA test results. To me, the DNA announcement is critical in explaining Lubiano’s timing in publishing the Listening ad and in publishing her article about “perfect offenders.”

After publication of the Listening ad and then after the DNA tests came back negative for the lacrosse players, a colleague of Lubiano’s told the Chronicle that it was a “step backward” or words to that effect.

It was during this time frame that Lubiano came up with her “perfect offender” and “perfect victim” article. I took it to be intellectual support for the continuation of charges against the innocent Duke students.

Lubiano’s basic premise: In the real world, there usually are not “perfect victims” or “perfect offenders.” In my mind, this was Lubiano’s attempt to explain away the lack of DNA evidence implicating the lax team. How can anyone explain the extreme coincidence in timing (DNA back - negative; no need for perfect offenders) in any other way?

On another note, your implication that the Listening ad did not cause much of a stir at the time, and your fixation on the “castrate” banner are interesting. I would suggest that you research the N&O archives and the Duke Chronicle archives. VERY early on, attorneys were commenting on what was happening on the Duke campus to prejudice the boys. The Duke Chronicle had articles, letters and comments about the Listening ad shortly after it was run. Also, the “castrate” banner was on youtube after the potbanging stopped as potbangers celebrated their apparent triumph over evil.

These are my opinions. Tortmaster

I have, believe it or not, read DIW and browsed on Liestoppers and FODU, so I realize that this is the accepted story of Lubiano and the ad in the liestopper community. I’ve also run across too many nasty, dismissive, ignorant, knee-jerk comments about her to treat that story as anything but highly biased. You’re welcome to take or leave my interpretation of her article and the listening ad—I’m just trying to make sense of the words (and from a perspective that doesn’t assume she’s the devil incarnate), not trying to write a whole new history of the case.

The one thing here that is news to me is that the “castrate” banner was on YouTube after the potbanging stopped. I’m aware of 2 YouTube videos of the protest, both in the account Gotfong and the banner is not visible in either. Is there another? Do you have a link?

I’m going to bring out my biases from the beginning. I’m a criminal defense attorney and have never been a prosecutor. I’m also the mother of a high school lacrosse player who is currently being recruited by Duke. I do have problems with him attending the school when I consider the behavior of the faculty during the lacrosse case. One of my reactions is that the Group of 88 and their supporters have the same notions of due process for lacrosse players that George Bush and Alberto Gonzales have for terrorists. Presume them guilty and don’t worry about using unconstitutional procedures to convict them.

I understand this statement will offend many people. It was intended to. I’m sure that all of the faculty members who signed the “listening” ad care about the well-being of their students. They want to see them learn and come to new knowledge in the college environment. The faculty want to create real change in the world. They may not have intended to cause any harm to the indicted players. They wanted to make a stand against sexual violence and racism. I think they have failed.

It’s easy to be against racism and sexual violence. Does anyone out side of the margins stand for it? Bill O’Reilly is against it. The Group of 88 is against it. When you come out against sexual violence and racism, it can be a way of framing the argument. Someone who disagrees with you is for the very thing you oppose. If you disapprove of the listening ad, you support sexual violence and racism. The ad helps to frame the support for players as supporting racism. The presumption of innocence and the due process owed the players by the state is lost.

The Duke faculty gave aid to a gross over-reaching of power by the state in the form of a prosecutor and a police department. Yes the players were able to mount a defense. But it was done by their families-the players themselves were techinically indigent. The costs to the families was not covered by cash at hand but likely retirement plans cashed in and loans against assets. There is nothing ambigious about this. The faculty would likely not have been able to stop Mr. Nifong’s actions. But the ad , their later silence and the current comments seems to suggest that they approve of what he did. It’s ok to presume guilt to fight racism. It’s ok to violate line-up standards to show disapproval of sexual assault.

That refusal to admit that they were wrong is what disturbs me the most. Can a scholar never admit they made a mistake? Can a scholar never change their mind when new evidence comes along? Can a scholar understand that their arguement was not understood and change it? Must you say “you misread and need to learn how to read correctly.” I read the “listening” very differently from the faculty. What am I missing? I believe it presumes guilty and is a direct comment on the case. I also must add that the silence about the settelment of Duke with the players seems to be something of an institutional admission of guilt. No one will ever know what motivated the university. But money that could have gone to things such as financial aid and expansion of programs went to pay for the defense of these “privileged” players. Is the absolute silence on this point an admission of some kind by the university and the faculty?

Here is the big question-why should my family and I encourage our son to attend Duke? Why should he undertake the burden of debt he will need to attend? Why should I increase my law practice dramatically to earn more income to support the salaries of faculty members who think the constitution does not apply to their students? I don’t like that it comes down to money but it is a consideration. I understand the faculty believes I have raised a racist and sexist child who desparately needs their education. I would like to send him to a university where critical thought and scholarship takes place. I don’t think enough of that is happening at Duke. The lacrosse case showed that to the world.

My response, which took a long time coming, is below.