This is my email exchange with KC Johnson before he posted in answer to my first three posts in my Duke Lacrosse case series. References to Claire Potter are explained, more or less, in this entry and the entries it links to.
[Dec. 11: I originally posted only paraphrases of Johnson’s emails to me but have replaced them with his full text. Here is the first post backing up the claims I made about DIW.]
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From: KC Johnson
Date: November 29, 2007 7:16:49 AM EST
Professor Zimmerman:
I noticed your two recent blog postings on the lacrosse case.
I was particuarly struck by your statement about “efforts when the ad was written to make much different points in a much different way than the protestors.” As far as I could tell, that statement constituted the only specific evidence you supplied to justify your assertion that I had engaged in “insidiously polarizing,” “irrational,” and “anti-intellectual” behavior—strong charges, indeed, against a fellow academic.
I therefore was—and remain—surprised that you did not cite or provide a link to evidence to describe these heretofore unrevealed “efforts when the ad was written to make much different points in a much different way than the protestors.” I plan to write on the issue Monday; before doing so, I wanted to ask if you could point me to the clause in the Group of 88’s statement in which the signatories made “efforts when the ad was written to make much different points in a much different way than the protestors,” especially given that the ad said “thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard” to the “protesters making collective noise.” Failing that, I wonder if you could point me to a statement in which even one member of the Group has publicly criticized the “castrate” banner or the potbangers’ protest.
By the way, I commend you for deeming the banner inappropriate. If only more Duke faculty members shared your courage in criticizing the potbangers, perhaps even by speaking out immediately after the protest occurred—
KC Johnson
From: KC Johnson
Date: November 30, 2007 2:33:42 PM EST
Professor Zimmerman:
Since I did not receive a response to my initial e-mail, I resend.
When I initially contacted you, I was intrigued to see what evidence you had unearthed of “efforts when the ad was written to make much different points in a much different way than the protestors.” Your findings, of course, would seem to have contradicted the e-mail of Prof. Lubiano inviting signatories for the ad; the text of the ad itself; and the subsequent (retracted) apologies of Group members Thorne and Moreiras.
Your unwillingness to produce the evidence, however, raises a concern that—like Prof. Potter—you made harsh attacks without any corroborating evidence. Some people, I suspect, might consider such conduct anti-intellectual, irrational—even insidious.
As I said, I plan to post on the issue Monday; I again express my hope that you will share the evidence behind your claims—
KC Johnson
From: Robert Zimmerman
Date: December 1, 2007 2:06:55 AM EST
Professor Johnson,
I do appreciate your email and apologize for being slow to answer. Though the two posts I put up today don’t flesh out the sharpest criticism I made of DIW, I hope they made it clear that I’m trying to support my claims clearly and in detail. I have at least as much to say about DIW. Some of it may be posted before Monday, but I can’t promise that—I’m afraid I’m very good at writing drafts but I don’t have anything like your facility at producing finished texts.
You have the answer to your question about “efforts when the ad was written to make much different points in a much different way than the protestors” in my most recent post. It’s my own interpretation of Lubiano’s “Spectacularity” post. The connection I draw to the ad is speculative, and what I make of it is even more speculative. In connection to what Lubiano or any other signatory actually intended, it has no authority whatsoever, and so I wouldn’t think it would be of much interest to you. It’s not the basis for the charges I made about DIW, in any case.
As to the bit about irrational, anti-academic (I didn’t say anti-intellectual, though to the extent I can make the difference meaningful it’s still subtle) and insidiously polarizing, they aren’t like “physically if not sexually assaulted,” and are more a matter of interpretation than factual evidence. My attention to Lubiano’s article brings up something I consider anti-academic—your repeated statements that either state or strongly imply that she calls the lacrosse players “perfect offenders” and suggested they should be treated as such. I think if it as a fundamental academic value that texts be represented accurately when they’re criticized, and this is not the only occasion when (in my opinion, obviously) you choose to misrepresent instead. I believe you feel that you’ve answered this objection. I disagree, and in fact with the issue of retractions and apologies in the air, my opinion is that you owe Lubiano one of each.
If you must, blast me for making unfounded accusations on Monday—I’m not that worried about it. But I expect there will be 2 posts about DIW of roughly the length of the 2 I put up today. I hope to have them both up by Tuesday but I have a bad record with that kind of thing.
Any other questions or concerns, please let me know.
Robert
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From: KC Johnson
Date: December 1, 2007 3:38:49 AM EST
Prof. Zimmerman:
I quote from p. 145 of Until Proven Innocent, which I co-authored with Stuart Taylor:
In Lubiano’s mind, the players couild never be cleared. Shortly after the Group of 88 ad appeared, she expressed pleasure that “the Duke administration is getting the point”: The banging of pots and pans had hammered home that the specific claim to innocence mattered little. The members of the team, she noted, could be considered “almost perfect offenders,” since they are the “exemplars of the upper end of class hierarchy, the politically dominant race and ethnicity, the dominant gender, the dominant sexuality, and the dominant social group on campus.” (Many months later, Lubiano would suggest that she didn’t mean that she considered the players to be “perfect offenders,” but the tenor of her springtime statements and actions belied this interpretation of her remarks.) Lubiano concluded by promising that the crusade to transform Duke would continue “regardless of the ‘truth’ established in whatever period of time about the incident at the house on N. Buchanan Blvd” and “whatever happens in the court case.”
As you know, many months after she published her essay, Lubiano gave an interview (referenced in the UPI passage quoted above) in which she asserted that she was not one of “those who are defenders of the victim” about whom the “perfect offenders” clause applied. (I have interpreted that clause by Lubiano as a reference to Crystal Mangum, although, of course, Mangum was not a “victim,” despite Lubiano’s assertion; I have seen nothing even from Lubiano to suggest that she was referring to a real victim in that statement.) This (as noted in the UPI passage quoted above) struck me as an absurd claim, given her springtime behavior, which suggested she was among the most ardent “defenders of the victim [sic]” on the Duke campus. That said, I took account of her denial after she delivered it, not just in UPI but in the blog.
Perhaps—although I doubt it very much—you possess evidence that that the same Lubiano who was part of an April 12 forum lamenting that things were “moving backwards” on campus because of the DNA first-round results was actually running around campus defending the due process rights of those students whom her essay asserted—unequivocally—of “extended social violence against the neighborhood in which they reside.” But basing an extraordinary claim against a fellow academic—“irrational,” “insidiously polarizing”—on your disagreement with my interpretation of Lubiano’s text (a disagreement where, based on the context of Lubiano’s behavior last spring, I would submit that my interpretation is considerably stronger) strikes me as dubious.
KC Johnson
From: Robert Zimmerman
Date: December 1, 2007 4:58:52 PM EST
The basis for my characterization of DIW is not disagreement about Lubiano’s text—if I cite it as an example, it will be a secondary one. But you keep coming back to my “extraordinary claims against a fellow academic,” and of course I can understand why.Are you saying that you find it fundamentally unacceptable for those points, which are made to introduce and frame a series of posts, must in your opinion be immediately supported by hard facts? I’ve been thinking aboutwhether I’m leaving readers with the impression that DIW is without a doubt irrational, etc., and I believe that I’m not. I have added a note, though, to make it clear that it is no more, at this point, an off-the-cuff opinion and not to be taken as fact.
Here’s the core of the complain I will detail in my next post: you’re presenting yourself as an professor criticizing other academics and academic culture, and according to the welcome message you posted in September when your book came out, claiming to stand up for theideals of your profession. If so, your analysis and criticism should represent those ideals as well (adjusted to the informality of a blog, naturally), and I don’t believe that it does. In fact I think parts of it could serve as fine example for students of things that are clearly unacceptable in academic discourse. In the case of Lubiano’s “Spectacularity” article, I think basic intellectual decency dictates that you make it clear that the “perfect offender” line is raised as a hypothetical in order to make the point that it’s a bad idea (a point I belabor in my most recent post:http://reharmonized.an-earful.com/2007/11/perfect-mess/). Doing so doesn’t preclude pointed criticism of the text or of her behavior.
A point that will be more central to my criticism—one that also connects to the stuff I’ve already posted—is about the “castrate” banner. You mention it regularly, usually in connection with “professors who said “thank you”…,” and it insinuates that the professors were thanking those protestors for that banner—an insinuation I consider both far-fetched and nasty, and starkly at odds with reasoned discourse. Liestoppers makes the same insinuation in graphic form in their right-hand column—your implicit endorsement of that is something I consider insidiously polarizing, since you as an academic give it extra credibility (that is not the sole basis for the charge that DIW is insidiously polarizing).
I tried to put the banner in context in my second-to-last post (http://reharmonized.an-earful.com/2007/11/trouble-with-potbanging/) and if you have anything to add to that picture and/or anything to say about how much and why it should be held against some or every endorser of the “listening” statement, I personally would find it most interesting.
I will, as I said, explain my charges against DIW early this coming week.
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From: KC Johnson
Date: December 1, 2007 5:31:40 PM EST
It’s been my practice at DIW to try and provide links when I make criticisms, and certainly when I make strong criticisms. (That said, I don’t believe I have ever deemed anyone involved in the case except perhaps Nifong or Victoria Peterson “irrational,” “insidiously polarizing,” or “anti-academic.”) I realize, on the other hand, that the practice at Duke appears to be different—as when Charlie Piot compared me to unnamed West African dictators, Joe McCarthy, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O’Reilly by citing (falsely) as his major evidence that I had deemed the Group’s statement critical in the rush to judgment of the city and country.
Regarding the Lubiano essay, I pointed out her after-the-fact rationalization when she made it; and I have also pointed out the far-fetched nature of her subsequent claim that she wasn’t describing herself, given her own clearcut position as a defender of the “victim” and a critic of the team on race/class/gender grounds. I stand by the passage from UPI that I quoted to you previously. I agree that it would have been quite unfair to Lubiano had I not mentioned her subsequent denial.
If—as it now seems—you’re backtracking from the Lubiano statement, I remain puzzled as to what evidence you claim to possess regarding “efforts when the ad was written to make much different points in a much different way than the protestors .” As I noted in my original e-mail to you, it seems to me that the wording of the ad itself—“to the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard”—explicitly contradicts your statement.
Regarding the “castrate” banner, the statement is hardly far-fetched or nasty. As I have noted on many occasions, the two protests that had received by far the most media attention, especially from the TV stations,in the 10 days before the Group’s statement appeared were the potbangers’ protests (March 25-26) and the “wanted” poster/Take Back the Night rally (March 29). It strikes me as farfetched indeed to suggest that 88 highly educated faculty members at one of the world’s leading universities published a statement—“in the most easily seen venue on campus”—thanking protesters, but believed that their readers would assume that they were thanking not the protesters who had received the most media coverage, but other protesters. In his October essay, Charlie Piot contended that the clause thanked the open-mike protesters (March 27) and not the March 25/6 or March 29 protesters. (Why, of course, any reader of the ad would have concluded this Piot didn’t say.) Since the March 27 protest featuredpeople who wore T-shirts reading “Men’s Lax Come Clean”; posted writings condemning the players’ presumption of innocence; and asserted, “If these three culprits get away with it, it will prove to me that Duke does not honor the black woman’s body,” even the Piot line of defense concedes that the Group thanked guilt-presuming protesters.
So too does the clarifying letter (Jan. 07), which says, “We do not endorse every demonstration that took place at the time. We appreciate the efforts of those who used the attention the incident generated to raise issues of discrimination and violence.” Since—as you know—both the potbangers and the “wanted” poster/Take Back the Night protesters explicitly claimed that their goal was “to raise issues of discrimination and violence,” it is very hard to interpret the clarifying statement as anything but an endorsement of the guilt-presuming protests. Note, of course, that the second sentence does not say “some of those whose used the attention …”
Again, I suppose the argument could be made that 89 highly educated faculty members at one of the world’s leading universities were incapable of producing a statement that said what they meant. Even the most stalwart of the Group’s defenders, however, have not resorted to the incompetence defense—
KC
From: Robert Zimmerman
Date: December 1, 2007 6:26:57 PM EST
I’ll make one more stab at clearing up a point or two. The “castrate” banner was only one aspect of the potbanging protest, and it was an aspect that, as far as I can tell, was not widely publicized until many months after the protest—this is all spelled out in my second-to-last post, and I invite you to correct me if what I say there is wrong and to fill in the parts that I can only guess at if you can. But I don’t believe there are any grounds for believing that anyone on the Duke faculty knew about that particularly nasty banner when they wrote/signed the ad. I think it’s irresponsible and pointlessly divisive to suggest that they approve of the threat of castration or actual castration of the lacrosse team—if you really believe that’s an accurate impression of the 88 people who signed the ad then I’m more right about “irrational” than I thought.
I haven’t backtracked from any statement about Lubiano—I certainly never claimed that your treatment of her was the major or sole basis of my poor opinion of DIW. And most of my latest post explains why I suggest there were “efforts when the ad was written to make much different points in a much different way than the protestors.”
Finally, a subtle but I believe important point—I described your blog, not you, in unflattering terms.
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From: KC Johnson
Date: December 2, 2007 9:09:32 AM EST
As our exchange appears to be winding down, it doesn’t appear as if you’re planning to share with me evidence that you possess of “efforts when the [Group of 88’s] ad was written to make much different points in a much different way than the protestors”—which was, after all, the only specific item you cited in your initial assertion about the “irrational,” “insidiously polarizing,” and “anti-academic” nature of my work and which prompted my initial e-mail.Perhaps you’re going to produce such evidence in the future?
While I noticed that your most recent post offered some extraordinarily sympathetic speculation on Lubiano’s motives, it contained nothing that contradicted my discovery that Lubiano solicited signatures for the statement not by mentionining any of the uplifting themes your most recent essay discussed but instead with the following opening sentence: “African & African-American Studies is placing an ad in The Chronicle about the lacrosse team incident.” [emphasis added] The post also contains nothing to contradict the contemporaneous e-mails from Group signatories upon which I reported in which they stated that signing an ad containing what Lubiano deemed ‘student articulations’ was a tactically wise move. Nor does the post contain anything to contradict my reporting of Lubiano’s vehemently anti-lacrosse player remarks at the March 30 faculty meeting.
I agree with you completely that the “castrate” banner was only one aspect of the protest—I never have suggested otherwise. So too were other banners that I have mentioned both in the blogand, with Stuart, in UPI: “Sunday morning, Time to Confess”; “Measure for Measure,” “Real Men Don’t Protect Rapists.” This protest was covered on all four Triangle TV stations (with live shots on at least two). It appears now as if you’re suggesting that the contemporaenous press coverage of the potbangers somehow might have fooled the Group into believing that the potbangers were worthy of the Group’s salutation for not only making “collective noise” but for “not waiting.” That strikes me as straying very close to the incompetence defense—that 88 profs at one of the world’s best universities watched TV over the runup to issuing their statement, and not even one of them could quite figure out what the protesters were up to. Or, perhaps, they were so reckless that they signed a statement that read “to the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting,” even though they had no idea what the protesters were doing or saying?
As with the next high-profile protest a few days later (the distribution of the “wanted” posters around campus), it seems to me the coverage of the potbangers made quite clear their extremist nature. What we have learned of them since, of course, has only made their extremism even clearer. Yet the “clarifying” letter not only couldn’t bring itself to condemn them, but issued what appears to be an after-the-fact endorsement.
As I have noted on several occasions, I strongly support a full public accounting of the faculty’s conduct in spring 2006, and if you have evidence about the origins of the Group statement beyond what’s in the public record, even if it contradicts what I have written or documented, I hope you’ll produce it. That said, I also continue to wait for Prof. Potter to produce the evidence to bolster her claim that “it is clear” the dancers were physically assaulted. I fear that I will be waiting a very, very long time for her to produce such evidence; hopefully, you’ll share yours sooner—
KC
From: Robert Zimmerman
Date: December 2, 2007 11:27:07 AM EST
Yes, our exchange has wound down. It’s been instructive.
Thanks.
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From: KC Johnson
Date: December 2, 2007 11:29:01 AM EST
I did enjoy the excuse to go back and look at the television broadcasts of the potbangers’ protests, which I hadn’t viewed for several months—and I’m stillhopeful that you’ll produce the evidence of the Group’s intent that you suggested you possessed in your initial post—
KC
From: KC Johnson
Date: December 2, 2007 2:55:13 PM EST
One follow-up before my post: “Naturally it’s been wonderful fodder for KC Johnson and others. He fully deserves the turkey award.” I assume you were not referring to that statement when you offered suggested, “I described your blog, not you, in unflattering terms”—or were you suggesting that “fully deserving” a “turkey award” was flattering?
KC
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A final note that I found amusing. When I first posted this entire correspondence verbatim, I left off Johnson’s last two short messages. They didn’t seem all that relevant and struck me as rather petty. Johnson’s response: “That’s fine with me, although, I should note, my last two emails do raise doubts about the veracity of your claims, the last citing what many people would, I suspect, consider a personal attack; the next to last citing the extensive media coverage that the potbangers’ rallies received”. I’ll let you be the judge.
{ 8 } Comments
This case has NOTHING to do with institutionalized racism. It is simply a faculty out of control siding with a known drunk/drug addict who has made previous false claims rather that seeking an evidence whatsoever. The young men were innocent, end of story. Crystal Gail Mangum is clearly guilty of perjury and filing a false police report. It is immaterial how “disturbed” she is but not immaterial that no fewer than 3 other men’s semen were found on her person, none of which was Duke Lacrosse athlete. The facts are simple. Any explanation by the reality challenged potbangers is delusional, as is anyone who defends them. All are entitled to presumption of innocence. This was not accorded to these men by the University or it’s staff. Their actions were reprehensible. The University paid. Any actions by them subsequent to the settlement they are not protected from liability on. They can be sued for liable and slander, quite easily, and would lose. A professor, by definition, should be seeking to illuminate the truth. Sadly, they are racists and bigots and have little need or regard for truth.
All these years I’ve been wondering what a professor was supposed to do. Thanks for filling me in.
I’ve been following DIW since mid-2006. I admire KC Johnson and his relentless efforts to get the facts of case out in the open. IMHO he is very bias and takes the most extreme possible interpretation when assigning blame to the faculty — who, again IMHO, are themselves extreme in their own right.
Your posts on the Duke Hoax are a refreshing departure for both extreme positions, and I appreciate your effort to present a more measured view.
I am grateful to KC Johnson for his efforts to expose the Hoax, but less so for his skewed view of of the faculty’s intent.
Yes, the G88 was way off base. Yes, their agenda is, in my estimation, a sad commentary on the state of higher ed. Yes, they are a unrepentant. But the brush KC Johnson uses creates on a surreal and biased view when, among other things, he equates support for protests with faculty support of castrating students (or support of those who would view this form intimidation).
The facts are, themselves, strong enough to reveal the depths to which they sunk in advancing their agenda without resorting to presenting the most extreme and unmeasured interpretation of every possible transgression they made.
I think KC holds the moral high ground on the subject of revealing the hoax, but lost my unquestioning support with his extreme intretations of the events.
Thanks—I appreciate the perspective.
Well, Faulkner Fox and Tim Tyson were at the protests with the castrate banner, and though they didnt sign the ad (while they did comment outrageously on the case), its being pretty willfully blind to say that some faculty members didn’t know of the protests. And it’s not as if the on campus protests were any better. I remember watching speaker after speaker rail against the lacrosse team, reading from a “fact sheet” (which I still have) that didn’t contain a single true statement. However, the better question though is why no Trinity professors outside of those related with the econ department stood up for the players. I was a student at the time, and none of my professors seemed to care at all about the “remote possibility” that the player’s were innocent, much less about their due process rights. DIW might be an stretch, but at least Johnson helped spread discourse on the case that actually cared whether or not the players were innocent (or at least allowed for their innocence). I saw none of this within the liberal arts at Duke, and I remain to this day shamed by the faculty’s lack of courage (beyond being shocked by some members’ ignorant convictions; for example, I received plenty of lectures and discussions about the historical violence against black women around that time, but no one seemed to care about the actual statistics of interracial rape).
Thank you—I very much appreciate the on-the-scene perspective. I’ll try to respond at more length. One thing I’ll note is that my impression is that, while both Faulkner Fox and Tim Tyson are known to have been at the Saturday evening vigil, nothing I’ve come across places them or any other Duke faculty at the Sunday morning potbanging. My impression is that the character of the 2 events was quite different. It’s not my intention to airbrush any of this—I’m just trying to stick to what I find documented.
DIW does not create the public controversy between the opposed factions, and certainly not by deceitful means. Any professor who signed either letter should have been aware of the content of the protests including such an extreme example as the castrate banner in front of the players’ house. I think Lubiano meant that it would hurt the stripper’s case if it seemed that the professors were attacking the players because they were perfect offenders, but KC probably doesn’t think that she is intelligible enough to make that point clearly. However, asking KC to stop writing meanly when he presents the facts doesn’t count as much of a response to the way the professors handled the case.
I can’t agree with much of this, I’m afraid. I’ll hope to make the reasons clear as I go. But as to your last point, my complaint is not about meanness, it’s about misrepresentation and favoring incitement over dialog.
Professor Zimmerman,
(and I did show some professors pictures from the incident).). But this granted, it is not as if the other protests were much better. Sure some talked in more abstract terms about racial and sexual issues at Duke and abroad, but most speakers just assumed or even declared the lacrosse team rapists. I was shocked that such intelligent people could react in such a way, and I do think it has to due with preexisiting, accessible narratives of groupthink. In that way, I find KC’s analysis (even if somewhat exaggerated about the weight of the faculty’s affirmative acts) still helpful. I know it isn’t nuanced to say that all far-Left voices responded in the same way and that this isn’t a very good academic argument, but such a sweeping statement does represent at least part of what happened in the reaction to the allegations. My problem isn’t that radical professors (and some are pretty radical) responded in this way. It was expected for professors like Houston Baker to presume his own worldview. My problem is that such views were accepted (or even respected) by other professors. Accepting and respecting (even while denying them)these views was a proper academic response, but such a response wasn’t what those players needed. Intellectual leadership often fails, and it fails because precisly because it respects nuance in all flavors. KC Johnson’s approach might not be academic (as defined in today’s university), but that might be his greatest strength.
I am not sure if any faculty members were at the protest with the castrate sign (although I do find it probable that members that signed the ad knew of such protests and signed the ad anyway; I mean the house is block of East (and quite near your office if i remember
Ok, that’s all i have to say. I see you are leaving teaching…that’s a shame
Prof. Zimmerman says, “But I don’t believe there are any grounds for believing that anyone on the Duke faculty knew about that particularly nasty banner when they wrote/signed the ad. I think it’s irresponsible and pointlessly divisive to suggest that they approve of the threat of castration or actual castration of the lacrosse team–if you really believe that’s an accurate impression of the 88 people who signed the ad then I’m more right about
irrationalthan I thought.”I’m one of the many attorneys with too much time on their hands who have become regular members of KC’s Sunshine Band. Like you, I would like to believe that no university professor would publicly (or privately!) “thank” people who waved a “CASTRATE” banner outside the house of their students.
However, in the course of this case, I have learned that one of the subject professors told a mother of one of the lacrosse players that she is “the mother of a farm animal”. I learned that another of the subject professors published an article accusing students of “racism” for wanting to register to vote (presumably against the railroading DA). And I learned that another of the subject professors tried to initiate, sua sponte, a disruption of an invited speaker (David Horowitz) by having protestors “strip-off” their tops — so as to mock the speaker’s claim to “expose campus radicals”.
Thus, taken together, I think we have a basis for believing that the subject professors, as a group, are capable of harboring extremely negative views of students and capable of approving extreme forms of protest. THEREFORE, I don’t think I can take the word of you, Prof. Zimmerman, for the states of mind of the 88er professors. If, as you hope, none of the professors intended to endorse the “CASTRATE” banner, then let them say so. I would prefer that they say so under oath, but even an unsworn, public statement would be at least a small step towards the healing that Duke needs.
I don’t know the states of mind of any other professors. I am familiar enough with a few of the 88 that I’m confident that the three cases you cite are not representative of all, and I think Johnson’s insistence on lumping the 88 together as if signing the same statement makes them interchangable is sheer demagoguery. I don’t and can’t and won’t speak for any of the 88, but I do need to explain the point I made in the email about the “castrate” banner more clearly and hope to have that posted in a day or so.
Just as a little bit of perspective, I’ll point out that #2 of the much vilified Clair Potter’s turkey list was for “students who thought an appropriate response to David Horowitz speaking on their campus was to attempt to restrict his speech by booing, throwing things, and childishly turning their backs on him.” I’m with her 100% on that.
I do appreciate you taking the time to comment.
“I don’t and can’t and won’t speak for any of the 88”.
It sure sounds like you are doing exactly that. It’s almost like you should complete the sentence with “I don’t and can’t and won’t speak for any of the 88, but I DID stay at a Holiday Inn last night!”
You make it clear that because some of the 88 have SPOKEN TO YOU, that you therefore “know” that they did not have any of the bad intent that is sometimes ascribed to them. Alas, we don’t have the same privilege of hearing their “side of the case” that you have had, and we can’t read their minds. But isn’t that all the more reason that they should SPEAK PUBLICLY?
You criticize Johnson for “lumping the 88 together”. But by not speaking out individually, haven’t they lumped THEMSELVES together? (I have heard that one or two have tried to make private apologies.) Now it may be that the good among the 88ers have convinced themselves that the “forces of evil (like KC and Horowitz)” will twist any thing they say at this point — or will say that whatever they say is “too little”. But may I point out something? Since you say that you “don’t know the states of minds of any other professors”, and in light of the handful of cases of conduct that I raised in my earlier comment I’m sure you will not eliminate the POSSIBILITY that at least a FEW of the 88 may be at least a bit mentally disturbed. It seems to me as though the “good guys” among the 88 are more afraid that the hardliners will say they’ve said “too much”. In fact, my understanding is that some of them have said exactly this in private communications with the players.
Let me try an analogy: Let’s say that I’m an outspoken opponent of drunk driving, and someone comes to accuse one of my children (or, if we have left in loco parentis behind, one of my friends) of causing a drunk driving accident which caused serious injury. Let’s say further that I react prematurely, before learning all the facts, and I make a public statement. While my statement’s primary theme is about the damnable consequences of drunk driving, it clearly implies that I believe the accusation that my child or friend had gotten drunk, had driven, and caused someone serious injury. Then I learn that my child or friend had only a single drink and wasn’t involved in any accident, serious or otherwise, and that the story had been made up by some crazy or extortionate person.
Now what should I do? Should I say, “Well, my statement was about drunk driving in GENERAL, not about any particular incident at all … AND they DID have a drink and drove!” This seems to be the path of most of the 88ers. Should I instead go privately to my child or friend and apologize? This seems to be the path of a few. Should I ask my child’s mother — or a friend of my friend — to go make excuses for me? This seems to be the path of your friends. Or should I tell my child or friend, in as public a way as I had denounced them, that I made a mistake — yes, that what I did was wrong?
What are your friends afraid of? I submit that they are more likely afraid of the hardliners who will condemn them for “breaking ranks” (de-lumping themselves) than they are of providing any “victory” to KC and his Sunshine Band. But you have the advantage over me: I can only speculate why they can’t speak; you can ask them yourself.
I have not spoken to any of the 88 about the lacrosse case or their statement. I agree that it would be a good thing for some of them to talk publically and candidly about it.
All these years I’ve been wondering what a professor was supposed to do. Thanks for filling me in.
Absolutely want to second this. If you and the members of the Gang of 88 are what professors do, it’s time to lock the gates to the Universities.
And don’t doubt that your nonsense and the nonsense of the Gang of 88 haven’t spread far and wide. Across the United States so called intellectually honest professors were seen, and can still be seen, as justifying the treatment of the Duke Students.
They deserved something. It’s been a learning experience. This shows the system worked. And on and on and on.
Total bizarro world conduct — remind me to NEVER support a tax increase for public universities again, and I say that as a lifelong democrat, educated primarily at public schools, and a holder of two graduate degrees.
Seriously, it’s time to shutter the university system. Thanks for helping to make that clear.
Goes to show that you can be a Democrat with two graduate degrees and still not be able to tell your head from an overripe pineapple. Shutter the university system because the eggheads sound dangerous? Take a look through the last half century or so of history and see what kind of company you’re keeping.