I should move this to the extras page, since it’s just a mindless rehash of liestopper conventional wisdom, but this thread has probably run its course. Not that the conventional wisdom is necessarily wrong—take out the Capital-Lettered Paranoia and there’s some points here that I’ve acknowledged in one form or another. But since I’m not writing anything this person cares to read I’m not sure why he’s wasting his time here.

Mercifully, I can agree with the quote I have highlighted in bold relief.

Fortunately, I can say that I have been around those from the academy most of my life.

Those who place the highest value on scholarship…….first.

Great. We’re all in agreement. Nobody who places the highest value on scholarship would “intentionally and or maliciously misrepresent, misquote, and lie in their analyses and commentaries.”

Ask a married man (or woman and reverse the roles in the rest of this example) who is in a better position to know how much he loves his wife, he or his wife? Almost instinctively, the man will be sure that he is the the one who knows what’s truly inside his heart and, therefore, he is in the best position to know how much he loves his wife. He would be wrong. His wife is in the best position to know. If his wife doesn’t feel like he loves her very much, it doesn’t matter a bit what he thinks. He can argue all day that in his heart he truly loves her but if she receives a different message through his actions, his tone, his touch, or any of the myriad of communication paths, it doesn’t matter what he thinks.

Alice Kaplan can claim that “the statement was about the climate on campus…. ” or the lack of life on Mars. It doesn’t matter what she thinks it was about. Everyone who read the ad received their very own message through the words, the tone, the font, the medium, and even the list of signatories. Just like the husband in the example above, the senders can argue all day long they meant something else but if they actually want to be convincing, they need to do so in a way that causes the receiver of the message to believe they really did intend it in a different way.

I’ve seen blustering, excuses, and alternative explanations from some of the signatories (which, by the way, is the term Wahneema Lubiano used in her email asking for support for the ad) but I haven’t seen any real effort to communicate a different message than the one received by many.

Communication between spouses is a poor analogy for communication between an ad-hoc group and a community through a newspaper ad. But you hit on a pretty good point. Nobody is in a position to tell me what the “listening” statement communicates to me, and vice-versa. And it’s an undeniable fact that I get an entirely different message from it than Johnson does. Your complaint should be with him, not me, since he’s far more inclined to claim that his interpretations are absolute and objective. If you’re interested, though, you can read my criticisms of the ad.

This started with Haynie’s comment that the “Group of 88” is not an entity that exists at Duke. It’s definitely not a formal organization like Senior Women in Science or the Black Faculty Caucus. Is it nonetheless a cohesive collective with shared opinions pressing a common agenda, so that it’s legitimately the focal point of an analysis of Duke faculty and the lacrosse case? In my opinion it’s not, and I think Haynie is making more or less the same point. As a Duke professor who was deeply involved in deliberations about the lacrosse case, he’s in a much better position than you or me or KC Johnson to say what the meaningful groupings within the faculty are. That doesn’t mean he’s automatically right, but to make any kind of case that he’s wrong you’ll have to dig a lot deeper.

Your characterization of the label, “Group of 88,” as a polemical tool sheds more light on your own politics than on the intentions of those who created or use the phrase as a shorthand notation for the group of Duke professors who signed the ad. No reasonable person would consider the term, group, to be a derogatory, controversial, or pejorative use of language.

I’ve read much of what KC has written in his blog. I’ve seen him make mistakes and correct them promptly and publicly, demonstrating his commitment that getting it right is more important than face-saving rhetoric. That, combined with the extensive sourcing of his data, is what gives him the vast credibility he has received regarding the Duke lacrosse case. It’s also what sets him apart from most of his critics.

No sensible person would think that either Haynie or I is objecting to the word “group” because it’s “derogatory, controversial, or pejorative.” The label “Group of 88” is a polemical tool because Johnson uses it to make points in a partisan critique (in fact I think he coined it in the first place). Feel free to read my complaints about the label and tell me what I got wrong.

While you’re at it, check out all the errors and misrepresentations I’ve found in just a few entries on DIW. I’ve been waiting a few weeks for him to either correct them or correct me.

As for Debrah’s comments, she clearly has little familiarity with the academy (at least with the one to which I belong). Serious, honest, and ethical scholars don’t intentionally and or maliciously misrepresent, misquote, and lie in their analyses and commentaries, not even in blogs.

The so-called “Group of 88” has indeed been a great polemical tool—that it’s essentially a fabrication seems to make in more rather than less durable. I’ve written in some detail about that.

First of all the Duke Lacrosses case was used by the so-called “Group of 88’ to highlight legitimate issues of sexual assault, racism, and social standing on campus. The listening ad was the result of that mindset. Good causes, wrong case. It is clear to me that the opinion of the authors of this ad were pretty sure ‘something happened’ at that party that would justify that ad. The case was used to promote a just cause. At some point it became very clear that the case was a sham and this group should have admitted they used the case to fit an agenda, that the players were innocent of the charges against them, and they should have apologized to the players and the families for that. Instead they provided a weak (in my opinion) defense of the just causes and issues raised while at the same time professed denial that they felt that the charges would turn out to be true. They were right in being concerned about the fears and complaints of students, and very wrong to use an unproven accusation against other students to highlight those concerns.

KC Johnson, on the other hand, used this groups reaction to the case to highlight an issue he is passionate and concerned about, that of the problems with certain members of the faculty and specifically certain departments like African-American studies and Women’s studies on college campuses. I will grant him the fact that there may be some problems here and it is an issue worthy of discussion. As far as the Duke Lacrosse case goes, it is certainly a minor issue to the main issues of prosecutorial misconduct and possible law enforcement misconduct. Yet he gives it such a major role in the case and paints the motives and thinking of certain faculty members with such a broad brush of hate and bigotry, that the agenda he promotes becomes lost in the rhetoric.

The reactions and emotions of both parties have been overplayed and stereotyped to show such a wide disparity of opinion to fit an ‘us against them’ approach to the case that have many backed into corners from which it is difficult if not impossible to emerge from. The many civil suits against Duke do not help this mindset. Frankly, I see it as a fact that the administration of Duke handled this case poorly and made many mistakes that do appear to have put the Lacrosse players at risk. I don’t for a minute believe that these mistakes were part of some conspiracy to frame innocent kids. I hope our court system can come up with a fair result, and sort some of this mess out. Some in Duke’s administration should be held accountable for the mistakes that were made and a better policy needs to be in place when (not if) a situation like this happens again.

I would phrase a few things differently, but on the whole this seems pretty reasonable to me. So yes, it’s bound to offend. I’ll just point out, with regard to this particular post, that Haynie isn’t one of the 88.

That he is simply one of the most resilient and brilliant minds in the academy.

Capable of producing outstanding scholarship while entertaining and dissecting unwashed commentary from lesser minds with a sensual, biting wit.

KC Johnson is a force who shows that perfection is not always to be denied.

I think we’d better just agree to disagree about this.

Earlier this year, KC Johnson reported that there had been 923,723 words posted on the blog. Questions:

1. Does this total include the 170 words he left out of my comments he posted on 10/10/07? How about the missing words of numerous others that he “quoted” on his blog?
2. With more than 920,000 words posted, it would appear that not having enough space is not a problem for his blog. So, why does KC routinely use ellipses when he quotes those with whom he disagrees? Is the use of the ellipsis in this manner standard methodology and practice for academic historians?

Fontes writes, “While he [KC Johnson] did incorrectly state that Haynie was responding to UPI two days later since the content of UPI, DIW and any other newspaper article is the same it’s a distinction without a difference.” Wow! This is another attempt to distort the facts. I invite Mr. Fontes and all others to read my 10/10/07 comments in their entirety to see if this is simply a distinction without a difference. I’ll give you all a hint. There is a difference. KC Johnson lied in that post. Above, there is a link to the comments in question (“page with the key passages”). You be the judge.

Kerry L. Haynie

I’m pretty sure that “Wayne Fontes” is an alias, and that he’s not the famous football coach or a namesake. But for my part I read his comment as part of an honest effort to understand and not just dismiss, and appreciate that it raises some points that are worth addressing.

I was confused by his remark about the “distinction without a difference,” though. Johnson seems to think there’s a difference. The cuts he makes in Haynie’s comment do double duty. Not only do they wipe out Haynie’s real complaint, they also facilitate the hollow but obnoxious claim that he’s too close-minded to read the text he’s criticizing. As Fontes points out, you don’t have to read UPI to get pretty good idea of what Johnson has made of the Coleman committee report.

The strategically pared-down version of Haynie’s comment is not the only example of that sort of handiwork I’ve found in DIW. Johnson’s misrepresentation of a few key lines of Holloway’s article is the worst case I know of, and it plays a longer and more central role in DIW. It’s always been my belief that ellipsis can be used to weed out inessential parts of a quote if it’s done with care. I’m not aware of any formal guidelines about that—guess I better look into it if I teach another class that involves essay writing. But one of the big ironies of DIW—funny or depressing, depending on how you look at it—is how many fine examples it offers of writing practices that are completely unacceptible in decent academic criticism and analysis.

[I (RZ) edited out the quote from DIW—see below for details]

While he did incorrectly state that Haynie was responding to UPI two days later since the content of UPI, DIW and any other newspaper article is the same it’s a distinction without a difference.

Haynie’s claim that Johnson and Taylor “mischaracterized our committee’s report. I have not read the Taylor and Johnson book . . . Our report cannot and should not be seen as a commentary on anything that happened on that now infamous and tragic evening” is a straw man argument.

In his email to Baldwin Haynie makes another you seem to have overlooked:

And you even had the nerve to include a thinly veiled threat of legal action in response to some alleged slander. Steven, it is you who should be ashamed.

Here is Baldwin’s reference to lawsuits:

They should be tarred and feathered, ridden out of town on a rail and removed from the academy. Their comments were despicable. I suspect they were also slanderous, but we’ll hear more about that later.

Baldwin was obviously referring to the players filing lawsuits since he had no standing to file a suit. Time has proven him correct since Duke has already settled two (with two more pending) laws suites including one that provided protection to the faculty for anything they said prior to the settlement date.

Thank you for clarifying that your question to Johnson was not about the source of the Baldwin email (more straw from Haynie) but his assertion that it contained an implicit call for violence. That is exactly the way I read it. I’m reminded of the Richard Pryor line “who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes”.

I’m afraid I don’t quite follow this comment. I’m not sure, first of all, what these two points I supposedly missed about Haynie have to do with anything. Is it that you think I’m saying Haynie did everything right and Johnson did everything wrong, so you want to point out what you think Haynie did wrong? Or these two things are so bad that they justify Johnson saying whatever he wants about Haynie?

The first point relates to the little episode in October 2007 that was kicked up by Coleman’s and Kasibhatla’s letter to the Chronicle criticizing Johnson and Taylor. For convenience I made a page with the key passages from Coleman-Kasibhatla, Haynie, and Johnson-Taylor, including the passage I took out of the comment. Since it happened a year after Haynie sent his email to Baldwin, and after UPI was published, none of it has much to do with my main point. But Johnson did not, as you claim, reproduce Haynie’s entire comment from the Chronicle, and the nearly four sentences that were left out make Haynie’s objection both clearer and more reasonable. So I suppose you’re more or less right about the “straw man argument,” but it’s Johnson who spun the straw. I don’t know why he felt he had to do that, since it seems to me that he could have answered Haynie’s actual criticism. In DIW, at least, he makes it clear that the report speaks to the character of the lacrosse players and not to what did or didn’t happen at the party.

As to the second point, sure Haynie might miss the mark with his comment about Baldwin’s “thinly veiled threat of legal action.” It’s an angry email written in response to an angry editorial and so not the most careful critique. But it was meant as a private communication—it’s only public because of the misuse Johnson and Taylor made of it. Baldwin was free to dispute or clarify whatever points he wanted to. The email raises some interesting questions, but unless you know what context Haynie and Baldwin brought to the interaction, from their previous contacts (if there were any) and/or general immersion in faculty politics, the only conclusions you can draw are weak and self-indulgent ones.

I’m not in a position to press Johnson about how he got the email, or if he ever read it, though I’m curious about those things. But it seems to me that Haynie has every right to raise the questions, and raise them forcefully. You can interpret his email any way you want—it’s one thing to have an opinion and an entirely different thing to claim in print, without consulting Haynie and without indicating how debatable the interpretation is, that Haynie wanted to settle his disagreement with Baldwin with physical violence.