There was no book deal when he started, NOTHING IN IT FOR HIM… no personal motive to embrace such a time-consuming, unpopular “cause.” These innocent boys were considered, at that time, “hooligans”… “racists”….” rapists”…or guys covering for rapists. They were the public-urinating spawn of privileged parents in Big Houses (there were pictures!) who terrorized a “shy, young Mom, struggling student, new to dancing.” Who would want to devote the effort it took to see the truth? These were not Brooklyn College students. He was not sitting at a computer in Durham. But KC got involved, didn’t he? He “listened”, didn’t he…not to popular, public, hysterical opinion but to the evidence and the lack thereof. Day after day, he provided a counterpoint, a contrasting view to all the madness, the lies, the agendas, the hysterical hype.

No one at Duke made such an effort for their own.

On any given morning, a Lacrosse Mom or Dad could pick up the Herald Sun and perhaps find an op-ed from some Professor at Duke about how their son was the embodiment of “white privilege.” …or how their son is just the latest abhorrent example of historical evil. Then there might be a letter to the Editor demanding long jail terms because women NEVER lie about rape. Ruth (“WE KNOW YOU KNOW”) Sheehan might be directing readers to Cash Michaels “Sister Survivor” website where they could comfort the “victim.” (A term the N&O employed often in the early days.) Maybe today, the N&O would run their lengthy piece “The Swagger Started Long Ago” or maybe today they see their child’s face gracing a “Wanted Poster” right there on the N&O pages. “WE ARE INVESTIGATING A BRUTAL RAPE.” Oh, here’s another article about a Black militant yelling “You’re a dead man walking!!!” at Reade Seligmann. On TV, some blonde is opining that these boys will face “jailhouse justice.” Nifong is quoted as saying this DEMANDS a Durham jury.

It’s just your average day in the Hoax.

But, without fail, morning after morning, they could count on this Professor up in Brooklyn College, to do some forceful pushback against all this insanity. KC never failed them. Can you even imagine what his effort must have meant to them?

To the “Hooligans”, words fail us in describing the generosity, the humanity, the goodness of what he did. Do you think I exaggerate? Well, ask the families..those who had to endure all this. As to the “fairness” of his treatment of the 88…I might paraphrase the second stripper, Kim Roberts, and say…. if some Duke Professors got their widdle feelings hurt along the way “Sorry, Fellas.”

No one and nothing can diminish KC Johnson or his contribution to these innocent kids, to these families, to exposing the truth, to justice. We wonder why you try. Please consider all that… if we Hooligans seem a little out of sorts when we drop by.

Good luck with your music…and truly I wish you the best. I’ll be heading back “home” now.Thanks for the fair treatment, the honesty and the hospitality. Joan Foster

You’re right, Johnson was there with a forceful counterattack at a time when people at Duke, in the media, and most ominously in law enforcement had declared open season on the Duke lacrosse team. They deserved a strong advocate, and it’s a disgrace that no one at Duke stepped up to the plate.

It’s a little silly and simplistic to say that there was nothing in it for him. What became DIW grew seamlessly out of his blogging on Cliopatria. Initially there was nothing more or less in it for him to write about the Duke case than to write about some other academic or historical matter. Historians join Cliopatria because it’s a good forum for them to say things they want to say, and Johnson’s interest in the general issues and concerns raised by the Duke case was clear long before April 2006. He didn’t take it up as a selfless, humanitarian act, nor was it just cynical opportunism. It was always a good platform for him to pursue his own agenda, and there’s nothing sinister about that—it’s a pretty typical motivation to get into intensive blogging. But he’s used the leverage and exposure to inflict whatever damage he can on those he’s singled out as opponents. Far more than any other professor who’s taken a public position on the case, he’s consistently and repeatedly lived up to the title of thugintellectual. From my perspective, no one’s done more to “diminish KC Johnson or his contribution to these innocent kids” than Johnson himself.

Thanks for taking the time to speak your mind and to listen, and for challenging me to set aside the sarcasm. You’ve given me some good stuff to think about, and I appreciate that too.

I believe that if it was a black on white crime the reality may have been that the accused would have been arrested and jailed prior to the bail hearing. The bail would have been much lower, that is certain, yet the accused may still have not been able to make bail and would have spent well over a year in jail awaiting trial. The accused would have been assigned a public defender who did not have the time or resources to fight this case the way the Duke Lacrosse defense team did. Because the accused would be black, many would now assume their guilt and they would have been fortunate if the a jury had found them innocent. Nifong would have endured far less scrutiny and questioning of his methods and his real evidence. The media would have generally ignored the case for long stretches of time. The most likely outcome would have been a plea bargain, even if the accused were innocent.

Again, just my opinion. As I said earlier, I felt this would be a good case to start a discussion of race and our system of justice. Perhaps that is still possible on some level.

A more general point that I’ll add is that simplistic race-reversal arguments have become a tiresome cliche in this debate. They seem to make for effective rhetoric, but there’s very little thought behind them. Mark’s scenario is a plausible alternative to the more familiar scenarios. More than that, it highlights some of the ways that switching races isn’t just a matter of turning everything on its head, so that whatever worked against the lacrosse team would work for the hypothetical black men facing the same kinds of allegations.

Whatever. “I grow old. I shall wear my stockings rolled.”

You don’t like the word “metanarrative” so I’ll skip it, but there seems to be a foggy belief system clouding academia these days that demands a purging of any ideas that don’t fall into some party line. And I mean PURGING. No debate. Get those ideas OUT OF HERE. Likewise certain ideas spouted by certain people with certain unassailable “status” are just…untouchable. I think a slight revision of Professor Neal’s term … “Thugintellectual” fits well here. In the Thugintellectual world , Thugs (of all hues) cannot share “turf.” They brook no debate; nope, they want to DEBASE any one and anything not wearing the “Gang (of 88?)” colors. They carry concealed “code words” and high-powered “trump cards” they may brandish at any time that they feel intellectually threatened. They shout down speakers; silence the non-initiated who hang in the academic doorways and should know better than to get involved. It works, but let’s just say, a lot of us in the neighborhood see them for the lightweight bullies they are.

All this “Thugintellectual” macho strikes me as a manifestation of fear or insecurity. Because if the “rival” ideas are so wrong, why the need to bully them out of the neighborhood? Because, there’s no better way to kill bad ideas (if you think they are) than to debate them with your better ideas. Just bloody the street with them…if you can. But you must, of course, first let them share the street corner or the podium with you…and must have honesty and lay down your automatic… umm-m-m… trump cards.

There really is a proliferation of trump cards these days, especially among academics and politicians. The Trump card not only obscures any oppositional point, muddies any moral point, it flips the conversation to whatever works for the Trumper. The big trump card in this case, of course, was “Racism.” Reading the comments under a post, I often thought of that comedian who does the “Redneck” routine. With modifications, he could have gotten great mileage out of this case:

How to know if you’re a Racist?

1. You don’t believe a thirty minute all-orifice rape can be achieved leaving no DNA? Then-n-n: YOU’RE A RACIST!

2. You don’t believe three kids should stand trial on an allegation and no evidence? Then-n-n YOU’RE A RACIST!

3. You think the NCNAACP website “case description” is outrageous? Then-n-n YOU’RE A RACIST!

It must be an exhilarating power to have a big buzz word that can give you a “PASS GO!” in any intellectual argument you are losing. More and more that important word seems to be wasted that way. Folks who really, really should protect, honor and use that word sparingly…. and with respect and meaning…throw it around like paper confetti. After awhile it will have about as much weight and sting as confetti. From the mayor of Detroit to the mayor of Baltimore now, to folks of all colors all over this case…the extravagant use of this word by those in a verbal or legal corner was and is so obvious ..it borders on amusing. Except it’s an important word and we still have need of it….if the poor exhausted thing can still be saved.

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Thanks for the link to Professor Neal’s website. I actually found a girlfriend there who thinks like me! Anyway, remember my (always unanswered) questions… posted before, asking if FACULTY SILENCE would have greeted each of the outrages that these Lacrosse kids endured…. if their skin hue had been different? Again…just to review….imagine…some white faculty member telling a distraught Black student’s mother that her kid is a “farm animal.” Or Brodhead dickering as to whether to allow armed KKK members on campus to interview accused Black students? Wanted posters with 46 Black faces all over campus? Nifong’s hinky prosecution tactics? Intimidation of witnesses?

I think (having read more of your posts) …that whether you will admit it or not…you know the answer is “No.” Every one of that loose coalition of 88 knows the answer is “No.” Mark knows the answer is “No.”And all this “straw man” nonsense…come on….each and every one of those incidents would have been a BARN BURNER if the races were reversed. We can play games here, but the same “loose coalition” that fell over themselves to get something in print on the Lacrosse case would have been in full raging Rumpelstiltskin mode on any ONE of those points!

Come on, dear Host, we KNOW YOU KNOW.

This is what makes their SILENCE so revealing…so illuminating…so offensive….so racist. (and I’m using the word with care)

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Anyway…While on Prof Neal’s Blog , I found a piece by Stephanie Dunn. It said, in part…

“So, let me get this straight. If you’re a big shot Professor at Duke University with a rep for being “politically correct”, you can defame the character of a whole group of young men and in effect a whole race and class of young men because you’re protected by the leftist ideological racy intellectual thing? And if you’re a big University President somehow not in charge, later issue a hey-Duke-is-sorry-but-we-don’t-exactly-control-the-insults-false accusations and-insinuations-of-our-faculty.”

Okay,I’m kidding… she didn’t say THAT…she said THIS about the Imus incident.

“So, let me get this straight. If you’re a Hall of Fame Broadcaster with a rep for saying the ‘politically incorrect’, you can defame the character of a whole group of young women and in effect a whole race of women because you’re protected by the white male racy commentator thing, right? If you’re the big network somehow not in charge, quickly issue a hey-MSNBC-is-sorry-but-we-don’t-directly-own-the-radio personality-or-show declaration. “

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See, Ms. Dunn and I are right there on the same street corner, or page, whatever. We are outraged by the casual cruelty, the de-personalization, the recklessness of words and phrase. Some thought they were being funny; some thought they were proving a point. Some were laughing; some claimed to be “listening.” In both cases, careless words rebounded on others. Some gave a false impression of lovely young women ; some aided a false accusation and legal jeopardy of innocent young men. Some had big words; both had BIG egos. Ms. Dunn decries the confidence of those who do such things with ” blissful ease and with no expectation of severe consequence or sustained public censure. ” Uh-huh.
Of course, yes, there are differences in the two “cases.”. The Rutgers girls attended no offensive party. Imus’ words were an unprovoked ignorant attack. Granted. On the other hand, Imus was fired and discredited and exposed as a dope…whereas Collin, Reade, and Dave will have to shoulder that infamy of “thank you for Not Waiting” and “Something Happened” for the rest of their lives.

And it wasn’t ONE incident, one op-ed, one TV appearance, one interview, one letter-to-the-Editor, one listening statement……it was the culmative effect of many, by people they knew, who knew them …repeated …over many months.

And Imus groveled. Duke’s loose coalition never even apologized. Imus was fired; the 88 are professionally flying high. On that, there is no…debate.

This comment was originally attached to the next entry, but I moved it back into this thread, which seems like the right place for it.

There’s some interesting stuff here. I’m often struck when I read complaints from the other side at how much they sound like my own complaints. When it comes to debates that have been purged of unacceptable ideas, for instance, it seems to me that the performance has been consistently dismal on all sides. I have a hard time believing that the race-card-playing leftists stand out from everyone else.

I think what you say about value of honest debate in the first paragraph is exactly right. A while back I wrote about an article by Alan Kors that starts out making much the same point, and making it eloquently—the scholarly ethos he learned and wants to pass on values the open-minded dialog and debate between diverse perspectives, sharpening ideas across the board. Then he gets around to the mealy-mouthed professors of “oppression studies.” They don’t seem to have any perspective—not any that Kors cares to take seriously, anyway. All they have is bias. It’s a refined version of an attitude I come across again and again—you can’t debate with those dopes in “angry studies,” they’ll just call you a racist, and they’re idiots anyways. What a cop-out!

I agree that the charge of racism is thrown around gratuitously, to the point of trivializing the word. And I agree that it played like a trump card to cut people down or shut them up, a practice I have no tolerance for. I’m mystified that the charge seems to strike you and Bill Anderson and, it seems, quite a few others like a lightning bolt. Depending on the source and the context, it could definitely hit hard, like if someone loudly called you out as a racist in room full of strangers (I mean a real room, not a virtual one). But I don’t know why you’d take anyone seriously who labelled you (or whoever else) a racist for the three reasons you list. It’s also not clear to me where I’d go on the web to find those kinds of answers. The only forum I can think of offhand is the Duke Chronicle, where I’ve come across comment threads that seem to be equal-opportunity rhetorical cesspools.

Your reworking of Dunn’s comment is clever, and it makes a good point. In quite a few more ways than you mention the parallels aren’t perfect, though. For instance 88 people is different from 1 person, a college president doesn’t have nearly the latitude to fire or discipline that a network executive has, Imus was broadcasting far and wide on the public airwaves, while much of what’s held against Duke faculty (especially the “listening” statement) was directed to people in their own community. And when it comes to the real-life consequences of race and gender stereotyping, white men are still far more likely to benefit from it than be harmed by it while for black women it’s still the opposite.

Listing those things puts me in touch with some of the reasons I avoid trying to explain, much less rationalize, the “Group’s” perspective on the controversy. Things look pretty simple to you, and to take the other side is to keep coming back with “well, it’s actually more complicated than that….” In my experience people really don’t want to be argued out of simple and morally unambiguous positions—trying to do that tends to be a waste of time. And it doesn’t take much questioning of those unambiguous positions before it looks to some people like I’m just trying to let everyone off the hook. And then there’s your trump card, and it’s a really effective one—don’t you know how those poor boys suffered, and are still suffering? What were you doing when they were cowering in court? Don’t you, as a father, have any feeling for the agony those families endured? Yes of course it was horrible! Far worse than any ordeal I’ve faced. There’s no arguing with that. In fact, it takes things out of the realm of debate, and that means the discussion is pretty much over.

I be;ieve this is the post to which Mark refers:

“Joan,

There is no excusing the conduct of the Duke faculty in the rape hoax. But there may be some helpful contributions to explaining it. The italicized text below is from a post I left at “Durham-in-Wonderland” in May of 2007.

In the mid 1970s I taught political science for a year at Carleton College in Minnesota. When hired, I knew that my appointment was good for only that year, as the husband-wife team whom I replaced would likely return from their leave, which they spent teaching at another college.

Soon I found myself in controversy with another member of my own department, Paul Wellstone, later to become the most liberal member of the U. S. Senate. At Carleton, Wellstone carried the banner of radical students and faculty. Although we maintained cordial relations, the shells we lobbed at each other in the student newspaper left no doubt of our ideological differences. Throughout that year, “mainstream” members of the faculty privately encouraged me to “keep at him.” But never once did any of them line up beside me in a public forum. Perhaps they understood that because I’d be leaving soon I could strap on the armor without fear of being shunned forever after by the bien-pensants on campus.

With few exceptions (Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, Jeremy Rabkin at Cornell, for example), college professors of traditional or conservative bent will never be mistaken for soldiers. Many of them are simply too involved in their research (that is, the real deal rather than the bilge produced in “angry studies”) to engage the anti-intellectuals who in the past forty years have found sanctuary in our elite colleges and universities. Many professors in engineering and the hard sciences will privately snarl at their ideologically besotted colleagues in the humanities but will only reluctantly challenge them publicly. After all, they’ve seen what happens to the Steve Baldwins in their ranks. I suspect many of them fear that their own plain English will be derided by obscurantist ideologues as hopelessly unsophisticated, as incapable of addressing the “secret racism” and other chimeras posited by the Grant Farreds who have corrupted not only their own universities but also the language of discourse itself.

Since my own disappointing experience of more than thirty years ago, that portion of the liberal-arts professoriate not enamored of the race, class, gender theory of everything has seen its numbers dwindle—and therefore has become even more chary of resisting the infamy. I have received e-mail from some very consequential members of the Duke faculty who leave no doubt about their disgust at the spectacle. Yet, they refrain from publicly upbraiding the barbarians in their midst. In these matters, the ideologues and the moral exhibitionists, more accustomed to engaging in polemics and the stampede, will always seem unpredictably dangerous to their more thoughtful and restrained colleagues.

You have raised the central question: at what point does decency itself require taking up the sword? Alas, the answer is not an easy one for folks temperamentally more disposed to defining “regret” than to avoiding it. In some (perhaps not useful) ways, the conduct of the Duke faculty these past two years instantiates the hoary adage that more pain and suffering in the world results from indifference and timidity than from malice and bellicosity. At least I hope so. . . .

Dukeparent2004

That’s well said. Thank you.

It is ironic, which seems like a pretty good reason to let it happen. I also wonder about what happened to the old forums…

You suggest it was done by LS itself but you “don’t want to sort it out here” which presumably means you will squash any comments to the contrary. Months of work ferreting out details and record keeping gone in a flash but you want to believe that the old LS site destroyed itself on purpose? If you had been involved with site on a daily basis or had access to some of the private emails that went back and forth, you’d know better. Your admitted ignorance on the matter didn’t keep you from characterizing the event now did it? But you go ahead and keep on being a slave to your metanarrative.

For what it’s worth, I’ll explain a little bit about why I shy away from the kinds of questions you’re asking. Unlike many of the people expressing their strong opinions about what happened at Duke, what I say could have real consequences for me….

Well, well, an honest admission that fear of retribution has silenced you when talking about the actions of your colleagues. I guess that’s progress. But haven’t you been saying that no such effect exists and that it couldn’t possibly have anything to with why more mainstream faculty didn’t speak out against the abuses of the few?

Right. I should have written all this anonymously so I could say whatever I wanted and no one could get me for it.

Honesty, sensitivity from those who demand sensitivity, and some true acceptance of responsibility would have gone a long way to dampen down emotions in this case.

I can understand your position…I have been there myself. Over the years, we all encounter folks who have our admiration in so many ways; who are generous and kind to us and ours; who, perhaps hold some sway in our personal or professional lives. Then comes the testing..the racist joke, the overt discrimination, the biased situation that our conscience says demands OUR confrontation. We ask ourselves…do we REALLY need to speak up? What does this one situation really matter? He is otherwise such a “great person!” Why me?

If I always, always passed the test myself, I’d lecture you..but honesty won’t allow that. But, Professor Zimmermann, I do look back happily at the certain moments when I did rise, speak up or walk out. But, lest you think me the Kathy Davidson of the Liestopper crowd, let me say that doing the decent thing, the right thing should not be a matter for self-adoration…just the opposite. I hope all of us, when we hold back, for whatever “good-for-us” reason… at least privately feel shame.

I hope some of the 88 feel shame.

Remember When Prof. Baldwin was chastised for his insensitive racial language. (Have you found anything similar addressing the “farm animal” Email to Tricia Dowd from Houston Baker? Nothing? Really? No one at all offended? No one?) Remember Prof. Baldwin’s apology: He said…

In particular, in the next-to-last paragraph of the editorial I used some terms that I have now learned have racial connotations for some. I certainly did not intend them that way. … […]

I am very sorry that my naivety has offended any members of the Duke community. That was entirely unintentional and I should have been more careful in my selection of words.

Baldwin went BACK into print to apologize, didn’t he?. Doing so, he showed some sensitivity to a “racial” connotation he may have inadvertently used with the term “tar and feather.” He goes so far as to say..”I should have been more careful in the selection of my words.”

Now, not to lessen the pain of reading the words “tarred and feathered” and the ensuing angst it might have caused in some…but this wasn’t about THIRTY YEARS IN JAIL on a false accusation, was it? The misinterpretation of his words might have driven some faculty to a second martini, but not driven the outrage that might put them IN JAIL!!!

Yet, Baldwin went back into print, accepted responsilbility and apologized.

Suppose the “Clarifying letter” had used Baldwin’s letter as a model. Suppose it had just stated the wish that “Other language had been used.” Suppose it had acknowledged that those unfortunate words had unadvertently added to the burden the Lacrosse team had to bear at a very dangerous time for them.

Suppose it had shown just a portion of the humility and humanity that Baldwin showed to his offended colleagues. Suppose the offended, the “sensitive” could pull the mote out of his own eye and feel BEYOND themselves and certain students with favored skin hues.

Instead

There have been public calls to the authors to retract the ad or apologize for it, as well as calls for action against them and attacks on their character. We reject all of these,” the letter stated. “We think the ad’s authors were right to give voice to the students quoted, whose suffering is real. We also acknowledge the pain that has been generated by what we believe is a misperception that the authors of the ad prejudged the rape case.

Unlike Baldwin, they acknowledge but take no responsibility. The “pain” is all the fault of “misperception.”not anything THEY did.

Would they have accepted with grace such pomposity in Baldwin’s reply?

Professor Lee D. Baker wrote:

We had a long discussion about what the word ‘regret’ means, and philosophy professors weighed in and we had a whole range of very detailed discussions in terms of the etymology of specific words. We were disappointed people did not understand the intention — it was never to rush to judgment, it was about listening to our students who have been trying to make their way in a not only racist and sexist campus, but country.

So with an allegation and nothing more, this “sensitivity” lead them to sign their names to an ad “thanking the protestors” for “not waiting.” and PILE UP all of our nation and Duke’s racial and social problems on the shoulders of the suspected students!!

As if the jeopardy, REAL JEOPARDY, of students trying to make their way through a corrupt and frenzied Durham justice system needed to be secondary to addressing JUST AT THAT TIME, the racist and sexist anxieties of others!

But, I’m off my topic here. So much might have been diffused with a little humility, sensitivity and remorse. We all make mistakes. Old hurts, old loyalties, fear, outrage…hey, who hasn’t let all that obscure from us a larger picture? Who hasn’t “emoted in haste? (yes, me!)

But, IMO, the blow-off reply of the Clarifying letter,…. the self-righteous, pomposity and insensitivity of it, the denial, the refusal to apologise (from people of an ideology that seems ALWAYS to be demanding apologies of others) ….was another missed moment to move forward to something better here. The “tribalists” ( as you call them) just hardened up against the other, creating new wounds and war stories…. that will be repeated around the campfires that keep us separated for many more moons ahead.

Thanks for your honesty and the decency of your reply. But don’t try to monopolize MLK. His words, those quotes are mine too…in private ways that I will not demean to “make a point.”on the Internet. So quit that.

There’s a lot here that I agree with. You can really see from what happened in January 2007 that the wagons were circled at Duke. I agree that the “clarifying” letter (aka “concerned faculty” statement) is a big disappointment. It reads like it was written by a committee that whittled it down to bland generalities. The quote from Baker backs that impression up. Earlier in the month, Karla Holloway made her dramatic exit from the CCI committee and Kathy Davidson wrote her editorial. To be honest, I don’t see what’s so bad about Davidson’s editorial as a whole, but misrepresentation of history at the beginning of it is hard to understand or excuse.

And Baldwin’s quick and gracious apology was a model of how that kind of situation should be handled. It’s a shame that instead of much needed debate and dialog, the exchange between Baldwin and Weigman degenerated into recriminations about whose rhetoric was most outrageous and uncalled-for. I think both sides share the blame for that. Baldwin’s frankness and quick turnaround isn’t something that’s going to come from a loose coalition of 88 people (least of all if they’re college professors), but some individuals in the group could have risen to the occasion more like Baldwin did.

As to MLK, I couldn’t possibly monopolize him even if I wanted to. You raised the issue of how people react when you quote him, I told you how the quotes strike me in the context you were using them. If you’re going to quote him freely, you need to have the courage of your convictions. People can and will disagree with you about whether King’s words apply in the way you’re using them—that’s how debate works. But nobody can dictate what meaning or significance they have for you.

I compacted the comment a little by trimming the Baldwin quote (the link brings up the whole thing), and did a little formatting while I was at it.

The truth of Duke faculty silence is, in my opinion, not an indicator that they had an opinion of guilt early in the case. Having been raised by a college professor, I can tell you that one of your own nailed it in better words than I can hope to give you.

If you have a link to the post I’d be interested to read it.

It looks like 62 members of the 89 “concerned faculty” had also signed the Group of 88 “Listening Statement,” that is a retention rate of 70.45% (62/88) . Therefore, twenty-six members of the Group of 88 did not sign the clarifying letter as “concerned faculty.” One of them Houston Baker (G88 member) had left Duke for Vanderbilt in May 2006. So obviously he wasn’t around to join the new initiative. Is it possible that a few others (who were visiting, retired, on vacation, or on sabbatical) were not available to confirm their April 2006 position in early to mid-January 2007?

Two members of the Group of 88 and also the Group of 89/Concerned Faculty, Louise Meintjes and Paul Berliner, were listed as being in the Music department. I don’t know if you have already addressed this, but do you have any personal or professional associations with them or any other of the G88/89 members that might be perceived as a conflict of interest in your analysis of their actions.

Appreciate your attempts to analyze the undercurrents that buffeted the Duke lacrosse case. It’s the ultimate worms nest isn’t it?

Thanks for that correction to my correction of Jim’s comment. My guesstimate that 2/3 of the 88 signed the “concerned faculty” (CF) statement holds up pretty well. Another detail that gets lost in the shuffle is that a handful of the 88 weren’t faculty—there are a few nurses and at least one student and one administrator.

As to “conflict of interest,” what I said in my first post about the case was “I haven’t been involved in any faculty or institutional response or discussion of the case, and none of the people at Duke who have played a public role in the controversies are friends or acquaintances of mine.” I believe the only person I’ve written about who I’ve actually met is Mark Anthony Neal—in the past few months I’ve spoken to him in passing a few times because our daughters are involved in some of the same school activities. The music department is small, so of course I know the two colleagues you mentioned.

The response I just gave to “A Reader” applies here, too. My interpretation is definitely colored by my general sense of what goes on at Duke, and what I write about is somewhat constrained because I’m part of the community and don’t particularly want to poison my own well. But I’m writing about the same texts as everyone else, and I don’t claim to have any special inside scoop about them. What I conclude from those texts either makes sense or it doesn’t.

Has anyone ever gotten to the bottom of what exactly happened to the LieStoppers forum? I know the party line is that the forum was hacked. Where’s the proof of this crime? Have arrests been made, or was the story of a hack just another hoax, now woven into the fabric of the LieStoppers metanarrative?

It is ironic, which seems like a pretty good reason to let it happen. I also wonder about what happened to the old forums, but I don’t expect to ever know. Anyone who wants to scratch their heads over the possibilities can follow the links in the first paragraph for one side and then check out the batcave for another. I’m likely to be pretty heavy-handed about any attempts to sort it out here, though.