The Duke 88, Now the Duke 17
Thank God we now see some semblance of sanity from the Duke faculty:
Now the teachers are going at each other. Shortly after members of the Duke University Lacrosse team were accused of rape last March, 88 faculty members signed an open letter which appeared in the student newspaper sympathizing with the accuser. Now, after the case against the students appears to be falling apart, 17 members of the economics department faculty have sent a letter to the student newspaper expressing their support for the players, and stating in part, "We regret that the Duke faculty is now seen as prejudiced against certain of its own students.
Now the teachers are going at each other. Shortly after members of the Duke University Lacrosse team were accused of rape last March, 88 faculty members signed an open letter which appeared in the student newspaper sympathizing with the accuser. Now, after the case against the students appears to be falling apart, 17 members of the economics department faculty have sent a letter to the student newspaper expressing their support for the players, and stating in part, "We regret that the Duke faculty is now seen as prejudiced against certain of its own students.
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Until now, no faculty member at Duke had come out to support the players. Roy Weintraub, an economics professor at Duke, drafted this week's letter. "It was something that had been bothering me for a while, that the Duke faculty was being characterized as being hostile to its own students, especially statements by faculty members that have been construed that way," Weintraub told TIME. "I wanted to make sure that there was some expression that students are welcomed in our class, including lacrosse players, students in good standing."
Nice to see that Duke University and its faculty are beginning to discover what most realized months ago - the defendants are victims, and the 'victim' is a liar.
posted by Myra Langerhas at
1:57 PM
4 Comments:
I have four boys and my older two have already gotten letters from several colleges. We've talked about Duke and the way the university threw these kids to the wolves.
Even though these Duke boys are 18 and 19, they are still kids and not experienced with organized racists and feminists groups.
People talk about the actions of normal boys wanting to see naked women dance, but no one is emphasizing the actions of mature and supposedly educated instructors inflaming mob behavior upon their own students.
Reinstatement of players doesn't square Duke
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Duke has not covered itself in glory on the lacrosse allegations. Last spring, when the three lacrosse players were indicted, they were, of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty [wink, wink]. But Duke wanted to get ahead of the story and decided to kick the two returning players out of school.
Today, the same two are still indicted and, of course, still presumed innocent until proven guilty. So Duke, wanting to stay ahead of the story, has magnanimously offered to reinstate them. In a letter to one of the students, Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs at Duke, writes, "We believe that circumstances warrant that we strike this balance differently."
That's indefensibly weak and borders on being disingenuous. What changed? If the two players were deemed too bad to be allowed to return in the fall of 2006, are they less bad now that the rape charges have been dismissed but the sexual assault and kidnapping charges retained? Duke did the wrong thing last year by caving in to public outrage fomented more by District Attorney Mike Nifong's comments, magnified by the press, than by any other factor. (And Duke took the opportunity to clean out the stables by firing the coach, too.)
Now, even though Duke has taken the right corrective step, the university still seems to be reacting to public pressure by reinstating them when very little has changed except the widespread perception of the DA's damaged credibility and integrity rather than the students' ostensible innocence.
Michael Brady
Hillsborough
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Your boys have already seen naked strippers. Like it or not. It is just the way of the world. They are not abnormal for it. They would be abnormal if they didn't see it. Shrug it off. Make them good people and they remain so.
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