Blog and Media Roundup - Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Blog and Media Roundup - Wednesday, July 8, 2009; News Roundup
Topic Started: Jul 8 2009, 05:27 AM (177 Views)
abb	Jul 8 2009, 05:27 AM Post #1
Posts: 8,488 Group: Tier1 Member #4 Joined: Apr 28, 2008	http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20090708/NEWS/907079979/1014?Title=Will-professors-condemn-equally- Will professors condemn equally? Published: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 4:30 a.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 11:55 a.m. To The Editor: Now that Duke University has had one of its white administrators identified as a child rapist and pedophile, who is charged with offering his adopted 5-year-old African American son for sex on the Internet, can we expect to see the same 88 liberal professors write a letter calling him a racist and rapist like they did when the white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black stripper. I doubt that will ever happen as liberals seem to only get outraged when there is a Republican or conservative white man involved and he certainly does not fit either of those categories. Dale P. Bowlin Hendersonville
Posts: 8,488 Group: Tier1 Member #4 Joined: Apr 28, 2008


striker	Jul 8 2009, 05:55 AM Post #2
Posts: 473 Group: Members Member #335 Joined: May 10, 2008	The Brazilian President said that the financial mess in the US and the world was started by "white men with blue eyes".



Quasimodo	Jul 8 2009, 07:54 AM Post #3
Posts: 4,937 Group: Tier1 Member #17 Joined: Apr 28, 2008	Quote: To The Editor: Now that Duke University has had one of its white administrators identified as a child rapist and pedophile, who is charged with offering his adopted 5-year-old African American son for sex on the Internet, can we expect to see the same 88 liberal professors write a letter calling him a racist and rapist like they did when the white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black stripper. I'm still waiting for Brodhead to issue a statement about this matter...Maybe something like: "Allegations against a member of the Duke community have deeply troubled me and everyone else at this university and our surrounding city. We can’t be surprised at the outpouring of outrage. Sexual exploitation of children is the substitution of raw power for love, brutality for tenderness, and dehumanization for intimacy. It is also the crudest assertion of inequality, a way to show that the strong are superior to the weak and can rightfully use them as the objects of their pleasure. When reports of racial abuse are added to the mix, the evil is compounded, reviving memories of the systematic racial oppression we had hoped to have left behind us. "If the allegations are verified, what happened would be a deep violation of fundamental ethical principles and among the most serious crimes known to the legal system. Such conduct is completely unacceptable both within the university and in our society at large. If the truth of the allegations is upheld, it will call for severe punishment from the courts and from Duke’s disciplinary system. This university has cooperated and will continue to cooperate to the fullest to speed the ongoing investigation by the police, and I pledge that Duke will respond with appropriate seriousness when the truth is established. "But it is clear that the acts the police are investigating are only part of the problem. This episode has touched off angers, fears, resentments, and suspicions that range far beyond this immediate cause. It has done so because the episode has brought to glaring visibility underlying issues that have been of concern on this campus and in this town for some time—issues that are not unique to Duke or Durham but that have been brought to the fore in our midst. They include concerns of women about sexual coercion and assault. They include concerns about the culture of certain groups and the attitudes these groups promote. They include concerns about the survival of the legacy of racism, the most hateful feature American history has produced. "Compounding and intensifying these issues of race and gender, they include concerns about the deep structures of inequality in our society—inequalities of wealth, privilege, and opportunity (including educational opportunity), and the attitudes of superiority those inequalities breed. And they include concerns that, whether they intend to or not, universities like Duke participate in this inequality and supply a home for a culture of privilege. " Of course, nothing in the above statement by the President would be meant to call into question the right of the accused to be considered innocent until a proper legal process has proven the contrary... Edited by Quasimodo, Jul 8 2009, 08:02 AM.



RighteousThug	Jul 8 2009, 08:18 AM Post #4
Hoolie back by popular demand! ;>) Posts: 266 Group: Tier1 Member #162 Joined: Apr 28, 2008	No job, no money for (fake Indian) Churchill By Tom McGhee The Denver Post Posted: 07/07/2009 12:37:30 PM MDT A judge has ruled that the University of Colorado doesn't have to give controversial former professor Ward Churchill his job back, even though a jury found he was improperly fired. Churchill, who taught ethnic studies at CU's Boulder campus, lost his teaching position after an investigation found he had plagiarized and falsified scholarly work for years. The university launched the investigation on the heels of controversy that erupted when an essay surfaced in which Churchill called some victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at New York's World Trade Center "little Eichmanns." CU said he was fired for academic misconduct. Churchill sued, arguing that he was penalized for exercising his right to free speech. "This ruling recognizes that the regents have to make important and difficult decisions. The threat of litigation should not be used to influence those decisions," CU president Bruce Benson said in a release. Earlier this year, a jury awarded Churchill just $1 after deciding that his firing was retaliation for the essay. That decision left Denver District Judge Larry Naves to rule whether Churchill should be reinstated or receive "front pay" — a monetary settlement. In a 42-page decision issued today, Naves agreed with the university that Churchill's presence on the Boulder campus would suggest that the university tolerated academic misconduct. "The evidence was credible that professor Churchill will not only be the most visible member of the department of ethnic studies if reinstated, but that reinstatement will create the perception in the broader academic community that the department of ethnic studies tolerates research misconduct," Naves wrote. "In addition, this negative perception has great potential to hinder students graduating from the department of ethnic studies in their efforts to obtain placement in graduate programs," he wrote. Naves also refused to order CU to provide front pay, saying there were no actual damages that the money would remedy. And he said that Churchill didn't seek to mitigate his losses by getting another job. "Professor Churchill's own statements during the trial established that he has not seriously pursued any efforts to gain comparable employment but has, instead, chosen to give lectures and other presentations as a means of supplementing his income. Reportedly, he even 'received a few job offers' that he declined to pursue. Under these circumstances, I do not believe an award of front pay is appropriate," Naves wrote. Churchill couldn't immediately be reached for comment.



abb	Jul 8 2009, 08:43 AM Post #5
Posts: 8,488 Group: Tier1 Member #4 Joined: Apr 28, 2008	http://www.law.duke.edu/magazine/2009summer/feature/index # # It Takes a Village to Work for Justice
Posts: 8,488 Group: Tier1 Member #4 Joined: Apr 28, 2008


Quasimodo	Jul 8 2009, 09:01 AM Post #6
Posts: 4,937 Group: Tier1 Member #17 Joined: Apr 28, 2008	Quote: http://www.law.duke.edu/magazine/2009summer/feature/index # # It Takes a Village to Work for Justice Quote: I met Smith and Coleman in 2004 when I was looking into Smith's case as an investigative reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal. By then Coleman had been reviewing evidence in the case for a year. I'm glad he was looking at reopening the cases of persons who were innocent. Quote: Today students can earn course credit for some of their work through the Wrongful Convictions Clinic, but not so in 2003. Possibly a result of the CDR settlement? Quote: "The first thing Mr. Coleman said to me was, 'We believe you're innocent,'" Smith says. See comment by another poster above. How much it would have helped for someone on the Duke faculty to make that comment publicly (or even privately). Quote: He can't help but compare Smith's case to that of the three lacrosse players who had the best lawyers in the state defending them. He notes the roles that race and resources play in the outcome of such cases Someone needs to point out the painful truth that race was the principle feature permitting the lax case to be continued for more than 24 hours; and why the wrongfully accused were not supported by the university nor the media.



Quasimodo	Jul 8 2009, 06:32 PM Post #7
Posts: 4,937 Group: Tier1 Member #17 Joined: Apr 28, 2008	Yes, it's good enough to identify someone who's been dead for 450 years...and know that his hairs were left behind in a book 450 years ago...but not reliable enough to detect the presence of three modern students in a tiny confined space? http://www.livescience.com/space/090708-copernicus-remains.html Copernicus Remains Verified by DNA Analysis By SPACE.com staff posted: 08 July 2009 11:57 am ET A new DNA analysis of hairs found in a book that once belonged to Copernicus shows a match with the great astronomer's putative remains, seemingly confirming their identity. (snip) The remains thought to belong to Copernicus (1473-1543) were found beneath a cathedral in Frombork, Poland, in 2005. (snip) A team of Swedish and Polish researchers sought to more firmly ID the remains by comparing the DNA of the remains to that in hairs found in a calendar (now exhibited at the Museum Gustavianum in Uppsala, Sweden) that belonged to Copernicus for much of his life. "The analysis of several hairs resulted in interpretable profiles for four of the hairs. Of these, two of the hairs have the same profile as the putative remains of Copernicus," said team member Marie Allen of Uppsala University. The Uppsala researchers also made tests of a tooth as well as bone tissue from the remains. (snip) "Although these results points towards the materials being from the same individual, there is a probability of random match," Allen said. The DNA material in this case was limited and also degraded. Therefore, a so-called mitochondrial DNA test was performed, but this test is less reliable. (Most DNA is found in the nucleus of a cell, but mitochondria, the energy producers of the cell, also carry DNA that is passed down from the mother.) This test is commonly used in criminal investigations, but only as circumstantial evidence to strengthen the case. (snip) Edited by Quasimodo, Jul 8 2009, 06:36 PM.



Baldo	Jul 8 2009, 07:39 PM Post #8
Posts: 8,569 Group: Tier2 Member #45 Joined: Apr 28, 2008	Nicolaus Copernicus, one of the greats of the Renaissance, the "88" would surely have voted him off Duke Island! Brodhead would have denied he wrote "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres"



Payback	Jul 8 2009, 07:39 PM Post #9
Posts: 720 Group: Tier1 Member #288 Joined: May 1, 2008	Quasimodo Jul 8 2009, 07:54 AM Quote: To The Editor: Now that Duke University has had one of its white administrators identified as a child rapist and pedophile, who is charged with offering his adopted 5-year-old African American son for sex on the Internet, can we expect to see the same 88 liberal professors write a letter calling him a racist and rapist like they did when the white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black stripper. I'm still waiting for Brodhead to issue a statement about this matter...Maybe something like: "Allegations against a member of the Duke community have deeply troubled me and everyone else at this university and our surrounding city. We can’t be surprised at the outpouring of outrage. Sexual exploitation of children is the substitution of raw power for love, brutality for tenderness, and dehumanization for intimacy. It is also the crudest assertion of inequality, a way to show that the strong are superior to the weak and can rightfully use them as the objects of their pleasure. When reports of racial abuse are added to the mix, the evil is compounded, reviving memories of the systematic racial oppression we had hoped to have left behind us. "If the allegations are verified, what happened would be a deep violation of fundamental ethical principles and among the most serious crimes known to the legal system. Such conduct is completely unacceptable both within the university and in our society at large. If the truth of the allegations is upheld, it will call for severe punishment from the courts and from Duke’s disciplinary system. This university has cooperated and will continue to cooperate to the fullest to speed the ongoing investigation by the police, and I pledge that Duke will respond with appropriate seriousness when the truth is established. "But it is clear that the acts the police are investigating are only part of the problem. This episode has touched off angers, fears, resentments, and suspicions that range far beyond this immediate cause. It has done so because the episode has brought to glaring visibility underlying issues that have been of concern on this campus and in this town for some time—issues that are not unique to Duke or Durham but that have been brought to the fore in our midst. They include concerns of women about sexual coercion and assault. They include concerns about the culture of certain groups and the attitudes these groups promote. They include concerns about the survival of the legacy of racism, the most hateful feature American history has produced. "Compounding and intensifying these issues of race and gender, they include concerns about the deep structures of inequality in our society—inequalities of wealth, privilege, and opportunity (including educational opportunity), and the attitudes of superiority those inequalities breed. And they include concerns that, whether they intend to or not, universities like Duke participate in this inequality and supply a home for a culture of privilege. " Of course, nothing in the above statement by the President would be meant to call into question the right of the accused to be considered innocent until a proper legal process has proven the contrary... P. S. by Richard Brodhead: Notwithstanding my sentiments expressed in the last sentence in Quasimodo's post, I feel compelled to let it be known that in my opinion whatever Lombard did was bad enough.
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