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Quasimodo
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Mar 7 2014, 11:19 AM
Post #1
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http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/issues/050607/year4.html Volume 93, No.3, May-June 2007
One Year Later Robert Bliwise
(snip)
When he talked with [Dorothy] Rabinowitz in the Penn context [the "water buffalo" incident], Hackney [then President of Penn]"explained the situation as I saw it," he writes. "The charge of violating the racial-harassment policy had been made. We had a prescribed process through which the case would be adjudicated, and I was obligated to let that process work."
Hackney asked Rabinowitz to refrain from editorializing until the campus process had run its course. "There was a pause," he writes. "Then she said in a voice so chilling that I knew immediately that, like Dr. Seuss' Grinch, she had garlic in her soul, 'This is the darkest moment for human freedom in the history of Western civilization, and you, sir, are complicit.' "
[Wichard: "Nothing less than civilization is at stake." I guess civilization lost.]
(snip)
Just after the exoneration of the players, Dean of the Chapel Sam Wells reflected, in a statement from the pulpit, on the past year's "deeply troubling" story for Duke and the indicted players. It was a story, he noted, that drew "the relentless gaze of merciless public scrutiny." The events thrust the players into "an endless night of bewilderment and near despair," he said. "It must have seemed like the world had laid on them the iniquity of us all."
He added, "We have all been impoverished because we have had cause to lose trust in institutions and processes on which our common life depends. Everyone is talking about justice, but justice is fundamentally not a system but a virtue that needs to be embodied by just people and be accompanied by other virtues like courage and restraint."
[So where was his apology for his own rush to judgment and condemnation? Isn't the above just the equivalent of saying, "wrong things happened, and that was too bad", without accepting responsibility? "We're all guilty, so no one is responsible"? And what's a pastor of the Christian faith doing condemning in tune with a hysterical mob? Why wasn't he at the side of the accused, even if they were guilty? And especially, once it became obvious they were innocent? Why was he silent for months, while a legal railroading and lynching was taking place, and to his own students?]
(snip)
Irrespective of a wrongheaded criminal investigation, most people have kept their faith in Duke, says Steel, the trustee chair. Though he acknowledges that "some things might have been done differently," he stands by the university's major decisions over the past year. The president consulted regularly with the trustees, he says, and has had their continuing support.
As consuming as it has been, Brodhead insists that the lacrosse episode didn't deflect the university from other goals. "I don't want to understate the degree of attention that we paid to this matter, but it's also been our business to run a great university," he says. "Every day during this story we worked on other things in addition to a crisis. And certainly it was painful to see things put in the shade by this story."
[Nothing should take precedence when three Duke students were facing a railroading to prison. Stop the party! Brodhead himself, along with the entire law faculty, should have marched down to the courthouse and sat in on the hearings, once it became obvious the players were innocent. THAT would have sent a clear message. (OF course, it might have offended some in the community--but is that anything which should even enter into consideration when one is weighing the morality of one's actions?)]
On a single day last April, he recalls, Duke launched a comprehensive Global Health Initiative and the first two lacrosse players were indicted. "One story got a world of attention, which now we realize was undeserved, and the other story got no attention."
Steel and Brodhead alike say that lessons can be learned from the past year, but that it's time to move beyond a painful episode. As other universities have learned, campuses are sturdy places—places that do demonstrably inspire trust. And they're prone to bounce back quickly from times of adversity.
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Quasimodo
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Mar 7 2014, 11:27 AM
Post #2
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Brodhead himself, along with the entire law faculty, should have marched down to the courthouse and sat in on the hearings, once it became obvious the players were innocent. THAT would have sent a clear message.
I'll add that the entire law faculty of NCCU should have been marching down to the courthouse and sitting in support of the falsely-accused. THAT would have sent a message.
But of course, in today's world we have to be judged by the color of our skin and not by the content of our character.
The mere fact that we regard it as obvious that such an event could never take place, is an indication of just how far we have slipped in our civilization... Whichard and Rabinowitz were right, unfortunately...
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MikeZPU
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Mar 7 2014, 03:33 PM
Post #3
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Hackney asked Rabinowitz to refrain from editorializing until the campus process had run its course. "There was a pause," he writes. "Then she said in a voice so chilling that I knew immediately that, like Dr. Seuss' Grinch, she had garlic in her soul, 'This is the darkest moment for human freedom in the history of Western civilization, and you, sir, are complicit.' "
The hell with that: that's code for "let us railroad him, behind the scenes, to the point of no return where your editorializing will be too late."
It was clear that the UPenn PC language faculty-police had already made up their minds. It took a lot of outside pressure to get the racial harassment charges dropped, including ridicule of Penn by many in the press.
Edited by MikeZPU, Mar 8 2014, 01:49 AM.
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