Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
Blog and Media Roundup - Friday, February 16, 2018; News Roundup
Topic Started: Feb 16 2018, 05:43 AM (100 Views)
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2018/02/duke-mens-lacrosse-welcome-no-4-denver-for-first-major-test-of-2018


Duke men's lacrosse welcome No. 4 Denver for first major test of 2018
By Riley Pfaff | 02/16/2018

After dispatching their first three opponents this season by an average margin of nearly 12 goals per game, the undefeated Blue Devils will face a stiffer test Friday in a much-anticipated top-five matchup.

Top-ranked Duke and No. 4 Denver will meet at 5 p.m. at Koskinen Stadium for the eighth year in a row, as the Blue Devils look to knock off the Pioneers for the first time since beating them twice in 2014, including in that year’s NCAA tournament. Incidentally, this is also the first time Duke has been ranked No. 1 in the nation since 2014.

Through three games, the Blue Devils have been paced by senior standout attackman Justin Guterding, who has contributed four goals per game—good for seventh in the nation—to a strong Duke offense averaging more than 18 goals per contest. The balanced attack has been just one of many strengths so far for the Blue Devils, who will face their first real challenge against Denver.

“Offensively, it’s going to be about being selfless. We call it hitting singles. Make the easy pass, don’t try to hit the home run and try to hit singles,” Duke head coach John Danowski said. “And defensively, we need to play together. The will to win has got to be greater than the desire to make individual plays.”

Although it takes more than one specialist to make a great team, there is no denying that the best player on the Pioneers’ roster is its superb faceoff man, Trevor Baptiste. Baptiste, considered to be one of the best faceoff men of all time, ranks third all-time in the NCAA for faceoffs won, and has a career faceoff win percentage of .702. In 2017, Baptiste was the first faceoff specialist ever to be named as a finalist for the Tewaraaton Award, given to the nation’s most outstanding player.

Facing off against Baptiste at the X will be Duke sophomore Brian Smyth, replacing the Blue Devils’ standout specialist from last season, Kyle Rowe. Smyth has won just 30 of 62 faceoff opportunities this year—a far cry from Rowe’s .583 win percentage in 2017. Last season, however, even Rowe was no match for Baptiste, who won 17 of 25 faceoffs in Denver’s 14-9 victory.

Despite surrendering more faceoff opportunities than it has won so far this season, Duke (3-0) has done a good job containing its opponents’ attack coming out of the faceoff, a positive trend that must continue for the Blue Devils to win Friday.

“I wish there was something we could do coaching that could stop [Baptiste]. The hope is your draw guys are going to be pretty good as well, [that] they’re going to be pretty quick to the whistle. But if we’re not, we want to make sure that we don’t give up any goals in the faceoff game,” Danowski said. “If we can, [we want to] turn it into a scrap. If we can not let him pick it up in the first two seconds and let our wings get involved, that would be ideal. We like the way our wings are scrapping when the balls on the ground, and so [giving] them an opportunity to make a play [is] the plan.”

Beyond the faceoff, there are few teams in the country that can match up well with Duke on offense, defense and between the posts. Guterding may be the most recognizable name on the roster, but he is far from the only star player for a Blue Devil team that returns nearly all of its starters from a year ago.

Flanking Guterding on attack are sophomore Joey Manown and freshman Joe Robertson, who recorded eight points in Duke’s blowout win against Jacksonville and ranks fifth among all rookies in the NCAA with 4.7 goals per game.

Manown is one of six returning sophomores who combined to start more games last year than any group of rookies under Danowski since 2011—so far, this group is parlaying that extensive experience in their freshman campaign into noticeable results on the field this year. Manown, Sean Lowrie, Kevin Quigley and Reilly Walsh have combined for 21 points so far, and defenseman JT Giles-Harris was named ACC Defensive Player of the Week for his strong defensive performance alongside Terry Lindsay, the final member of the group of six experienced sophomores.

“It’s really helpful that we’ve had guys play together for over a year now. Last year, we had two freshmen starting midfielders, a starting freshman attackman, so it was difficult getting to know these guys,” Guterding said. “But now we’ve been playing for over a year, [and] it’s definitely been helpful getting to play with these guys and gain chemistry.”

The Pioneers (1-0) are coming off an 11-5 win against No. 17 Air Force, a team the Blue Devils beat 18-4 in their season opener. Although they lack the offensive firepower Duke possesses, Denver has a strong defense that is anchored by goalie Alex Ready, who made nine saves on 14 shots against the Falcons. Dylan Gaines, a junior from Baltimore, Md., had a breakout game against Air Force and will look to continue that into Friday’s matchup against some of the top scorers in the country in Durham.

“It’s going to be a way different challenge [against Denver]. We’re going to have probably [fewer] possessions, so we’re going to have to play better in the box offensively,” Guterding said. “We’ve been getting out and running, scoring a ton in transition, so we have to be smart in those transition opportunities. We’ll be able to gauge how we are as a team against a top-five team, some of the best in the country.”
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2018/02/180216-failingthe40percent-edit


Failing the 40 percent
By Editorial Board | 02/16/2018

On Tuesday, a superior court judge sided with Duke junior Ciaran McKenna, permanently barring Duke from suspending him over sexual misconduct allegations. Last November, after two hearings and an appellate process, the Office of Student Conduct (OSC) found McKenna responsible for violating the University’s sexual misconduct policy, concluding that McKenna had sexually assaulted a female student. When McKenna’s second attempt at the appellate process was denied, he sued Duke for misapplying the “reasonable person standard.” His case is one of many shedding light on the extremely troubling aspects of our University’s student conduct process.

Since our undergraduate seniors arrived on this campus four years ago, sexual assault at Duke has repeatedly made national and local headlines. In 2014, Lewis McLeod sued Duke after being expelled for violating its sexual misconduct policy. In 2015 alone, a first-year female claimed that she had been drugged and raped at a fraternity house off-campus, a former Duke men’s basketball player was dismissed amid sexual allegations and the U.S. Department of Education began investigating a Title IX complaint against Duke. In 2016, a former student filed a Title IX lawsuit on the grounds that the University had mishandled her sexual misconduct complaint, and in 2017, a Women’s Center employee was accused of doing the same. The frequency and gravity of these cases should worry us as a community.

As we have noted in the past, our University often functions as its own municipality with its own adjudication system. At Duke, students are encouraged to report sexual misconduct. However, when they do so, they enter a system that repeatedly fails them. In some ways, OSC’s role in this process is a complete conflict of interest given the University’s interest in projecting a sterling national reputation. The University simply has too much at stake, preventing it from being the fairest judge and jury to oversee such sensitive allegations.

We encourage Duke to reform its student conduct process before more students lose faith in the imperfect adjudication process. Sexual assault is a clear problem at Duke, and there are innumerable factors working against sexual assault victims on-campus; our justice system should not exasperate an already painful process for victims. When OSC mishandles sexual misconduct allegations, they siphon even more respect away from student victims struggling to recover both physically and emotionally post-assault. They eliminate any means for students to receive justice on this campus. This is not the first time we have asked Duke for reform, but hopefully, it will be the last.

On college campuses across the nation, 20 percent of women report being sexually assaulted. At Duke, the rate is nearly twice that number. Here, 40 percent of undergraduate women and 10 percent of undergraduate men report being sexually assaulted, and while this report is startling, it has seemingly incited no tangible change on this campus. From the outside, it appears that many of us have simply forgotten about the 40 percent. Even a complete overhaul of OSC is insufficient to combat the culture of sexual misconduct existing on this campus. As students, we have to critically reflect on what steps we are taking—and what steps we have failed to take—toward our goal of creating a safer campus. This process begins with changing how we talk about sexual assault and by eliminating phrases that trivialize it. It involves stepping in, instead of standing by. Our University will hopefully change soon, but as students, we can definitely affect change today.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

Baylor football players suspects in another sexual assault report

By Stefan Stevenson
sstevenson@star-telegram.com

February 15, 2018 11:16 PM

Two Baylor football players are implicated in a sexual assault report from November, according to a report by KWTX TV, the CBS affiliate in Waco.

According to information in a police report from Nov. 17, which the station obtained via an open records request, the incident occurred late Nov. 11 into early Nov. 12 at the University Parks Apartments near the campus. Members of Baylor's all-female Equestrian team were the alleged victims, according to several sources, KWTX reports.

The Baylor football team lost to Texas Tech in the afternoon of Nov. 11 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

The Baylor football program was rocked by a sexual assault scandal that eventually led to the firing of head coach Art Briles in May 2016.

KWTX reports that "Baylor’s online crime log says the incident was reported on Nov. 14 as 'Alcohol-Minors Consuming/Sexual Assault,' and was referred to the school’s Judicial Affairs and Title IX offices."

Only campus officers took a report of sexual assault, not Waco police, according to "two heavily redacted police reports," the station says.

Four suspects have been interviewed, according to the two reports filed, one a criminal case report and one an incident report. All four interviewed suspects are Baylor students, including at least two redshirt football players, a source told KWTX.

The reports reviewed by the station "indicate the investigation is active, although no arrests have been made and no charges have been filed.

“The criminal case report indicates that pictures and images were taken into evidence, and sources say that video was recorded of the incident and may have been posted on social media,” KWTX reports. “That video, the sources say, is now in the hands of Title IX investigators at the university.”

At least four members of the Baylor faculty or staff members were interviewed as witnesses in the reports.

Baylor has declined to respond to questions from the station, KWTX says.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/college/football/article200456944.html#storylink=cpy
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

Pro-Con: Does Harvard’s ban on fraternities and sororities violate students’ rights?

By Jenna A. Robinson And Lisa Wade

Tribune News Service

February 15, 2018 02:58 PM

Yes: Harvard's new rule replaces free thinkers with goose steppers

Harvard, like many elite universities, has become increasingly intolerant. It has sought, through a series of administrative decisions, to substitute its own values for the individual moral consciences of its students and to punish those who stray from the university’s narrow dogma.

Most recently, Harvard moved to ban all exclusive social clubs, including fraternities and sororities, by 2022.
ADVERTISING
inRead invented by Teads
Never miss a local story.

Sign up today for unlimited digital access to our website, apps, the digital newspaper and more.

Despite Harvard’s promises that student rights are of primary importance on campus, the proposal would deprive students of their fundamental right to freedom of association, enshrined in the First Amendment.

Ultimately, Harvard’s decision to punish students who are members of such organizations, which choose members based on gender, comes down to a difference of opinion about values.

President Drew Faust explained in a 2016 letter that Harvard’s commitment to having “a truly inclusive community” was one of the university’s “deepest values.”

Faust, who recently announced she will step down as Harvard’s president July 1, also asserted that gender is an “arbitrary” distinction between individuals.

Harvard’s position, then, is to punish students who disagree, in practice, with the university’s progressive position on gender difference. This is the definition of intolerance.

But Harvard’s position on exclusive social clubs is just one example. Harvard has multiple illiberal policies in place that punish students and faculty for unpopular speech and imperil their individual freedom.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has given Harvard a “Red Light” rating for their policies, which means that the institution has at least one policy that “clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.” But in fact, it has several.

One such regulation requires student organizations to obtain approval from Harvard’s Office of Student Life prior to distributing printed materials anywhere on campus.

This means that student groups that want to advertise events, find new members or hand out literature must have the content of their messages approved before taking any action.

At a public university, such a policy would be unconstitutional censorship. At Harvard, it is yet another example of administrative intolerance.

Harvard’s intolerance was also on display last year when the school used its power to police private communication between individuals. Before the beginning of the fall semester, the university rescinded admission to 10 incoming freshmen students because of the students’ involvement in a private group chat where they created and exchanged “obscene” memes.

Also in 2016, the university chose to punish the entire men’s cross country team for “crude” comments made by past team members.

Harvard placed the team on athletic probation for sometimes-explicit comments, made years ago in privately circulated documents, about the women’s team.

Harvard also punished the men’s soccer team because of lewd — but private — annual “scouting reports” in which players rated the appearance of female soccer recruits.

For that offense, the university canceled the team’s games for the year and initiated a Title IX investigation.

To be sure, the students in all three cases made poor choices. But Harvard’s decision to punish them for insensitive private jokes is another attempt to force others to conform — not only in their actions but in their private conversations — with the university’s own subjective values.

Tolerance of opinions one does not agree with is a linchpin of civil society and liberal education. A university cannot pursue truth, invite inquiry, or encourage the personal and moral development of students in an environment of intolerance.

John Stuart Mill said it best in On Liberty: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

Harvard’s actions and policies have shown that the university values conformity over debate and narrow dogma over open inquiry. Harvard’s intolerance has caused it to abandon the most fundamental mission of education: the pursuit of truth.

Jenna A. Robinson is president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, Raleigh, N.C., and serves on the North Carolina Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
No: Harvard's outgoing president hit a bull's-eye when she banned single-sex social clubs

Harvard president Drew Faust has ordered that single-sex social clubs begin allowing both men and women to join.

This includes a handful of fraternities and sororities as well as a set of similar organizations called Final Clubs, historically elite institutions to which some of the most powerful men in the U.S. have belonged.

The decision came after an investigation found strong evidence that the male-only organizations nurtured “cultures that reflect male control,” “the marginalization of women” and “sexual entitlement.”

The decision, in other words, is about addressing the problems caused by male-only organizations, and thus I focus my attention on that.

Should the president of Harvard penalize social clubs that do not allow women?

Defenders of such organizations say that excluding women isn’t about superiority, but difference. They say that it’s meaningful for men to be in male-only spaces in order to develop specifically masculine self-concepts.

Such self-concepts, they say, are necessary because men’s self-esteem depends on differentiating themselves from women. But it’s not because we think men are better, they say.

Oh, really?

It’s funny because such men are perfectly happy to have women in their male-only spaces if those women take on subordinate roles. Finally, clubs ensure there are women to hit on at parties, fraternities are happy to have “little sisters”, and I will place a hearty bet that both allow women as cooks and maids. They just don’t want women to be members.

This is not about sexism, they say; we just don’t want any women here except as sex objects, cheerleaders and servants.

Their selective inclusion of women reveals a more nefarious process than differentiation. By refusing to engage with women as equals, these organizations are engaging in dehumanization. Their actions reinforce the idea that men are the important, valuable, significant humans and women are something else.

As a measure, consider that for Harvard women, the single biggest risk factor for sexual assault is entering a Final Club. By their senior year, 47 percent of women who have done so report having been assaulted.

Most sexual assaults occur in the dormitories, but Final Clubs are the second most common location. This is stunning considering that women live in the dorms and are rarely allowed to even enter the Final Clubs. Participating in Greek life is almost as dangerous.

Separate, they say. But equal? No. These statistics reflect how male-only organizations encourage men not just to identify as men, but to disidentify with women: to see women as an out-group, a pawn perhaps, in a game between men, but not people as important, valuable and significant as they.

By allowing them to persist in regulating women to a subordinate class, we all but ensure that they will fail to be able to see women’s full humanity.

These men become some of the most powerful people in the world. They run our companies, ascend our political hierarchies and control our media.

If they’re allowed to segregate themselves from women during college, why would we expect them to make a place for women as equals in the worlds they later control?

Ending the sex-exclusivity of these organizations is not just resisting the regulation of women to second-class status at Harvard, it’s ending the university’s complicity with the persistence of sexism writ large.

In the aftermath of the election of an unapologetic misogynist to the U.S. presidency and revelations about the discomforting, grotesque and violent treatment women receive from some men at work, we are beginning a conversation about the costs of some men’s dehumanization of women.

Women have responded with #metoo, the Women’s Marches, and an incredible post-election surge of 30,000 women running for office. Women are announcing that they’ve had enough. I’m encouraged that the president of Harvard is among them.

Lisa Wade is an associate professor of sociology at Occidental College. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Her latest book is “American Hookup: The New culture of Sex on Campus.”Readers may write her at 127 Swan Hall, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041.

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/opinion/editorials/article200379494.html#storylink=cpy
Edited by abb, Feb 16 2018, 06:01 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers · Next Topic »
Add Reply