Monday, June 04, 2007

"WHAT IF JANET LYNN WERE NEXT???"


Excerpt from "A Rush to Injustice" by Nader Baydoun and R. Stephanie Good:
As unnerving as McFayden's e-mail was, it didn't compare to the one that Coach Pressler received shortly thereafter. Apparently, the coach had been receiving numerous harassing e-mails in regard to the lacrosse incident. One such e-mail came from Duke student Chauncey Nartey. Several sources have confirmed that the e-mail was sent on March 27, 2006, at 2:01 p.m. The e-mail's subject read, "WHAT IF JANET LYNN WERE NEXT???" Janet is Coach Pressler's daughter's name. I was told that Pressler brought the e-mail to Vice President Moneta, and it was traced to Nartey, an African American student.
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After what is assumed to have been an investigation into the matter, Pressler was told that the e-mail was not regarded as a threat. Thus, no action was taken, not in the form of punishment, that is. So, McFayden was suspended for sending an e-mail out to his friends as a joke, while Nartey send an e-mail that contained at least an implied threat to the lacrosse coach and was simply told not to do it again.
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Here's the interesting twist in regard to the e-mail situation. Within a couple of weeks of Mangum's lacrosse allegations, Brodhead formed five committees to investigate the issues that arose out of it. One such committee was the Campus Cultural Initiative Steering Committee, and it was headed up by Larry Moneta and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Graduation and Dean of Trinity College Robert Thompson. Brodhead stated, "The task of the Initiative is to evaluate and suggest improvements in the ways Duke educates students in the values of personal responsibility, consideration of others, and mutual respect in the face of difference and disagreement." You may be wondering what this has to do with the e-mail. This information is relevant because when you look at the responsibilities of the Committee, and you see that Moneta is at its helm, and then you learn that one his appointees to this Committee is Nartey, the student who sent the allegedly threatening e-mail out to Pressler, you have to question what is really going on in the administrative offices of Duke University. (pp 87-88)
Selected comments from the LS Forum Blog Hooligans in response to Naultey's email:
"Duke's Tale of Two Emails, the McFadyen email and the Nartey email is very
interesting.

"Anyone following this case knows about the McFadyen email and the shameful way in which the Duke administration handled it. Very few have probably even heard of the Nartey email and the equally shameful but opposite way in which the Duke administration handled it.

"Mr. Nartey apparently is one of Duke's "trophy" students. He may have many admirable qualities but his "rush to judgment" and his radically anti-lacrosse position make Chauncey Nartey a poor choice to represent the Duke student body.
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"... I find it appalling that Nartey was invited by the Duke administration to participate in the ADC presentations with Duke's full knowledge of the email that he sent to Pressler.
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"Does anyone know if this email precipitated Pressler's decision to have his young daughters leave Durham?
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"Nartey should've been admonished not rewarded." - veritas

"The contrast between his treatment and that of Ryan McFadyen could not be more stark. McFadyen’s message was transparently a joke and was sent to like minded individuals. In case that was not obvious from the message itself, it was clear from the context of the other messages and replies related to it. Yet Ryan was kicked off campus and, not only was Nartley unpunished, he was held out as a model Duke student. Moreover, if actual threats were communicated to a specific individual, that is usually a crime in most states.

"When I saw Chauncey Nartley’s name on the list of featured students at the Duke Conversation in Charlotte, I absolutely could not believe it. It is not just the hypocrisy and dishonesty. Did Duke really believe that this information would never come out at some point?" - Jason Trumpbour

"I am physically ill after reading this...to promote the "student" who made the threat as an ambassador of the university is unconscionable." SMO

"This development marks a turning point for me in the lacrosse case. As a Duke alum, I had resisted the conclusion of many that President Brodhead was at fault in this case. I had some sympathy with him, although I deprecated his statement that while they might not have been guilty of the criminal charges laid against them, what the Lax players did was bad enough.

"I was incredulous when I read about the Nartey development... That he was chosen to be presented with Brodhead at one of the Duke Conversations finishes Brodhead, in my opinion. If this account of the emails is verified, Brodhead is through in my opinion and I am going to bend my own personal efforts to see that this comes about.

"I am truly disgusted." - Diesel

For additional information or to join the discussion, please visit the LieStoppers Forum by clicking here.
Hat tip: Buddy

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

UNBELIEVEABLE

Anonymous said...

Any alumni who continue to contribute to this Brodhead administration in light of this information are sustaining the morally corrupt.

Anonymous said...

This is unbelievable, and surely is going to be damaging to Duke University when the lawsuits are filed -- and they WILL be filed.

I was not aware of the threatening email and the university's refusal to do anything about it. I'll have an article about Ryan McFadyen and his email on Lew Rockwell's page tomorrow, Tuesday, June 5.

Anonymous said...

Carolyn says:

Duke has taken the old phrase about the difference between wrong and right - 'it's the difference between black and white' - and given it an ugly new meaning.

Anonymous said...

It is clear to me that Brodhead and the Duke leadership actively are seeking to do the wrong thing. They know what is right, but always decided to do the opposite. I cannot give any of them the benefit of the doubt any longer.

Anonymous said...

Even the Ivy universities would not and has never stooped this low in its dealings with fairness.

Anonymous said...

When will the Alumni stormed Durham and take back their University?

All that talk about higher standards and responsbility to the community. Brodhead is a weasel who lives in fear of the 88.

Anonymous said...

It is not a threat. It is obviously a rhetorical question as in "What if the coach's daughter was the next victim of the lax team" not that he himself would rape the coach's daughter; he is obviously trying to ask the coach if he would feel differently in his defense of the team if his daughter, not Mr. Mangum's, was the one violated by the team. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous and the young man in question is a fine young man. Please note that you are justifying a sickening email that involves sexual sadism(the writer says he is going to ejaculate in his Duke issue spandex after mutilating women as they walk in the door) as ok and a joke but are up in arms when another person asks a legitimate rhetorical question and are trying to turn it into a threat when it is not. Absurd.

I am at Duke and the reputation of the team was not good prior to this case and the team had a reputation for bad behavior and there were camous rumors of date rape. Ask anyone who lives near 610 Buchanon on campus and in Trinity Park and they will tell you that the house has been toilet papered many times by angry Duke girls for revenge for ill treatment. There is a reason their female Lax counterparts were not over there partying with them that night; those girls knew better than to be there with those men drinking. The last police call prior to this incident to that address was a white female running naked from a window from 610 Buchanon and running to campus; this was reported by adults living in the Trinity park neighborhood who called 911 and was on the police blotter and happened about 6 months prior to the alleged rape incident. It was discussed in one of our community websites for Trinity Park. That is why so many people at Duke were quick to condemn the team; there was a history no one was talking about.

Anonymous said...

Anyone out there want to fund the Motion picture?

Anonymous said...

"It is not a threat. It is obviously a rhetorical question"

A rhetorical question wherein his daughter is actually named? I've seen the group of 88 take less as a threat.

"To suggest otherwise is ridiculous and the young man in question is a fine young man."

In general, so are the lacrosse players, with relatively high GPA's and community service. Oh, but yes they aren't angels.

"Please note that you are justifying a sickening email that involves sexual sadism"

No one is "justifying" that e-mail, but it is a sophmoric letter with references to Psycho. To my knowledge, no person was named and it was never sent as a threat.

"I am at Duke and the reputation of the team was not good prior to this case and the team had a reputation for bad behavior and there were camous rumors of date rape."

I've heard this many times on the blogs and media and I have never heard any substantiation. I'm sure they weren't choir boys, but are you telling me that the were the only frat on campus with a reputation?

Space Puppy

Anonymous said...

2:33
You miss the entire point. Both McFayden and Nartey sent tasteless e-mails. McFayden's was private, and was published only after he refused to implicate teammates in a crime which did not occur. Any father would treat Nartey's e-mail, rhetorical or not, as a threat to his 14 year old daughter. McFayden was suspended. Nartey got to be presented to alumni as the finest example of Duke students. It is the disparate treatment that is galling here. Surely there was another fine student who had not sent a tasteless e-mail who could have represented the student body with President Brodhead; however, Brodhead, in full knowledge of Nartey's activities, chose to present him instead. My problem is not with the students and their sophomoric e-mails, but with the adults and their disparate treatment thereof.--Buddy

wayne fontes said...

To 2:33

Do you really expect me to believe that Coleman's investigation, the DPD and the press missed a reported incident of a girl running naked from 610 Buchanon just 6 months before the incident? Why don't you produce some evidence? After all it's on the police blotter which is a public record.

Anonymous said...

Some points to be added here....Nartey's email could have easily been written about Pressler's daughter without mentioning her by name. This is troubling. He had to do some research and find out exactly what her name was.

MaCfayden's email (while indefensible) was off the cuff and he probably took about 2 seconds thinking about writing it.

Nartey on the other hand had to go to the trouble of finding getting info about Pressler's family.

If the message weren't meant as a threat, why not just ask the coach how he would feel if his daughter were a victim. Actually naming Janet Lynn is over the line.

I wrote this earlier and it still stands, Pressler is a better man than I am. If I had gotten that email I would have done some research of my own, on Chauncey Nartey. I would have tracked him down and had a face to face talk with him and if he didn't understand my position clearly, I'd have more than a face to face talk with him.