FODU Statement

Friends of Duke University ran an ad in today’s Chronicle responding to an open letter issued jointly by a group of Duke University professors. The text of the statement is as follows:

Some Questions from Friends of Duke University

In a recent Duke Chronicle article, Group of 88 member Ronen Plesser maintained that the new statement of a group calling itself “Concerned Duke Faculty” would form a “basis for a conversation on campus . . . a conversation that will eventually lead to some understanding.”

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Friends of Duke University endorses this conversation. But we also believe that the basis for one aspect of this conversation—the meaning of the Group of 88’s April 6 ad—needs more clarification. In that light, we would like to offer some questions for the “Concerned Duke Faculty.”

Principles of Due Process

The April 6 ad explicitly thanked “students speaking individually” and “protestors making collective noise” for not waiting. The fundamental question is what was not worthy of being awaited. Time for reason to assist emotion? Time for evidence to be gathered and assessed? Time for a defense to be made? If you were so attuned to due process, why did you fail to mention it in your April 6 ad?

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In your recent statement, you stated “We do not endorse every demonstration that took place at the time. We appreciate the efforts of those who used the attention the incident generated to raise issues of discrimination and violence.” Do you or do you not endorse the “potbanging” protest that was widely covered in the media? Could you explain to the University community what criteria you used in the April 6 ad to determine which protests were worthy of your endorsement and which protests merited your disapproval?

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In your recent statement, you claim to “stand firmly by the principle of the presumption of innocence.” What, then, should readers of the April 6 ad have inferred from your reference to “what happened to this young woman”? Given that she had accused members of the Duke lacrosse team of rape, isn’t that the obvious inference, carrying with it implied guilt of some members of the lacrosse team?

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Do you believe that Mike Nifong acted properly when he went to the grand jury on April 17 to seek indictments against Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty?

Statements of Your Fellow Signatories

Do you agree with the March 31 Chronicle op-ed of your colleague and fellow signatory, Bill Chafe, who suggested that the whites who lynched Emmett Till provided an appropriate historical context through which to interpret the actions of the lacrosse players?

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Do you agree with the claim of your colleague and fellow signatory, Karla Holloway, that innocence and guilt have been “assessed through a metric of race and gender. White innocence means black guilt”? If so, which pieces of evidence cited by defenders of the players relate to race and gender?

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Your colleague and fellow signatory, Alex Rosenberg, told the New York Sun on October 27 that he signed the ad because he was bothered by “affluent kids violating the law to get exploited women to take their clothes off when they could get as much hookup as they wanted from rich and attractive Duke coeds.” Was raising this issue one of the ad’s purposes?

The University and Its Students

Will you document the methodology used to obtain a representative cross section of campus opinion for the “listening” statement?

The April 6 ad contains the following anonymous quote from an alleged Duke student: “Being a big, black man, it’s hard to walk anywhere at night, and not have a campus police car slowly drive by me.” Have any of you approached the Duke police force to ask if it has a policy of slowing down when officers see a Black man on campus? Have any of you experienced or observed this phenomenon?

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In your recent statement, you criticized those who read the April 6 ad “as rendering a judgment in the case.” That ad quoted an anonymous student, who allegedly said, “no one is really talking about how to keep the young woman herself central to this conversation”; another anonymous student allegedly said, “If something like this happens to me . . . what would be used against me—my clothing?” Would you agree that these anonymous students appeared to have rendered a judgment in the case?

Looking Ahead

Given that in your new statement you decried an atmosphere that allowed “sexual violence to be so prevalent on campus,” would you recommend that female students accepted to the Class of 2011 attend Duke? If so, how could you support their entering an environment that you have publicly described as so dangerous?

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Would you be willing to sign a statement, such as that of the Economics Professors, saying that all students, including lacrosse players and other student-athletes, are welcome in your classes?

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These questions were gathered from comments made on our website, and on Professor KC Johnson’s website. Friends of Duke University does not endorse anonymous e-mails and does not endorse efforts to threaten or harass members of the lacrosse team, or any other Duke University students. Nor do we endorse efforts to threaten or harass signatories to the original Group of 88 ad or the “Concerned Faculty” statement. We do, however, believe the public statements by faculty members in both instances raise important questions and we support a dialogue about the questions presented in this ad and elsewhere.

In addition to this statement published in The Chronicle, FODU issued the following press release.

Press Release

Friends of Duke University

Date: February 8, 2007

Subject: Our response to the Open Letter posted by “Concerned Faculty” at Duke University

Contact: Jason Trumpbour, Spokesperson

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Background

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On April 6, 2006, a group of 88 Duke University professors published an advertisement in the University newspaper The Chronicle. This ad, entitled “We are listening to our students,” contained several references to the Duke lacrosse case. It made reference to “what happened to this young woman” and stated, “To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard.” It contained quotes from students such as “If something like this happens to me . . . What would be used against me--my clothing”? And “no one is really talking about how to keep the young woman herself central to this conversation.”

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These professors who became known as the “Group of 88” were widely criticized for prejudging the guilt of members of the men’s lacrosse team and for attempting to advance whatever agenda they had at the expense of these students and their reputations. Their ad was also cited by defense attorneys in their motion for a change in venue as evidence of extremely prejudicial pretrial publicity.

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Nine months later, on January 16, 2007, a group containing most of the same members and now calling itself the “Concerned Faculty” posted an open letter on their website defending their original ad. Claiming that the original ad had been “broadly, and often intentionally, misread . . . as rendering a judgment in the case,” the group rejected calls to retract or apologize for it. The complete text of the Concerned Faculty statement as well as a link to their original ad can be found here.

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Our Response

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One of the group’s members, Ronen Plesser stated, “My personal hope is that this will be the basis for a conversation on campus . . . a conversation that will eventually lead to some understanding.” However, the January 16 open letter begs more questions than it answers about the purposes of the “Listening” ad and the sort of conversation being sought given the peculiar language used to express its points and communicate its premises. The Friends of Duke University thought it appropriate to request further clarification. To that end we have today published an ad in the Chronicle asking a series of questions gathered from comments posted on our website and that of Professor K.C. Johnson’s Durham in Wonderland site.

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Friends of Duke University has repeatedly reached out to these faculty members. Our first open letter published on July 19 stated,

As for those who were quick to prejudge the accused, particularly the group of 88 professors who signed an earlier call to action, we look upon them not with malice. Instead, we ask that they now count themselves among those victimized by this spring’s false accusations. We hope that all will realize now that our enemies are not each other, but those who would profit from the unfair denigration of our university and its members.

A few days before the Concerned Faculty posted their letter, we attempted to find common ground with them by asking if they would join the University in calling for due process for Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, an issue on which we hoped everyone could agree. All of our overtures have been ignored or rebuffed.

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We remain sincere in our efforts to reach out to them. We are dismayed that, not only would they chose to ignore our efforts, but that they would instead respond with a defiant refusal to admit mistake either in judgment or expression and that they would insult the motives and/or intelligence of their critics. We do not begrudge members of the Group of 88/Concerned Faculty their right to call attention to social issues of concern to them. We instead condemn the unfair public vilification of members of the lacrosse team done in the course of expressing their concerns. We conclude our latest ad with an earnest question: “Would you be willing to sign a statement, such as that of the Economics Professors, saying that all students, including lacrosse players and other student-athletes, are welcome in your classes?”

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A copy of that statement, originally published as a letter to the Chronicle, may be found here.

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Friends of Duke University supports academic freedom for both faculty and students. We have no political agenda and have a diverse following representing all sorts of political views and walks of life. What all of us have in common is a deep commitment to ensuring justice for Reade, Collin and David and fair and equitable treatment for the rest of the team and Duke students generally both on campus and off. We hope that Duke University can once again be a place of civility and mutual respect among all of its members.

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On the Web: Our site and Professor KC Johnson’s Durham in Wonderland site

Adding Insult to Injury

Rejected for publication by The Chronicle and unable to find an alternate local venue, a group of Duke University Professors posted a joint statement to the web site of local filmaker Rodrigo Dorfman earlier this week. The "Open letter to the Duke community" represents the latest effort to rationalize the infamous "Listening Ad" issued by Duke's Group of 88 in response to the opportunity for agenda advancement presented by the Hoax. Defiantly rejecting countless calls to apologize for the ad, sixty-four members of the original Group of 88 are joined by twenty-six new converts in claiming a mutual motivation for the production and publication of the Listening Ad that has widely been perceived as a rush to judgement against the innocent students victimized by the Hoax. While refusing to repudiate the earlier statement, Duke's professors blame their critics' poor reading comprehension and ulterior motives for the outrage the Ad incited.

An Open Letter to the Duke Community

"In the spring of 2006, the Duke community was rocked by terrible news. We heard that a woman hired to perform at a party thrown by our lacrosse team had accused members of the team of raping her. Neighbors, we were told, heard racial epithets called out at the woman as she departed the party. The criminal proceedings and the media frenzy which followed are perhaps beginning to wind down. For us at Duke, the issues raised by the incident, and by our community's responses to it, are not.

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"In April, a group of Duke faculty members published an advertisement in The Chronicle. The ad, titled "What does a Social Disaster Sound Like?" was mostly a compilation of statements made by Duke students in response to the incident and its immediate aftermath. This ad has figured in many discussions of the event and of the University's response. It has been broadly, and often intentionally, misread. We urge everyone to read the original ad, at http://listening.nfshost.com/listening.htm. We have. Some of us were among the ad's signers.

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"The ad has been read as a comment on the alleged rape, the team party, or the specific students accused. Worse, it has been read as rendering a judgment in the case. We understand the ad instead as a call to action on important, longstanding issues on and around our campus, an attempt to channel the attention generated by the incident to addressing these. We reject all attempts to try the case outside the courts, and stand firmly by the principle of the presumption of innocence.

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"As a statement about campus culture, the ad deplores a "Social Disaster," as described in the student statements, which feature racism, segregation, isolation, and sexism as ongoing problems before the scandal broke, exacerbated by the heightened tensions in its immediate aftermath. The disaster is the atmosphere that allows sexism, racism, and sexual violence to be so prevalent on campus. The ad's statement that the problem "won't end with what the police say or the court decides" is as clearly true now as it was then. Whatever its conclusions, the legal process will not resolve these problems.

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"The ad thanked "the students speaking individually and...the protesters making collective noise." We do not endorse every demonstration that took place at the time. We appreciate the efforts of those who used the attention the incident generated to raise issues of discrimination and violence.

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"There have been public calls to the authors to retract the ad or apologize for it, as well as calls for action against them and attacks on their character. We reject all of these. We think the ad's authors were right to give voice to the students quoted, whose suffering is real. We also acknowledge the pain that has been generated by what we believe is a misperception that the authors of the ad prejudged the rape case.

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"We stand by the claim that issues of race and sexual violence on campus are real, and we join the ad's call to all of us at Duke to do something about this. We hope that the Duke community will emerge from this tragedy as a better place for all of us to live, study, and work."

Not surprisingly, the attempt to revise perceptions following the first of what may be many lawsuits filed by students against the members of the Group of 88 and the university, was woefully unsuccessful.

LieStoppers Forum Members respond to the new statement:

"Part of this is just really sloppy writing. The 'disaster' they talk about is not the alleged rape (which is just a hook for their agenda to hang from) but that's not at all clear. There is also nothing in their statement that addresses the right to a fair trial, and adding in language like 'won’t end with what the police say or the court decides' compounds the problem. Now it could be that these people, who make their living from using language, simply got it wrong. More likely these people, who make their living from using language, were using dog whistle politics.

"The real kicker, that is decisive for the dog whistle theory, is the G88's endorsement of the protests. The protesters were not seeking a solution to the G88's disaster. The protesters were seeking a railroading. Some of the protesters were advocating castration. By endorsing the protesters without endorsing the right to a fair trial, the G88 made themselves a gang of high-sounding pious hypocrites.

"The minimum way for these people to establish their intellectual honesty is a statement that they regret not having affirmed the right to a fair trial when they claimed to be speaking about the alleged rape but were actually speaking about their own agenda. Their new website offers no way to communicate with them or question their actions and motives. I wonder why that is?" Alan, Blooligan

"Lord love a duck.

"If Bill Chafe hadn't been quoted on the subject of this new letter, I'd agree with a number of the early posters in this thread that it would have to be a fake. After all, just like Don Imus told John Kerry, the best advice for the 88 right now as long as they refuse to apologize is just to "stop talking. Please stop talking."

"Stuck on stupid" is right.

"This is now officially a liability nightmare for Duke. The professors that opened them up to substantial legal jeopardy are on record unrepentantly clarifying their hostile position. Kim Curtis's signature on the letter doesn't help things in view of the pending civil action against her. If the signatories had any sense at all, well, they wouldn't have written this letter, which seems to have evaporated again into thin air, but they surely wouldn't have hitched their wagons to Curtis's falling star. As an educator myself, I wouldn't affix my name to a letter with Kim Curtis's signature on it right now if all it did was state that the sun rises in the east each morning. Open myself up to civil suits for fraud and breach of contract, plus an assault on my (lack of) professional integrity? Uh, no thanks. I'll pass.

"(And God help Duke if the civil lawyers can ever establish that the flyers Sam Hummell printed were run off on University copiers. Do you think he really went all the way down to Kinko's and PAID for them himself? After all, you can't put a price on social justice.)" Jack Webb

"First post here.

"Alan's post quoted by others as well is a gem and has inspired me to contribute. As an "inside" outsider I have followed this case from Day 1, felt the affects within my own family and seen first hand a version of the pain this whole thing has caused.

"In addition, as a professional who completed the PhD route and decided not to enter into academia, the G88's foolishness, small-mindedness and agenda-pushing makes me feel sick and confirms why I have avoided university life for so long (15 years post PhD) and counting.

"Alan's comments are right to the heart of the G88 matter and I am thankful for his words. I could not agree more and think the G88 ought to be ashamed of themselves. The original "listening" document was a knee-jerk reaction and an obvious way to push their agenda. They acted like reporters for a trash newspaper and tried to capitalize on an emerging "story." Shame on them.

"Instead of going for the "story" they should have invested their energy working with the University to address what they supposedly "listened" to. I recall the task force that went to study the issue right after the alleged incident. Has that yielded anything? Have any of the G88 participated constructively in this?

"The G88 wanted points for style and decided to publicly let everyone know how enraged they were. They used the protesters, their position and the power of the pen to their own gain. It is indicative of the political cesspools that Universites are these days. I work with senior executives in Fortune 500 companies, and I can tell you that even the worst performing public companies don't hold a candle to the dysfunctional politics that exists in faculties across the country.

"Back to Alan's thoughtful point: I agree that the faculty should state that they regret not having affirmed the players' right to a fair trial. But they should not spend too much time on this. They should quickly turn their minds, mouths and pens to addressing the issues they seem to think are so important. Step 1: Diagnosis. before making any furthers claims about tragedies, they should do as others on this post have suggested. They should test their hypotheses about the scope, size and depth of the issues they are so quick to attach their signatures to. That would be more like real scientific inquiry and responsible University behavior.

"Given their past behavior, I doubt highly that they are capable of this. But it doesn't hurt to ask them to do it. Again, shame on them.

"Thanks everyone for your posts." Concerned Human

Read more responses from LS Forum members