LieStoppers: Chauncey Nartey

Excerpt from "The Untold Story of the Duke Case" by Don Yaeger and Mike Pressler:

On March 27, 2006, at 1:59pm, a young African-American student from Duke sent Pressler two emails that nearly sent him spiraling out of control. The first message that appeared made it clear to Pressler that this student was one of the fifty million who assumed his lacrosse players were guilty. It read:
RE: SOME THINGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN WINNING A FEW GAMES. END THE SEASON UNTIL THE ALLEGED RAPISTS ARE FOUND! YOU'LL BE A MUCH BETTER COACH FOR IT.
Although this message made a bold statement, it was the next email, which Pressler received just two minutes later from this same student, that would absolutely infuriate him. Only six words were in the subject line, but those six words shot rage through every bone in ressler's body:
RE: WHAT IF JANET LYNN WERE NEXT???
As any father of a teenage daughter could imagine, this crossed a line that far exceeded what Pressler was prepared to handle. The sender's name was Chauncey Nartey. He was only a junior at Duke and had developed a reputation for being a vocal African-American activist on campus.

"I turned the email over to my attorney and he said you could have him arrested." Pressler said. "We chose not to do that. We chose to report it to the dean of students, Larry Moneta, and have hm deal with it."

Pressler's outrage only intensified when he learned how the Duke administration dealt with Nartey. "This is what they did," said pressler. "They said 'Chauncey, don't do it again. Okay? and you should write the coach an apology'"

That was it. Nothing more than a mere slap on the wrist.

...

Nartney realized the error of his ways...two months later. He contacted Pressler again, this time mailing a letter directly to Pressler's home address. This was a letter of apology.

...

Before refusing further comment, he did explain why he believed his emails should not have been considered "a threat." "The email I sent -- I sent two-- I sent them from my Duke email address," Nartey said, explaining his twisted logic. "I sent them with my name attached. It wasn't like any anonymous thing. I knew I was going to be attached to it, so it wasn't any sort of threat."

Nartey also admitted that it was "a mistake" to bring Pressler's daughter into the mix "just because I didn't think it would be so heavily misconstrued." He went on to say "it was a stupid thing to mention his daughter, in retrospect, but at the time I thought if somebody can't see why it's inappropriate to move forward with athletics in this sort of situation then perhaps that parallel could be drawn by incorporating someone near and dear to him. And again, foolish, but that the rationale was that was that you can draw the parallel."

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