Group of 88
The Group of 88 was a group of 88 professors at Duke University all of whom signed a controversial advertisement which was published two weeks after a woman falsely claimed to have been raped by members of Duke's lacrosse team. The advertisement, which appeared in the Duke Chronicle on April 6, 2006, contained language implying that the charges were true. The players would ultimately be declared innocent of all charges, and district attorney Mike Nifong was fired and disbarred due to his misconduct.
The person who conceived the idea of the advertisement was Karla FC Holloway, a professor of English and African-American Studies. The ad was composed by Wahneema Lubiano, who copied down some of the students' remarks about racism and sexism from a forum and used them in the ad.[1]
The Group came under criticism for their quick judgment on the student-athletes before all the facts were available. The ad was widely seen as an unfortunate example of the prevalence that certain Feminist ideologies about race, gender, and class have upon the humanities and social sciences in today's academia. Because the accuser was an underprivileged black female and the defendants were privileged white males, many professors rushed to judgment and viewed the case as an irresistible “teaching moment."[citation needed]
Background
Duke lacrosse case
In March 2006 Crystal Gail Mangum, an African American student at North Carolina Central University who worked as a stripper, [2] dancer and escort,[3][dead link] was hired to perform at a party held at the house of two of the team's captains in Durham, North Carolina on March 13, 2006. Several hours after the party, while she was facing potential arrest due to her erratic behavior, Mangum made false accusations that three white Duke University lacrosse team members had raped her. Many people[who?] involved in, or commenting on, the case, prematurely called the alleged assault a hate crime or suggested it might be one.[citation needed]
Inspiration
The idea came for the ad from a March 29 AAAS forum at which students “were invited to voice their frustration with the current situation and, it became apparent, with the university as a whole.”
The Group of 88's ad described the circumstances surrounding the allegations as a "social disaster" and quoting primarily anonymous members of the Duke community who claimed to have experienced racism and sexism on campus. The advertisement concluded: “We're turning up the volume [...] To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard.”
Signatories
Among the more celebrated of the advertisement's signatories were Houston Baker, Miriam Cooke, Anne Allison, Cathy Davidson, Ariel Dorfman, Michael Hardt, Alice Kaplan, Claudia Koonz, Pedro Lasch, Walter Mignolo, Mark Anthony Neal and Alex Rosenberg.[4] The ad was spearheaded by faculty member Wahneema Lubiano.
In three departments, more than half of faculty signed the statement. The department with the highest proportion of signatories was African and African-American Studies (AAAS), with 80%. Just over 72% of the Women's Studies faculty signed the statement, Cultural Anthropology 60%, Romance Studies 44.8%, Literature 41.7%, English 32.2%, Art & Art History 30.7%, and History 25%.
No faculty members from the Pratt School of Engineering or full-time law professors signed the document. Other departments that had no faculty members sign the document include Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Genetics, Germanic Languages/Literature, Psychology and Neuroscience, Religion, and Slavic and Eurasian Studies.
Commentary and criticism
National media
KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor Jr., in their book about the controversy, wrote:
- “In Lubiano’s mind, the players could never be cleared, no matter what the evidence....The members of the team, she noted, could be considered 'almost perfect offenders,' since they are 'the exemplars of the upper end of the class hierarchy, the politically dominant race and ethnicity, the dominant gender, the dominant sexuality, and the dominant social group on campus.'...Lubiano concluded by promising that the crusade to transform Duke would continue 'regardless of the “truth” established in whatever period of time about the incident at the house on N. Buchanan Blvd.' and 'whatever happens with the court case.'”[5]
John Podhoretz wrote in the New York Post that:
- “The school has perhaps 700 professors who teach undergrads. So, at a moment when Duke students were being shadowed by a rape accusation, one-ninth of their professoriate had effectively declared that those students did not deserve the presumption of innocence - primarily because so many of their fellow students were supposedly being victimized by the atmosphere of 'racism and sexism.'”
Furthermore, Podhoretz quoted Stephen Baldwin, a professor of chemistry: “There was a collision between political correctness and due process, and political correctness won.”[6]
In Howard Wasserman’s ‘‘Institutional Failures’’, he says that the Group’s decision to go public so quickly left them vulnerable once more information emerged to change the case. He goes on to cite an investigation into the lacrosse players’ personal behavior by Duke Law School professor James Coleman. Coleman found that the players were “good students who caused no problems in the class, treated Duke staffers with respect...and had no record of sexist, racist, or other forms of anti-social behavior.[7]
In October 2006, the Arizona Republic's Doug MacEachern wrote a piece about the scandal. He said that, regardless of the outcome, the “Duke faculty has acted monstrously.” They commented that Duke faculty members had expressed their feeling of indifference to the actual guilt or innocence of their own students to serve their own political agendas.[8][9]
Duke students and faculty
One member of the Group of 88, Kim Curtis of the Political Science Department, gave F's to two members of the lacrosse team who were in one of her classes. When one of them, Kyle Dowd, appealed the grade, Duke did not act immediately; they eventually raised his grade to a D. Dowd and his parents lost patience and filed a lawsuit against Curtis and the university. Duke settled quickly, and changed the grade to a “Pass”.[10][11][12]
An engineering professor at Duke, Michael Gustafson, expressed his concern that the restrictions on stereotyping had been done away with. He went on to suggest that the accused lacrosse players had not been evaluated as individuals, but as caricatures, which made it easier for commentators to criticize them.[13]
In response to the widespread criticism of the ad, one of the signers, English professor Cathy Davidson, published a piece in the Raleigh News & Observer in January 2007. She insisted that the ad was a response “to the anguish of students who felt demeaned by racist and sexist remarks swirling around in the media and on the campus quad in the aftermath of what happened on March 13 in the lacrosse house.”[14]
Duke Chronicle columnist Stephen Miller, a junior undergraduate, criticized the ad. He expressed concern with the indefensible charge that Duke is filled with racists. Miller went on to predict that if the players were cleared of charges, a large number of people would suggest that it was due to a conspiracy of white privilege instead of rejoicing in their innocence.[15]
A petition responding to the original ad was signed by 1,000 people, all current students and recent graduates. The response demanded a response from the Group of 88.[16] A group of 18 Economics faculty signed a petition to make it clear that the Group of 88 did not represent the views all Duke faculty.[17]
Clarifying letter
On January 16, 2007, a letter was posted at the newly established Concerned Duke Faculty website.[18] It was signed by 87 faculty members, most of whom had been among the “Group of 88” but some of whom had not. The signatories claimed that the ad had been misinterpreted and that the intent of the original ad had been to address issues of racism and sexism in the community, not to prejudge the case.
This “clarifying letter", as it came to be called, categorically rejected all “public calls to the authors to retract the ad or apologize for it.” The professors expressed pain in their dealings with the attacks in response to their criticism.
The letter contained no criticism of Mike Nifong or the accuser; instead, the letter's signatories said that the real culprits were bloggers, journalists, and alumni who had criticized the Group of 88 ad. The letter also said that Duke fosters an “atmosphere that allows sexism, racism, and sexual violence to be so prevalent on campus.”[19]
Aftermath
After the lacrosse team members were found innocent of rape, Duke Conservative Union president Jamie Deal went on Fox News and demanded an apology from the Group of 88.
A 2007 poll of Duke faculty showed that 82 percent were “troubled by the actions by the Group of 88.”[1]
References
- ^ a b Yaeger, Don, and Mike Pressler. It's Not about the Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives It Shattered. New York: Threshold Editions, 2007. Print.
- ^ Siemaszko, Corky (February 18, 2010). "Crystal Gail Mangum, stripper in Duke lacrosse rape case, charged with arson and attempted murder". nydailynews.com. New York. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
- ^ Alexandria Harper, "Woman behind Duke lacrosse scandal speaks out", The A&T Register, April 28, 2008 Archived 2009-05-16
- ^ Johnson, KC. "Source Notes for Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustice of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case" Retrieved on 27 July 2012.
- ^ Johnson, KC; Taylor, Stuart , Jr. (2010-04-01). Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case (Kindle Locations 3095-3102). Macmillan. Kindle Edition.
- ^ "ORWELL UNIVERSITY DUKE PROFS' P.C. TRAVESTY". NY Post. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
- ^ Wasserman, Howard M., Institutional Failures: Duke Lacrosse, Universities, the News Media, and the Legal System (December 16, 2010). INSTITUTIONAL FAILURES: DUKE LACROSSE, UNIVERSITIES, THE NEWS MEDIA, AND THE LEGAL SYSTEM, Howard Wasserman, ed., Ashgate Publishing, 2010.
- ^ "'Group of 88' faculty hears criticism in wake of lax scandal". Duke Chronicle. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
- ^ "Shame on Duke's faculty for rush to blame". AZ Central. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
- ^ "Duke Civil Lawsuit" (PDF). ABC News. April 11, 2007. Retrieved April 11, 2007.
- ^ "LAX Player Files Lawsuit Against Duke University". ABC News. January 4, 2007. Retrieved January 14, 2007.
- ^ Johnson, KC; Taylor, Stuart , Jr. (2010-04-01). Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case (Kindle Location 4568-4578). Macmillan. Kindle Edition.
- ^ Johnson, KC; Taylor, Stuart , Jr. (2010-04-01). Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case (Kindle Locations 3114-3121). Macmillan. Kindle Edition.
- ^ Cathy Davidson, “In the Aftermath of a Social Disaster,” Raleigh News & Observer, Jan 5, 2007, A18. Quoted in the book Institutional Failures
- ^ "Prejudice". Duke Chronicle. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
- ^ [academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/petition.pdf "Student Response"] (PDF). Retrieved 30 April 2012.
{{cite web}}: Check|url=value (help) - ^ Pope, Justin. "Duke rape case still splits faculty after a year of tension". Associated Press. U-T. Retrieved 30 April 2012.
- ^ Concerned Duke Faculty
- ^ Johnson, KC; Taylor, Stuart , Jr. (2010-04-01). Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case (Kindle Locations 6881-6886). Macmillan. Kindle Edition.