It was a confluence of the ethical bankruptcy of two contemporary American institutions: academia and the legacy media.
Exposed for what it was at the time, we are now reminded of just how fraudulent the episode was, and the degree of intellectual corruption of those two institutions.
We’ll get to the media after we talk about academia. But first, a brief refresher on nearly two-decade old history.
The episode I’m referring to was the 2006 alleged rape by male members of the Duke University lacrosse team.
Last week, Crystal Mangum, who previously worked part-time as a stripper and is now in prison for second degree murder of her boyfriend, said in an interview, “I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t and that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me. [I] made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”
Ms. Mangum, now turned inmate, is apparently yet another who found God in prison. Good for her, if it’s a genuine conversion.
Another star player in that rape fraud also went to prison — the prosecutor who charged the Duke players. The Durham County District Attorney at the time, Mike Nifong, played to the media-generated mob reaction to the false rape claim — despite knowing the players were innocent.
Even while being aware of (among other evidence) DNA that refuted Ms. Mangum’s claims, Nifong nevertheless engaged in public slander of the players and pursued their prosecution. As a result of his gross misconduct (when the fraud was subsequently revealed) Nifong had to resign from office, was disbarred from the practice of law, and went to prison.
So the two accusers — the lying alleged victim, and the ethically corrupt prosecutor — got their just deserts.
But what about the Duke faculty members who so publicly endorsed that fraud?
To further refresh your memory, 88 members of the Duke faculty took out an ad in the university student newspaper condemning the lacrosse players — before all the evidence was revealed. These supposedly highly-educated educators abandoned all semblance of the basic concept of “innocent until proven guilty” (and objectivity) by publicly declaring the players alleged actions to be indicative of the prevailing ethos of sexual misconduct not only at Duke University, but of college campuses in general.
The book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and The Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case “singles out several Duke faculty members who were particularly scathing in their attacks against the players”. After the original ad, several of its signatories tried to cover their own asses by publishing a letter claiming the ad was “misinterpreted by the media”.
Even the professors tried to excuse their own shameful conduct by blaming the media. But that faux recantation didn’t help.
Duke, and a professor were subsequently sued by one of the accused lacrosse players — and settled the case ‘out of court’. Unfortunately, the conduct of the Duke faculty turns out not to have been an outlier of mass-stupidity by academics.
Last year 677 professors at the University of North Carolina – just down the road from Duke – signed a letter protesting that students there were going to be required to take a course in American government in order to graduate. While that sounds like a parody headline from the Babylon Bee, it was the actual collective wisdom of 677 college professors!
The professors complained that students learning about how the American government is intended to work “substitutes ideological force-feeding for the intellectual expertise of faculty”. Requiring students to understand how their own government work is “ideological force-feeding”? Only self-professed “intellectuals” could come up with that nonsense.
But don’t get the impression that faculty fools are confined to the State of North Carolina. Recently Alan Garber, the new President of Harvard , told the faculty they need to change their “messaging” and that their “communications strategy” had not worked.
He said the Trump election was an anti-elite repudiation by the American electorate. While that is a pretty astute assessment, he thinks their problem in messaging and communications strategy? In other words, there is nothing wrong with what they are thinking – the problem is they just aren’t spinning it effectively!
That sounds strikingly similar to some of the post-election laments of the Harris campaign. “Oh, we just didn’t get our message across.”
Well… I may not have gone to Harvard, but let me help out President Garber: Just like the Harris campaign, the electorate understood his ‘message’ just fine — it’s his ideas, and what they represent, that they repudiated.
That 88 faculty at one elite college, 677 from another, and the President of a third who needs to lecture his faculty, shows the problem is systemic.
So-called “higher education” is failing… probably irreparably.
Read Part Two, tomorrow…