Duke just barely beat out Butler, and Coach K and his players are to be congratulated. Perhaps this will make up for the rather dismal weak Duke brought upon itself prior:
It has not been a good week for Duke. Now that April is here, the so-called Sexual Assault Awareness month, all eyes have turned to the place where the college-level crime of the decade occurred. A crime committed by Duke, its faculty, president, and the score of media toads who latched on to a rogue prosecutor.
While visiting the Volokh Conspiracy, we saw Professor Eugene had posted about Duke’s Women Center’s cancellation of the a pro-life display at the women’s center. The rationale for the censorship was that there was too much backlash (from whom?).
Within moments, the incident was all over the blogspherer. FIRE immediately started burning, DIW had picked up, and so had Erin O’Conner over at Critical Mass to name just a few. It disappointed us, however, that the Chronicle has yet to make any mention of the story. We must wonder if Schoenfeld has a red phone in the Chronicle editor’s office to make sure that stories like these are quickly buried or ignored.
Duke reversed itself within 24 hours (a record for the institution! ), accompanied by Ada Gregory‘s, the head of the Women’s Center, generously-described apology.
We long-memoried mastiffs are no strangers to the name or role of Ada Gregory. Lest we forget (and believe us, we will not), this is the same Ada Gregory, who without explanation or rational, proceeded to succinctly describe the Women’s Center’s mission at the university with a blatantly slanderous and misandry-filled publication. IN it, she lambasted the intelligence of male Duke students, as "manipulative", and claiming that the higher the IQ, the more successful they are at rape. A similar half-hearted mea culpa (where she blamed the quote as "out of context" (?!)) came from her office by the end of the week.
In her most recent letter, she references Duke complete reversal concerning the actions of her Center, and goes on to Claim that actions had taken place to “ensure that ….does not happen again.” Given Gregory’s pedigree regarding open, honest dialogue (not to mention Duke on a whole), we can only believe her assurances if those said steps include her immediate resignation, and self-imposed exile from institutional office.
-In other Duke News, Gary Lombard, was fond guilty.
-Finally, Duke has settled with Mike Pressler for its failure to reign in the rabid ravings of the Flying Squirrel. If Duke, was actually sincere in this claim, then we fail to understand why there was a need for a libel lawsuit and why Duke settled. If Duke and Burness held and continue to hold Pressler in such high esteem, then why was Burness making disparaging remarks in the first place? Two possible answers present themselves:
Duke is lying and is now trying to do damage control in the face of Duke’s settlement (which is a legal term for “we were wrong, we lost, but we are too cowardly to admit it.”).
-Duke on the whole is sincere, and these highly insulting comments were either Burness' own grudges or they fostered on him by specific higher eidolons in the Duke hierarchy, worried that the evidence presentation process would produce less savory bits of information about specific Duke administrators' going-ons.
Either way, it as several bloggers have noted, does not bode well for Duke and its future.
Posted by Hound No. 2
