Right Wing Nation

KC Johnson’s promised article is posted, and in it, he raises some points I find disturbing. First, we have Assistant Professor Kim Curtis, who is at the center of the lawsuit:

The basics of the allegations are as follows: in a spring 2006 class, Curtis taught two members of the lacrosse team, one of whom was graduating senior Kyle Dowd. The course required three papers, each worth 25 percent of the final grade, with the remaining 25 percent of the grade devoted to participation. (That percentage is unusually high, given the subjective nature of grading participation.) For his first paper, Curtis gave Dowd a C+. His second paper was due on April 5, at the height of the media frenzy orchestrated by Nifong. (The Group of 88’s statement appeared the next day.) For this paper, Dowd received a C-, even though he had met with Curtis before writing the paper for suggestions on improvement.

By this point, Curtis had adopted one of the most extreme anti-lacrosse positions of any Duke professor. Not only had she signed the Group of 88’s statement and attended rallies denouncing the players (background, in this photo), but on March 29, she emailed fellow Durham activists expressing outrage that defense attorneys had (correctly) stated that no DNA match would occur to any lacrosse player. “The self assurance,” wrote Curtis,

in the statement issued yesterday by the team that they will be exonerated by the results of the DNA testing makes me wonder if we’ve gotten the full story about who was at the house that night. Were there others present who in fact carried out the rape and who are being protected by everyone else who was there? How do we know who was there?

Ponder the implications of that statement. In writing, a Duke faculty member had suggested that Dowd and the other lacrosse player in her class were accomplices to rape.

The two players then suffered identical fates in their third paper. Curtis gave both an F on the final paper.

I find it disturbing that a faculty member — supposedly a professional — would behave like this when these students were in her class. What happened to professionalism? And why did not her chairman — or dean — address this behavior when it happened?

Some years ago, I had students in two different parties running for the student government. There were election irregularities, and though I didn’t take the student government election seriously or much care one way or another, I carefully avoided bringing it up in my classes, lest I be seen as taking one party’s side over another. And that was no contentious rape case full of racial issues — it was a trivial student government election.

I do not understand her behavior. I also do not understand the university’s behavior:

Curtis’ decision to fail Dowd almost blocked his graduation. Only the extraordinary intercession of a fair-minded member of Duke’s administration allowed Dowd to graduate, by arranging for an additional transfer of a course he had taken at Johns Hopkins. But Duke initially refused to do anything about Curtis’ grade, for reasons that appear unclear, before eventually changing the grade to a D. The official justification, peculiarly, claimed that Curtis had miscalculated Dowd’s grade, but did not suggest that she had engaged in grade retaliation. In fact, as one blogger noted, the move suggested that “there is no question that the Fs she gave the lacrosse team players were unwarranted. The university found that there had been a ‘calculation error,’ and changed the student’s grades. So the question of whether she engaged in grade retaliation purely out of personal and political spite is settled. She did exactly that.”

It’s unclear to me why Duke allowed this case to progress to a stage where a lawsuit would be filed. First, the claim of retaliation seems quite strong. Second, as John in Carolina has noted, the Dowds’ lawyer, Joseph E. Zeszotarski, is highly regarded, and has served as past chair of both the Criminal Law Section, North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers and the Criminal Justice Section, North Carolina Bar Association. Finally, the filing of the suit is bad for Duke’s image.

Exactly — and this is why Duke’s behavior throughout has been irrational. Not only, or even primarily, Nifong or the case is injurious to Duke’s reputation, but the university’s own statements, and their lack of action with regard to the Vice Provost (I really don’t understand why they didn’t act there) and Kim Curtis.

I do understand why Duke used the term “calculation error” and avoided the question of whether Curtis engaged in grade retaliation. Universities are PR machines, and their natural reaction to scandal is to sweep the dirty bits under the rug. But this is directly contradicted by Duke’s statements about the case, Duke’s actions toward the lacrosse team, Duke’s failure to control the Gang of 88 — particularly the Vice Provost — and Duke’s failure to respond when Curtis previously engaged in grade retaliation.

Duke’s behavior throughout makes no sense. It’s as if they are torn between their identity politics and their desire to avoid a scandal. And in this case, the choice was one or the other, but not both.

Although I give President Broadhead’s sudden turn-around no weight or respect at all, the faculty of the economics department did the right thing because it was the right thing to do. Yet at the same time, Cathy Davidson, Vice Provost and Gang of 88 member, published a letter in the News-Observer, defending the Gang of 88’s “guilty because white and privileged!” stance that condemned the lacrosse players to unproven guilt. Davidson’s letter will not help Duke’s reputation. Johnson has an excellent discussion of Davidson’s letter here.

What I find most disturbing about this has little to do with the university or the players in this scandal, and everything to do with the reaction to it — rather, who did react, and who did not.

This whole case is a gross miscarriage of justice. Because of Nifong’s electoral ambitions, at least three lives are ruined, and perhaps a fourth, if the accuser’s life wasn’t already ruined. And all of this was easily avoidable, had Nifong only had more respect for the judicial system than he did the votes of the ultra-liberal and the black community. Saying that Nifong made mistakes, as if he tied his shoes with square knots, is euphemistic. Nifong engaged in dishonest, illegal practices to use this case to get elected, and used the press and television extensively to maximize his exposure.

What disturbs me is that at least outside of Duke, primarily conservatives have been decrying this travesty, and liberals have been silent (or have defended Nifong). Why would the fairness of the criminal justice system split along political lines? What, after all, is “conservative” about first adopting a “wait and see” attitude (rather than a “castrate them now!” attitude), then when the case started to smell foul, press for further information? Isn’t that what we all should have been doing?

That anyone could be so hypnotized by identity politics and a victim mentality that he turns a blind eye to such a flagrant violation of our judicial system — that anyone could assign guilt based solely on the race of the accused and the accuser — is what’s so very, very dangerous about liberalism today.

Ultimately, that is what disturbs me most about the Duke case.