The Duke lacrosse players are now exonerated (see WSJ comment below) but the many race-hustlers who could not wait to pile on have yet to be heard from. Do not hold your breath.
The text of the original letter of concern signed by 88 Duke faculty is bizarre and also embarrassing.
It is grist for serious deconstruction.
Justice at Duke
"We believe these individuals are innocent." With those
six words, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper yesterday ended a travesty
of justice that had lasted 395 days.
That travesty has been known from the start as the "Duke
lacrosse scandal." It began as a narrative all-too-familiar to those schooled in
the "race-class-gender" ideology taught at Duke and other prestige universities:
White male privilege, in the form of the Duke lacrosse team; black female
victimization, in the person of a stripper from the other side of town hired to
entertain them. Into this template came the allegation of rape, unleashed amid
the modern world of media saturation that elevates instant
judgments.
Mike Nifong, the Durham County prosecutor, harnessed the power
of his office to this machinery of political correctness to bring charges
against three of the team members and, in the process, win an election. As it
is, Mr. Nifong now may face disbarment, which seems apt for such an abuse of his
authority. We wonder, though, whether any analogous sanction will be meted to
those on the Duke faculty who rushed to condemn the accused long before their
guilt could reasonably be established.
At a press conference yesterday, formerly accused student
David Evans noted that "we're just as innocent today as we were back then.
Nothing has changed, the facts don't change." He's right. Facts don't change,
which is why they are free. But unless we get past the narrative that
prematurely judged them, similar miscarriages of justice are bound to
follow.
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