Some Thoughts on the Duke Gang of 88

Over the weekend, as admirably reported by Professor K.C. Johnson at his Durham-in Wonderland web site, Mike Nifong lost his law license because of the wholly inappropriate (and boy, does that seem a totally inadequate way of describing his appalling behavior) way in which he handled the supposed rape of a stripper by some Duke Lacrosse players. Of course, it is now clear that no such rape occurred and indeed that no charges should ever have been brought. Nifong has lost his license, and his position as DA, and may even be subject to criminal prosecution. Yet, there is a group that played a role in all of this that may also deserve to be punished.

Both the Powerline Blog and Dinesh D'Souza have noted that the gang of 88 (a group of 88 Duke Faculty) should perhaps be held accountable for their behavior. As D'Souza puts it:

Now what about the mau-mau artists at Duke, influential figures on the faculty, who whipped the campus up into a racial hysteria? What happens to the people who helped to create a mob mentality against students, rendering their lives miserable for more than a year, when their guilt was never established, never even probable, and now they have been shown to be innocent?

From the time the first reports of sexual assault at Duke University surfaced, these intellectual vigilantes went to work. Houston Baker, a professor of English and Afro-American Studies, issued a public letter condemning the "abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence and drunken white male privilege loosed among us." He seems to have simply presumed the students guilty.

Shortly after that, 88 members of the Duke arts and science faculty--the so-called Gang of 88--signed a public statement praising campus demonstrators who had distributed a "WANTED" poster that branded the lacrosse players as "rapists." The Gang of 88 didn't use that term, but its statement referred to "what happened to this young woman." Ignoring calls to wait for the evidence, the gang instead went into full social-justice gear.

"What is apparent every day now is the anger and fear of many students who know themselves to be objects of racism and sexism, who see illuminated in this moment's extraordinary spotlight what they live with every day...We're turning up the volume in a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait. To the students speaking individually and to the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard." In other words, Go vigilantes go!

Now, is this an entirely fair description of what the gang of 88 did? Well, it can be a bit hard to find out exactly what the gang did, since they fairly rapidly hid their statement, but it can still be found and read. And certainly there are a number of things that they say in their statement that are injudicious at best. For example:

"These students are shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman and to themselves."

Bear in mind that this statement was made very early on in the whole process. There had been at this time no due process, yet clearly there was no presumption of innocence on the part of the gang of 88.

So, why might this be of special concern, and why might this group, this gang of 88 be held accountable for this? While there is a lot to disagree with in their statement, they are perfectly entitled to exercise their free speech in this way, are they not?

Well, to me the problem here is that they gang of 88 were (and as far as I know, still are) Duke faculty. They would perhaps be teaching and grading some lacrosse playing students. And their comments were quite clearly made in the context of the Duke campus. At the very least, these faculty behaved in an extremely irresponsible manner. So, should they be held accountable, and if so, how should they be held accountable?

And that is where it gets particularly tricky for me. Is irresponsible behavior by faculty subject to discipline of some sort or another, or should this be written off as an exercise in academic freedom? I have to say that I think some sort of discipline is called for here. When faculty behave irresponsibly, in a way that will or may harm students, they should be subject to some form of discipline. By what they have said, and by when and how they have said it, these faculty have created an extremely hostile situation on campus for certain members of the campus community. While the University has apparently reached a settlement with the three accused and innocent students, the administration at Duke still has a responsibility to all students. I do not know what options for discipline are allowed by the manual of procedures at Duke, but the process should be followed.

Of course, the administration at Duke is far from blameless itself in all of this. It hardly sounded a clarion call for justice at the start of this whole affair, and was glacially slow to point out that people are innocent until proven guilty, so perhaps the Duke Trustees have some work of their own to do in this regard. At least the President has indicated his own regret for the problems he helped to create, which I suppose is a start.

One thing is clear to me from all of this. There was a rush to judgment by some Duke faculty, that appears to have been to some degree condoned by the Duke administration, that resulted from what D'Souza termed their "social-justice gear." In short, the supposed facts that Nifong put forth fit very comfortably into a totally bigoted view held by the gang of 88 (and clearly this view was supported in part by the Duke administration). The gang of 88 wasted no time in expressing their bigotry, and were allowed to do so without check by the administration. I would hope that all faculty and all Universities in the US might learn from this, and be less hasty to behave in such a bigoted manner. But I fear that such a hope is forlorn.