Duke faculty groups Soon after the allegations were made, 88 Duke professors (sometimes referred to as the "Group of 88", or as the "Gang of 88") from the
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences placed an ad in
The Chronicle. The advertisement, spearheaded by faculty member Wahneema Lubiano, referred to the circumstances surrounding the allegations as a "social disaster", and quoted primarily anonymous individuals citing racism and sexism in the Duke community. The advertisement concluded, "We're turning up the volume [...] To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard," and "These are the students shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman." Notable signatories included
Houston Baker,
Miriam Cooke,
Anne Allison,
Cathy Davidson,
Ariel Dorfman,
Michael Hardt,
Alice Kaplan,
Claudia Koonz,
Pedro Lasch,
Walter Mignolo,
Mark Anthony Neal and
Alex Rosenberg. In three departments, more than half of faculty signed the statement. The department with the highest proportion of signatories was
African and
African-American Studies, with 80%. Just over 72% of the
Women's Studies faculty signed the statement,
Cultural Anthropology 60%,
Romance studies 44.8%,
Literature 41.7%,
English 32.2%,
Art &
Art History 30.7%, and
History 25%. No faculty members from the
Pratt School of Engineering or full-time
law professors signed the document. Departments that had no faculty members sign the document include
Biological Anthropology and
Anatomy,
Biology,
Chemistry,
Computer Science,
Economics,
Genetics,
Germanic Languages/Literature,
Psychology and
Neuroscience,
Religion, and
Slavic and
Eurasian Studies. In January 2007, many months after the initial print of the ad, a new letter was posted at the Concerned Duke Faculty website, signed by 87 faculty members, which stated that the original ad was misinterpreted. In January 2007, lacrosse team member Kyle Dowd filed a lawsuit against Duke University and visiting associate professor and signatory to the original ad, Kim Curtis, claiming that he and another teammate were given failing grades on their final paper as a form of retaliation after the scandal broke. The case has been settled with the terms undisclosed except that Dowd's grade was altered to a P. Dowd's mother emailed another original signatory,
Houston Baker, who continued after the charges had been dropped to accuse her son and the others of being "hooligans, rapists" and called her "the mother of a farm animal." Another signatory, Thavolia Glymph, said she was disappointed because, "since the DNA results were returned Monday, we moving backwards." The DNA results indicated that there was neither any sexual nor physical connection between the stripper and the players she accused. Seventeen faculty members of the
economics department sent a letter showing support for the players on January 6, 2007, saying, "We regret that the Duke faculty is now seen as prejudiced against certain of its own students," and telling the players that they are more than welcome to enroll in their courses.
Student groups and independent organizations Many students showed their support for the lacrosse team during the investigation in a variety of ways. The Duke women's lacrosse team chose to wear "Innocent" sweatbands with the accused players' numbers during their games in the 2006 NCAA Final Four. "We want to win a national championship for ourselves but definitely also for the university and the men's team," one team member said. "They don't really have a chance to play their season, which is a shame." Another group of students, Duke Students for an Ethical Durham, sought to encourage students to vote in the upcoming election as Durham residents. It was specifically created in response to Nifong's mishandling of the case. Nifong ended up winning the election. The Association for Truth and Fairness (ATAF) seeks to raise money to defray some of the indicted players' legal fees. ATAF, a non-profit organization, will continue to "help victims of abuses of power and other prosecutorial injustices." Wristbands saying "Duke Lacrosse 2006 INNOCENT! #6 #13 #45" were also sold to raise money for the cause. An outpouring of support came at the beginning of the 2007 lacrosse season. For the season opener, 6,485 fans attended the game to cheer the Blue Devils on their way to a 17–11 victory over Dartmouth.
North Carolina Central University forum The day after DNA results came back negative, Nifong and other city officials such as Durham Mayor
Bill Bell spoke at a community forum on April 12, 2006, on violence against women at
N.C. Central, where the accuser was a student. The crowd, predominantly African American, criticized the media for portraying the accuser as a stripper and escort instead of a mother and student. One NCCU student, Chan Hall, as quoted by
Newsweek, stated, "It's the same old story. Duke up, Central down." He continued that he wanted to see the Duke students prosecuted "whether it happened or not. It would be justice for things that happened in the past." NCCU
Chancellor James H. Ammons Jr. said that "[t]his incident has forced us to examine issues relevant to any campus environment -- sexism, racism and the need to educate our students about sexual assault and violence against women." At the same time, some have criticized the NAACP for making statements that portrayed the players as racist despite evidence to the contrary, using the case to promote the group's cause, and implying guilt. McSurely stated that "[w]ithin five minutes, the men threatened the women with racial and misogynist verbal assaults," despite evidence to the contrary. He continued that the lacrosse players "were caught with their macho entitlement views hanging out and, to save themselves, they have together to blame the survivor of their verbal assaults." After Nifong dropped the rape charges against the three players in December 2006, the NAACP's "case monitor" and
NCCU law professor Irving Joyner stated that the drop of rape charges could help Nifong's case: "Now, they don’t have to establish that there was penetration committed against the accuser . . . In addition to that, now they don’t have to deal with the DNA or the lack of DNA evidence. And with the rape shield statute, it’s unlikely that information will even come before the jury to consider." On the official state NAACP's website, an 82 point 'Crimes and Torts committed by Duke Lacrosse Team Players' memo was listed long after the charges were dropped and the players were declared innocent. Included in the memorandum was an assessment of the defendants' strategy to have the charges dropped: "The three defendants they have two mountains to climb. First, they must deflect public attention from their boorish, racist, and illegal behavior by mounting outlandish attacks on the survivor and the D.A. Second, they must deal with a mountain of physical evidence, that is corroborated by, we have reason to believe, accounts of some of the men who were at the party who have cooperated with the police and the D.A. from early on." In April 2006, civil rights activist
Al Sharpton was invited on Fox's ''
The O'Reilly Factor'' to discuss the case. Sharpton began the interview by commending the "blacks and whites who stood vigil and to come together in that community to stand up for this girl." In response to Bill O'Reilly's questions concerning the possibility that the woman might have fabricated the allegations, Sharpton said, "First of all, the authorities have charged there was a crime. ... When the prosecutors went forward, they clearly have said this girl is the victim, so why would we be trying the victim?" When O'Reilly mentioned recent news reports that DNA testing had failed to match any of the defendants, Sharpton said, "I think that all of the facts that you have laid out the DA had — and I know this DA is probably not one that is crazy. He would not have proceeded if he did not feel that he could convict." Sharpton continued that the case parallels "
Abner Louima, who was raped and sodomized in a bathroom." At the conclusion of the interview, when O'Reilly said that Sharpton didn't know what happened, Sharpton agreed. "I don't know yet and I think that the proper thing to do is to support those that want justice." --> On April 15, 2006, civil rights activist
Jesse Jackson said that his non-profit
Rainbow/Push Coalition organization would pay for the college tuition of the accuser, Mangum, whether she fabricated the story or not. Jackson said that she should never "have to stoop that low to survive." He continued that the "...fantasy's as old as slave masters impregnating young slave girls [...] The character of this thing is chilling [and] [s]omething happened that everybody's ashamed of..."
Bloggers The case received extensive coverage on
blogs. One blog which supported the three students was
Durham-in-Wonderland authored by
Brooklyn College history professor
KC Johnson. Johnson also co-authored a book on the case with journalist
Stuart Taylor, entitled
Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. The players' lawyers stated that they used the blog as a resource throughout the case, and Seligmann made a point of thanking Johnson in his statement following the dismissal of charges.
"Wanted poster" distribution A poster that "looked like a
wanted poster" was distributed on campus and in nearby neighborhoods shortly after the allegations surfaced in March 2006 showing pictures and names of 40 members of the lacrosse team, urging them to "come forward" with information on the alleged rape.
Duke administration and University president During the initial investigation of the players by Durham police, Dean Sue Wasiolek advised the players to cooperate with police and tell the truth, not tell anybody about the charges, nor hire attorneys because she thought nothing would come of it. Wasiolek is one of the defendants named in the Ekstrand lawsuit. Chris Kennedy, senior associate athletic director, told the captains to contact their parents immediately and to hire attorneys shortly after (on March 17). Moneta and Brodhead placed Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty on interim suspension for the Spring 2006 semester following their indictment, while David Evans graduated the day before he was indicted. In the fall of 2006, their status was modified to "administrative leave" to allow them to make academic progress while not at the university.
Richard H. Brodhead, president of Duke University, was quoted by
WRAL-TV as saying to the Durham Chamber of Commerce on April 20, 2006, "If our students did what is alleged, it is appalling to the worst degree. If they didn’t do it, whatever they did is bad enough." At the same time, Brodhead repeatedly stated that "our students must be presumed innocent until proven otherwise," with his earliest citation on March 25, 2006. On December 20, 2006, Brodhead stated that "the DA's case will be on trial just as much as our students will be." On January 3, 2007, Brodhead invited Seligmann and Finnerty back to Duke as students in good standing even though they still faced charges. They were also welcomed to participate on the lacrosse team. Brodhead explained, "We have decided that the right and fair thing to do is to welcome back Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty to resume their studies at Duke for the spring semester. Although the students still face serious charges and larger issues require Duke’s collective attention, the circumstances in this case have changed substantially, and it is appropriate that the students have an opportunity to continue their education." In regards to the team's season, Duke athletic director Joe Alleva decided to forfeit two games due to admitted behaviors such as "underage drinking and hiring private party dancers". According to Brodhead, the team's players then "wished to suspend competitive play until the DNA results come back." The committees have been criticized by some observers, including
KC Johnson, former student president Elliott Wolf (offered a seat in the Campus Culture Initiative), and
The Chronicle, since it was chaired by several
Group of 88 members such as
Anne Allison,
Karla FC Halloway, and lacrosse critics Prasad Kasibhatla and Peter Wood. Among the conclusions of the group-chaired committees was shared governance of athletics by faculty members, and required classes for students by group members. Also, the student senate representative was Chauncey Nartey, a student who Sue Pressler had previously reported to the police because he had made death threats to Mike Pressler's family. After Nifong's resignation and disbarment, Brodhead released a statement: "One fact stares us in the face: The ordeal of the last 15 months was wholly unnecessary. It was not the result of reasonable differences of legal opinion or honest errors of judgment. Our students were accused by the community's senior law enforcement officer with no credible basis in fact [...] The actions Duke took caused consternation to many in the University family, which I profoundly regret. As Duke University's president, I resolve to do my part to repair the harm unleashed by Mr. Nifong's actions and to move forward from this painful episode." Later, Brodhead apologized to the lacrosse players and their families for the university's "failure to reach out" in a "time of extraordinary peril." Brodhead's actions generated criticism from opinion pieces in the media. For example,
Newsweek published an article on September 10, 2007, that argued that "Brodhead and Nifong [the DA in the case] had an almost willful disregard for the facts." An article in
The Economist on September 15, 2007, stated that Brodhead did "little, if anything, to defend the lacrosse players or to criticise the faculty [at Duke] for its lynching mob mentality." Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson argue President Brodhead and other administrators "portray[ed] them [the students] with grotesque exaggeration as a bunch of uncooperative, rowdy, drunken white racists who might well be rapists, too. Nifong, hoping to divert attention from the powerful proof of innocence in the soon-to-be-public DNA tests (that exculpated the students), could hardly have hoped for a more obliging helper than Richard Brodhead."
Other Duke faculty Duke English Professor
Houston Baker (now former professor as he was hired as a
Distinguished University Professor at
Vanderbilt University in May 2006) wrote a scathing letter on March 29, 2006, regarding the lacrosse team and the administration's response to the incident, asking, "[w]hat have Duke and its leadership done to address this horrific, racist incident alleged to have occurred" and asserting "we have been deeply embarrassed by the silence that seems to surround this white, male athletic team's racist assaults (by words, certainly - deeds, possibly) in our community." Baker also wrote that the players were "safe under the cover of silent whiteness" and these "[y]oung, white, violent, drunken men among us - [are] implicitly boasted [sic] by our athletic directors and administrators." He said Duke has joined other colleges and universities in the "blind-eying of male athletes, veritably given license to rape, maraud, deploy hate speech, and feel proud of themselves in the bargain." He also explicitly stated that the lacrosse players displayed "abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence, and drunken white male privilege loosed amongst us." Duke University Provost Peter Lange responded, "I cannot tell you how disappointed, saddened and appalled I was to receive this letter from you. A form of prejudice - one felt so often by minorities whether they be African American, Jewish or other - is the act of prejudgment: to presume that one knows something 'must' have been done by or done to someone because of his or her race, religion or other characteristic." He continued, "We do not know much about the worst of what may have happened in the incident that has inflamed our community," and concluded, "Sadly, letters like yours do little to advance our common cause." Dr. Coleman found that the team has exhibited "exemplary academic and athletic performance" and is "[n]either racist or sexist. On the contrary, the coach of the Duke Women's Lacrosse team has expressed her sense of camaraderie that exists between the men's and women's team; members of the men's team, for example, consistently come to the women's games. The current as well as former black members of the team have been extremely positive about the support the team provided them." Also in the report, while it was stated that the rates of alcohol abuse for the lacrosse team were higher than most other Duke athletic teams, "their conduct has not been different in character than the conduct of the typical Duke student who abuses alcohol." Furthermore, Coleman stated that Nifong has committed serious prosecutorial misconduct, and if there was a conviction, there "would be a basis to have the conviction overturned based on his conduct." in April 2006 and "The Administration's Mismanagement of Lacrosse" in October 2006), Dr. Baldwin strongly criticized the administration's handling of the case, especially with respect to Coach Mike Pressler. ==End result==