Comments on Quick Takes: Duke President Apologizes, Harassment Case Divides Northeastern Ill., Study Abroad Economics, Michigan State in Dubai, Hawaii Moves Ahead With Lab, Racism or Playing Race Card?

• Confessions of a Spoil-Sport
• Posted by Henry Collier , Hon Research Fellow at University of Wollongong on October 1, 2007 at 9:10am EDT

• These problems are surely not unique to Rutgers. The book "Behind the Green Curtain" exposed much the same at Michigan State University more than a few years ago. The author complains about 'student' athletes able to read a cereal box ... some are / were incapable of reading even those things. Some of the student athletes were incredibly bright ... and race, color, national origin had little to do with the intellectual ability of the athletes. There is, however, some truth to the "I cumma skool, play foo-ball".

• William Dowling and shameful charges of
• Posted by Karl Engelman, MD on October 1, 2007 at 9:30am EDT

• As an honor graduate of Rutgers College(1955) and an emeritus Ivy League professor, I say "All hail to William Dowling for his startling revelations about the academic abuses in Rutgers athletics in his excellent new book, "Confessions of a Spoilsport". His vilification and illegitimate accusations of "racism" by Rutgers University President Richard McCormick and Rutgers Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy only serve to validate what he has revealed about the academic abominations in Rutgers' sports programs, primarily in football and basketball.
  How disingenuous, mythomanic and hypocritical can college administrators get when they spout such unsupportable and slanderous dither? In essence, what Dowling has said is that it is indeed exploitive and racist for schools to admit academically unqualified athletic recruits to have the administration, trustees and student body revel in their exploits on the field while ignoring the the primary educational role of the institution.
  To put this in proper perspective and to illuminate the cynical, disingenuous and hypocritical role of McCormick and Mulcahy in this controvery, one need only call to mind the case of one of the acclaimed current starting football linebackers. Almost two years ago, a front page article in the Sunday New York Times revealed that he was among 14 college athletic recruits who was admitted to major colleges on the basis of a fake diplomas and high school transcripts purchased from a fake high svcyholl in Miami, Florida for the grand sum of $399. this school was owned by a convicted felon who had already served time in federal prison for selling fake college diplomas.
  In reality, this same individual had a failing GPA in his true high school and the glorious SAT score of 740 (combined!!!).
  When questioned about this, both Mulcahy (qoted in the NYT article) and McCormick (in a letter to me) acknowledged that they had become aware of the false documents. However, despite the knowledge of this falsification, the student was permitted to stay in school, rather than being summarily expelled. Mulcahy did say that the student was not accorded a scholarship, because even despite the false grades, he still did not qualify for a schiolarship under NCAA rules and regulations.
  What has really bothered me about those comments is that the student, an underprivileged minority student from Miami, was said by Mulcahy "to be paying his own way" during the freshman year. Now, the Rutgers admissions office estimated out-of-state costs as about $26,00 per annum, and it boggles my mind as to how such a student could afford to pay those costs "on his own". I think that this would be fertile ground for a full-fledged investigation by the NCAA to solve that conundrum. Anyone up to it?
  Even more disturbing to me, as a naieve onlooker, is how a student with those pathetic academic attributes could comnceivably have completed two years of legitimate college courses to have achieved eligibility to play football this year. that's another pregnant question that begs for an answer.

• DUKE
• Posted by Charlie Bravo on October 1, 2007 at 9:30am EDT

• Will the Duke faculty who smeared innocent students face any form of punishment?

  Do they deserve the forgiveness they were so unwilling to offer others?

  Now ask yourself how you would answer if they were rich white kids instead of academics. How does the Ivory Tower answer?

• Duke President Apologizes
• Posted by Lloyd on October 1, 2007 at 10:40am EDT

• Is anyone else as repulsed and infuriated as I with this swarmy, lame attempt at explaining unconscionable behavior by a man who was in such a position of importance at such a critical time? The man, the institution and the so-called band of professors sold out the coach, the team and of course the three players without a second thought, put them and their families thourgh a living hell and this is the formal "apology?" What a disgrace!

• Political Correctness Run Amok
• Posted by Jon L. Albee , Graduate Student at Rice University on October 1, 2007 at 10:45am EDT

• What does the Duke scandal say about the academy's attitude toward white men in general?

  The prosecutor took the fall for a whole lot of people who need to be slapped.

• response to Mr. Bravo
• Posted by Larry on October 1, 2007 at 10:50am EDT

• Mr. Bravo, The Duke professors are free to make such comments. There is no reason to punish them. Sure, these (non-law) professors displayed an incredible amount of bad judgment but Duke does not require professors to refuse to comment on pending legal matters not involving themselves.

  If people want to make something constructive out of this affair, perhaps they can work towards lasting, substantive changes in North Carolina (and elsewhere) criminal procedure. So far, there have been some modest changes.

  But, I suspect, like always, the effort will fizzle. Most changes in criminal procedure are viewed as only helping “guilty” poor people (is there any other kind of poor person?) and will be quickly forgotten until some extreme case requires a judicially-imposed solution.

• Posted by Riall Nolan on October 1, 2007 at 11:25am EDT

• I've got to agree with Charlie Bravo. This whole incident was certainly traumatic for everyone in the Duke commununity, with blame enough to go around, and it's nice that the President finally decided to apologize, but let's also hear from the Duke faculty who were so quick to condemn the students, and who took this and charged an awfully long way down the field with it.

  I don't expect an apology from any of them, because I'm sure none of them feel that the students are entitled to one. But it wouldn't be too much, would it, to expect Brodhead to publicly reprimand them for their rush to judgment? Not sure I'm going to hold my breath for that, either, but it's the right thing to do.

• Posted by Timothy J. Duszynski on October 1, 2007 at 11:50am EDT

• Comments such as those reportedly made by the Duke U president are not only (sadly) 'not uncommon' in today's mileau of beyond political correctness, but underscore speak to the need for leaders, not administrators; for statesmen, not politicians; for wisdom, not rhetoric. How else, finally, can a community of learners be formed, and led?

• Racism or Playing Race Card
• Posted by James A. Anderson , Vice President for Student Success & Professor of Psychology at University at Albany - SUNY on October 1, 2007 at 11:50am EDT

• In his laudable attempts to support academic integrity and diversity Dr. Dowling seems to have lost emotional control. There is never any excuse, intellectual or otherwise, to target a racial group as "functional illiterates".
  At every public land-grant university in this country a small percentage of students are admitted who may be deemed at risk and they represent ALL races. They have academic promise and often many other talents (music, writing, acting, problem-solving, leadership, and yes, athletic). Again, they represent ALL races. The land-grant mission involves offering opportunity to a wide range of learners from different economic, social, and educational backgrounds.
  The questionable interrelationship of athletics and institutional support should be investigated on SOME campuses but minority (mostly African American) athletes should not be made the scapegoats of such politically- charged discussions. For those who support Dr. Dowling's position I await your public outcries about the "legacy" admissions of white students who are "at-risk" but whose alumni lineage and/or political support allow them to quietly enter the university under the appearance of well-healed regular admits. Three years ago at Texas A&M university we took race and legacy out of the admissions process yet were able to maintain our commitment to diversity and high standards of academic excellence. That decision was supported by all constituent groups and the strong leadership of former president Robert Gates.
  My question to Dr. Dowling is: Why didn't you balance your wholesale public disparagement of minority athletes at Rutgers with an outcry of public support for those athletes, minority and majority, who were deemed "at-risk" upon entry but who now are academic success stories. I guess you didn't read about that on the back of the cereal box.

• We ALL reap what we sow...
• Posted by Diogenes on October 1, 2007 at 12:10pm EDT

• The Duke professors don't need any further correction. They exercised their First Amendment rights. Then the facts came out, and they were proven so completely wrong that they have hung themselves far more effectively than any right-wing lynch mob could.

  Perhaps if more of us could refrain from pontificating in advance of the facts, we might actually see less of this kind of "rush to judgement" mentality. Are still capable of such reason, or have we completely sold out to "blame first, think later"?

  Those who want to lead that hanging party for the Duke professors and President shouldn't get to cocky, either. It's been some time now since EITHER side of the political spectrum has been more interested in the truth than in scoring points for their own ideological POV.

• DUKE
• Posted by Charlie Bravo on October 1, 2007 at 3:45pm EDT

• The Duke academics did not merely exercise their First Amendment rights. 88 professors, seven departments and seven academic programs bought an advertisement in Durham’s newspaper, The Chronicle, to slander their own students and make life for them on campus a living hell. To say that in an environment where “hate-speech” is grounds for dismissal, such actions deserve no “further correction” is intellectually vacuous as it is delusional.

  Members of the academy are given privilege and with that privilege comes responsibility. They are not free to yell “Fire” in a movie theater, nor hateful ethnic slurs from the balconies. The Duke 88 publicly turned on their own students like a lynch mob in favor of the unsubstantiated accusations of an insane prostitute. In doing so they deprived those students of their rights and for that they should be held accountable. They do not deserve the privilege of teaching our children.

  "The mercy that was quick in us but late
  By your own counsel is suppressed and killed
  You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,
  For your own reasons turn into your bosoms
  As dogs upon their masters, worrying you."
  ---King Henry
  Shakespeare, Henry V, II.2

• Sloppy reading
• Posted by Christopher Swasey at Rutgers on October 1, 2007 at 5:00pm EDT

• Mr. Anderson,

  Do you deny that athletic scholarships are routinely given out to athletes who are completely incapable of performing academically at college--or even sometimes at high school middle school--level? Professor Dowling did not say that all minority athletes are illiterate. What he did say was that it is a lie to claim to be providing disenfranchised minority kids educational opportunity when the sole concern of all involved in the whole sordid enterprise is physical skill, education be damned.

• Hey, Ahab, The Whale's Dead
• Posted by Unapologetically Tenured on October 1, 2007 at 5:00pm EDT

• Look, folks (and by folks, I mean Charlie Bravo and his overexcited ilk), this is not even a close call. The Duke 88 produced an ill-timed, poorly argued, badly written manifesto that may or may not have been informed by a belief that the lacrosse players were guilty of something.

  Here's what they didn't do:

  1. Accuse anyone of committing a crime.

  2. Use either the word "lacrosse" or "player", nor mention any of the accused by name.

  3. Use the word "guilty", except to quote a student as saying, "***IF*** it turns out that these students are guilty..." (emphasis and asterisks mine).

  So where exactly is this "slander" (he means libel) to which Mr. Bravo refers? He doesn't say.

  The Duke 88 did not yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, nor did they issue "hateful ethnic slurs from the balconies" or anywhere else. They deprived the players of no rights. They broke no statute, regulation, or bylaw. Their actions were entirely incidental to the true villainy of Michael Nifong, without whom the entire affair would have ended quickly and relatively painlessly.

  The ferocity of the right-wing's reaction to this single case of prosecutorial misconduct is revelatory, to say the least.

• stupidity is indeed protected
• Posted by Larry on October 1, 2007 at 5:00pm EDT

• Mr. Bravo, Taking out a newspaper ad and expressing your views is the quintessential manner of expressing a 1st amendment right. (I not that not a single law professor signed this letter, because they knew better.)

  Unlike the (false) yelling of “fire” in a theater, people were able and free to make their own judgments about the validity of the professor’s claims.

  I am never quire sure what “hate speech” is, and how (if you could provide a definition and the source of such definition) their conduct would fit within that definition.

  Finally, as Diogenes points out, being shown to be a judgmental dunce is a far greater punishment.

• Academic Session next if you please.
• Posted by stm60 at UConn on October 1, 2007 at 5:45pm EDT

• I commend Duke for holding this seminar and attempting to not only learn something from this incident but to share their experiences and lessons with others. The fact that the Duke President issued an apoligy indictes that lessons were indeed learned.

  All too often events that generate negative PR are swept under the rug. My hat is off to Duke for keeping this issue burning to the benefit of all who will listen and even at continued cost to them.

  This seminar seems to have done a fine job at reviewing the actions of the Duke administration. The hearings that defrocked Mr. Nifong started a review of the legal aspects -- and in any case are, I feel, outside the scope of this website.

  I hope that a future seminar does cover the actions of the '88'. By this I mean one that covers what the faculty did right and wrong in situations this situation. From the beginning my concern over the 88's actions has not been their politics nor the legality of what they did. My concern, and to be clear, my criticisms, has been over how their actions have reflected negatively on their professionalism as university faculty.

  Should there be some code or guidelines on how faculty should respond to accusations of crimes made against their students or against a class of students under their care? It looks like the 88 winged it and as a result crashed and burned leaving themselves, well... looking silly is the kindest I can say.

  Would some of the 88 have been saved this embarassment if there were codes or guidelines to follow? I would hope so.

  Suffice to say, I hope there will be a faculty seminar and that it resists the tempations to either be a witch hunt of the 88 or a self-justification session by them.

• Dowling and claims of racism
• Posted by Karl Engelman, MD , Professor Emeritus at Univ. of Pennsylvania on October 1, 2007 at 9:40pm EDT

• I'm sorry to feel compelled to add a second comment on this topic, but I was amazed at the negative statements about Dowling by James A. Anderson from SUNY-Albany. Methinks he protesteth too much! He alleges that Dowling equated functional illiterate athletes exclusively with minority heritage. He did not make that explicit association in his remarks about functional illiterates of all stripes being admitted to colleges as paid warriors and not really for educational purposes due to their inherent intellectual limitations . Where race came onto the scene was when he was questioned about how raising admission standards on some minority athletes would limit the ability of underprivileged students to secure advanced education . His response was that if your purpose is to provide educational opportunity to a needy group who can't afford to go to college or beyond, then choose those most likely to succeed in school and profit from the opportunity. Then, as a general rule, it makes sense to me that you will be far more successful in achieving your objective if you choose those who have demonstrated academic interest and success (i.e., those who stay late in the library rather than on the field or in the gym). As a member of a minority group who could not personally afford to go to either college or, later, to medical school without major financial aid, that makes perfect sense to me; why not to him?