Commentator Peggy Shonosky believes the decision to include Duke University as a defendant in a lawsuit recently filed by a group of lacrosse players is entirely appropriate.
By Peggy Shonosky
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Wilmington, NC – Like most people, I'm dismayed by how litigious a society we've become, but in the case of the lawsuits being filed by current and former members of the Duke Lacrosse team against the Durham Police Department, Duke University, and former District Attorney Mike Nifong, I'm finding it difficult to muster any sympathy for the defendants. Clearly, Nifong is getting what he deserves; disbarment and a token night in jail are not sufficient penalty for what he did. But, very few parties?beginning with Duke University?that had a legal or ethical duty to speak up did so, and Duke's statement that the plaintiffs' beef should be solely with the District Attorney is breathtaking in its hypocrisy. Nifong may have been the primary agent of the damage, but the University's cowardice made it complicit with him. When the charges against Colin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans were finally dropped, Duke president, Richard Brodhead, lost no time issuing a statement condemning Nifong, in which he said that he, Brodhead, had "from the outset?been careful to note that these students were entitled to the presumption of innocence."
I don't know when he 'noted' that, but his actions spoke far louder than his words. Firing the lacrosse coach and canceling the entire season for almost 40 athletes made it completely clear how much respect he had for the presumption of innocence, as did the deafening silence that emanated from his office in the days and weeks following the rape allegations, when various university student groups (and faculty members alongside them) were trying and executing most of the lacrosse team in the court of popular opinion. Let's face it. What these guys were guilty of, from the start, was being white males, privileged in many cases, and mostly northerners in a southern town. Their supposed victim, on the other hand, was one of life's victims, in a lot of ways, and was clearly being used by these boys for their own pleasure. (It doesn't matter that she contributed to that. Her willingness to sell herself doesn't make their willingness to buy okay.) Under these circumstances, in today's political and social climate and on a university campus, it was a given that sympathy would not be with the players. Add to that that so-called justice in this country often meant a black man accused of rape by a white woman could go ahead and kiss his freedom goodbye, and it was virtually guaranteed that public opinion would reflect some level of secret glee that the "shoe was on the other foot." But our mothers were correct when they told us that "two wrongs don't make a right," and the individuals who succumbed to the mob mentality toward these young men should be ashamed of themselves. But it was Mike Nifong's calculated exploitation of that mentality, the collusion of various individuals in law enforcement with him, and Duke's silence in the face of it, where the most shame lies. Taxpayers and other innocent bystanders who end up footing the bill for any judgments or settlements are to be pitied, but the individuals and institutions whose failures of duty contributed to this perversion of justice should be called to account.
Peggy is a former teacher of high school history and law, and is currently a freelance writer. Her e-mail is PeggyS2007@gmail.com