Duke’s CMT’s Silence is Sickening: A Parody

A recent court filing (pdf. 404 pages) by attorney Robert (Bob) Ekstrand on behalf of three unindicted Duke lacrosse players references Duke’s Crisis Management Team (CMT):

B. The CMT’S Acts in Furtherance of the Conspiracy

414. On or before March 25, 2006, Defendant Steel directed Defendant Brodhead to create a Crisis Management Team (“CMT”) to manage the University’s actions relating to the investigation of Mangum’s claims.

The original participants in the CMT were Defendants [BOT Chair] Steel, [President] Brodhead, [Provost] Lange, [VP] Trask, [VP] Burness, and [VP] Moneta. Defendant Victor J. Dzau (Chancellor for Health Affairs, and President and CEO of Duke University Health Systems, Inc.) was added to the CMT shortly after it became clear that DUHS and Tara Levicy were critical to the State’s case.

Defendant Allison Halton (sic) (the University’s Secretary) was also added to the CMT following its first meeting on March 25, 2006

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After reading the above, I couldn’t resist using Raleigh N&O columnist Ruth Sheehan’s Mar. 27, 2006 McCarthyite screed, “Team’s Silence Is Sickening,” as the basis for the following parody.

Duke’s CMT’s Silence Is Sickening

Members of Duke’s Crisis Management Team: You know.

We know you know.

Whatever happened at your meetings about the stripper party gone terribly bad, you know who was involved. Every one of you does.

And one of you needs to come forward and tell attorney Bob Ekstrand and the rest of us

Do not be afraid of retribution by the team. Do not be persuaded that somehow this "happened" to one or more "good administrators."

If what Ekstrand alleges is true, the CMT members responsible are not "good."

This seems an elementary statement, I know.

But I can see loyal team members sitting around convincing themselves that it would be disloyal to turn on their teammates -- why, the administrators who were involved were just a little "over the top."

In real life, they're fine people. They call their stockbrokers at least once a day. They share campus gossip with friends. They treat Chronicle editors to cokes and cookies.

I can see the team going down this path, justifying its silence. And it makes me sick.

Because, of all the occupational hazards that must come with being a Duke student, one of them should not be being an attempted frame-up victim. And no, throwing all the lacrosse players under the bus doesn’t make it any better.

Unfortunately, because the CMT members are administrators at such a high tuition university, there is a tendency to presume that this was an aberration. That these administrators are "really good guys."

I don't know what happened at those CMT meetings, and in that bathroom, over in Durham. Ultimately, that will be a matter for the court system to decide.

But what was said and decided at the CMT meetings are things Ekstrand and the rest of us need to know. Now.

We shouldn't have to wait for discovery and 46 or more depositions.

Every member of Duke’s Crisis Management Team knows who was involved and whether it was a conspiracy.

Until the team members come forward with that information, suspending their 401K contributions isn't enough.

Shut down the Allen Building.