Duke faculty hoax-believers are rewriting their history

In March 2006 it wasn't hard to realize what the then anonymous accuser was saying happened at the Duke lacrosse party was a lie.

In the first place, how could three large male athletes and an exotic dancer all squeeze into a small bathroom in a very modest house whose former owner said he didn't see how more than two people could fit in it and have room left to brush their teeth?

And even if all four did get into the bathroom, how could the three men strangle, beat, rape, and sodomize the woman while she battled them for 30 minutes, at the end of which time all four walked out of the bathroom without any of them having a slight sprain, a simple fracture or a small cut that required even one stitch?

Who would believe such a story?

Certainly not people with enough sense to find their front doors in the morning and their way home at night.

But alas for its reputation, many members of Duke's Faculty of Arts & Sciences were ardent and outspoken hoax-believers.

And some were involved in despicable actions that included attending a rally where CASTRATE and GIVE THEM EQUAL MEASURE banners waved and physical threats were shouted, after which 88 Duke faculty members took an ad in The Chronicle to, among other things, thank those at the rally and those who'd distributed the Vigilante posters "for not waiting."

But times change.

The NC attorney general declared the players innocent.

Duke's trustees are paying out millions to fend off lawsuits resulting from its shameful "throw the lacrosse team under the bus" strategy.

And some faculty hoax-believers are now busy rewriting the history of what they did.

It's all very Orwellian. They present their fictions as facts. And as you'd guess if you know the Duke faculty hoax-believers, the sorrow they feel is for themselves, whom they view as the real victims of the frame-up attempt they helped launch and sustain for almost a year.

Today at Durham-in-Wonderland, KC Johnson, who contributed so much to the exoneration of the Duke students falsely indicted by a now disbarred DA, tells us:

Wahneema Lubiano, whose last scholarly publication was entitled “Interview with Wahneema Lubiano,” recently took a break from her two “forthcoming” manuscripts, Like Being Mugged by a Metaphor and Messing with the Machine. Both of these manuscripts, it’s worth remembering, have now been “forthcoming”—a designation that normally means completed and under contract—for eleven years. (My goodness, KC, they'll be teenagers before you know it and old enough to go to dances on their own. -- JinC)

Lubiano joined fellow Group member Michael Hardt and “clarifying” professor Robyn Weigman to co-author a scholarly article (published in a Duke University Press journal called Social Text) designed to . . . defend the Group of 88. This piece joined Charlie Piot’s effort as at least the second “scholarly” Group apologia—providing an unintentional commentary on what passes for scholarship among the Group of 88.

Lubiano, Weigman, and Hardt had little difficulty in identifying the true victims of 2006-2007 events in Durham—themselves, and their fellow members of the Group of 88.

The victimizers? Not Mike Nifong, or Sgt. Gottlieb, or Duke administrators who failed to enforce the Faculty Handbook. Not the Duke professors who rushed to judgment or abused their classroom authority. No, the victimizers, according to the Lubiano Trio, were “the blogs.” ...

Ah, yes, "the blogs."

Didn't Mike Nifong also blame "the blogs" for his troubles?

And Duke's President Richard Brodhead has also complained about "the blogs."

Will someone please lend me a pencil? I think I can connect the dots.

I'll post again tomorrow about the latest attempt by certain Duke faculty to rewrite their history.

Be sure to read KC's post here.