When I read The Chronicle online, I like to look at the comments.
The other day, I was reading the comments posted in response to a letter written by a professor disagreeing with the view of a student columnist. And one of the commentators wrote that it was odd that the professor would take a student columnist to task but wouldn't write anything about the infamous "Listening" ad from the days after the lacrosse case. Piling on, another commentator wrote that the professor's actions were "sickening" and "squalid."
The same day, there was a story about President Richard Brodhead, with the lacrosse case behind him, shifting his focus to various initiatives. Predictably, the commentators attacked and attacked and attacked Brodhead for his decision-making during the lacrosse scandal (and, oddly, for his Melville scholarship). Even more predictably, they suggested that Brodhead is not fit to lead Duke.
Do any of these people really think that anything they write on a message board is going to make one ounce of difference? Is the Board of Trustees going to call an emergency meeting for tomorrow because some Chronicle message board poster wrote for the thousandth time that Brodhead did a poor job handling the lacrosse case?
The lacrosse case is over. The horse is dead. Stop beating it.
It smells funny; it's covered in maggots (still trying to get their piece of the action!); and no one wants to look at it anymore.
It's dead. Get it? D-E-A-D, dead.
Yes, I know there are still lawsuits to be settled, and I'm not trying to suggest that they're not important. Yes, I know Brodhead's performance review is still pending. Yes, I know that Stuart Taylor is still selling books and that KC Johnson is still blogging.
But I don't care-and neither do most of the people on this campus. No one talks about it on campus anymore. No one wants to hear about it anymore. We are (for the most part) done with it.
If a jury decides that the city of Durham owes David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann $10 million apiece, then that's great news for them. If any of the other players in the case sue or get sued, then I hope justice is served. If Brodhead's performance review reveals that he's not fit to lead the University, then it won't be fair (no one could have handled that situation perfectly) but I hope the Board of Trustees considers the facts and makes the right decision.
I care about these things. I hope they work out so that there's some form of justice. But I don't want to read the inane details of the lacrosse case rehashed every day on the Internet. The facts are out. The committee handling Brodhead's performance review has them. And as for the "Fire Brodhead" opinions all over the Chronicle's comments-no one of importance cares what an internet message board poster thinks.
There was a time when the commentators and the bloggers were doing a noble thing. They were trying to help out three kids that were going through Hell. It was about the truth then. And the "Fire Brodhead!" and "Fire the Group of 88!" rhetoric made some sense then-it advocated for three kids that were wrongly accused, condemned some of those doing the accusing and tried to get the truth out in the open.
But at this point, it rings hollow. The players have been exonerated. Everyone (including Brodhead himself) knows that Duke's president didn't handle the situation perfectly. Everyone knows that Durham DA Mike Nifong railroaded three student-athletes and that there was a miscarriage of justice. Everyone knows that the pot-bangers were wrong.
All of these things were in national newspapers. Mention Duke Lacrosse to pretty much anyone that can read, and you'll probably hear some variation of "Those poor boys" or "That Nifong is sure a moron." Yes, you're doomed to repeat history if you don't know it-but we know our history. Everyone on this campus lived through it. You don't have to fire Brodhead or any of the professors to be sure that Duke won't make the same mistakes again.
To me, it seems as though the people that are still calling for Brodhead's head-or that are otherwise refusing to let this thing die-must have agendas besides getting the truth out. After all, the truth is out. It's been out for a while now.
The online commentators and Brodhead-haters have become no better than the pot-bangers they once justifiably decried. But instead of signs that say "Real men don't protect rapists," they produce Internet posts that scream about liberal academia's vilification of white men.
The Duke Lacrosse case has become nothing more than a touchstone for conservatives-a warning of the danger posed by politically correct, liberal academia. Brodhead's firing, or some sort of severe punishment for the professors that did not speak out against the case, would be a real condemnation of that liberal, PC culture.
So the commentators keep banging the drum, hoping to squeeze a little bit of political juice out of it.
The fact that three kids actually feared they were going to spend 20 years in jail for something they didn't do eventually gets forgotten, and becomes nothing more than symbols of the time that liberal academia went too far.
Meanwhile, a University does its best to put on earplugs and move on.
The Internet's a wonderful thing, isn't it?
Alex Fanaroff is a first-year medical student at Duke and former Towerview co-editor.
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