By the end(at Duke), if I saw one more poster for an on-campus frat party with a “pimps and hoes”, I would lose my mind.

I agree that the "Gang of 88" or whatever they were called should have all been sanctioned for rushing to public judgment. I know of one prof who flunked a couple of students who were on the lax team, and although their grades were later revised to "pass" and the university settled the resulting lawsuit (financial terms undisclosed), this is obviously inexcusable. But I don't think this was a widespread phenomenon, even if contempt for and hostility toward the players was. The AG declined to prosecute the accuser, and I don't think this was cool at all. The whole thing sucked.

All of that said, I maintain that connecting the lax case with KVB's letter is beyond ridiculous. What people think one has to do with the other is really a mystery; other than the fact that Duke and sex are part of both equations, there's no relationship at all.

As far as I know, no one asked her about it. But while you're right in saying that I can't know for sure what she'd say about it, her various comments in the interview suggest a modicum of intelligence and fair-mindedness. You can disagree if you like; no skin off my balls.

Not true. The provost and others criticized some of the more vocal members of the "Gang of 88" and most of the faculty formally distanced themselves from the rogue element, which later did some backpedaling and waffling that looked very lame and left them looking like fools.

I have a pretty keen grasp on the facts for reasons I need not describe further. Those falsely accused dudes suffered mightily thanks to the stripper's wildly destructive bullshit, but I'm pretty sure life is still generally safe for white male Duke students. I mean, they still feel free to advertise their beer bashes to the ladies.

Please don't format your posts like that. It's irritating to read and even more annoying to respond to.

SMJO wrote:

I'm talking about when she is at races. Have you been around her at races as I have for the last 10 years? She definitely has that "look at me" vibe.

Wow, I'm speechless. I knew you were retarded. Didn't realize you were a retarded mind reader.

ho hum wrote:

Please don't format your posts like that. It's irritating to read and even more annoying to respond to.

You might have a "keen grasp on [sic] the facts" but you aren't demonstrating it by making ridiculous statements such as "anyone would" condemn the very acts that went on. The facts speak for themselves and there was an enormous portion of the faculty, the administration and fellow students who did anything but condemn such acts. Here's is an article about the contrived Fs:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&id=4907958

IIRC, that professor was a visiting one and Duke refused to give her the boot. Now that is outrageous.

Yes. True. Duke's administration, led by Broadhead, did too little and it was too late. The damage had been done. His hands may have been tied by the Board, which told him to keep quiet, by the fact of the matter is that he did nothing when the tempest was exploding and that merely encouraged more piling on of the lacrosse players.

I agree that life generally is safe for all Duke students (not just the white male ones) but you sound completely delusional if you have concluded this merely because Duke frats are allowed to advertise parties.

I do agree that the Duke lacrosse hoax has nothing to do with KVB and her comments but somehow it was dragged into this dissection of them. When you made absolutely untrue statements about it, I felt the need to set the record straight even if this veers way off topic.

First a little backround: sometime in the early '90's, universities became female-dominated by enrollment:

http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2011/gender-gap-in-education.aspx

Make no mistake, higher education is a business, like any other, which competes for it's customers, which nowadays are predominantly female. College campuses have been matriarchies of femeine power for two decades now.

Although the parties are *frat* parties, they are competing for *female* attendance, conservative women specifically. What this is about is the liberal matriarchy (KVB in this case) taking offense at the market force of the conservative matriarchy (such as girls that attend these functions). It's factions within a larger movement that are in conflict.

These conflicts are further represented in a larger sphere of workplace, courts and even personal relationships.

Frank Marshall Davis wrote:

Liberal objection to Pimp/Ho and CEO/SS parties: The concept objectifies women and forces them to play a role in which they are submissive to men. If the party consisted of some deviant sexual theme like dominant/submissive men only, or the women were dominant, or if it had anything to do with almost any deviant sex, many liberals would find that just fine.

.

I think this is almost right-- except take out the part about "forcing" women to do anything. My liberal objection is that this is just another part of a whole culture that elevates men/masculinity over women. (The power dynamic of this party is literally men dress like they're successful, women dress like they're they're for consumption by successful men.) But I think a lot of the "liberals" on this thread and elsewhere also have a strong libertarian streak, which is why we're not calling on Duke or anyone else to make this illegal or anything like that. Rather, we'd prefer to live in a world where there was more gender equity, and part of the way we're making that happen is by sharing our opinion that X or Y thing is good or bad. Here, this party is "bad" but that doesn't mean I would outlaw it.

Also, context matters. If women generally were treated equally with men in society, this would be no biggie and I'd definitely attend, playing dress-up is always fun. And, in this party's defense, it's not as if when you go to a club in NYC the dress code is much different, they're just less explicit about it. But still, we can think this is "bad" and not like it without wanting to shut it down or think that it's forcing anyone to do anything.

You're right, I should have written "any thinking person would," or maybe "anyone should," given that the facts show that more than one "anyone" was on board with the idiocy and lynch-mobbery, even if "only" a small number of genuine dickheads took it upon themselves to commit acts of treachery with real consequences to innocent victims (compared to the significant number who caused problems by running their mouths, regardless of their intentions).

She should have been shitcanned, yes.

I haven't. I was being a little flip there while highlighting the fact that the linked interview of the track athlete and the Duke lacrosse incident share no logical link. If people want to use this thread to rehash what happened close to eight years ago at that place, so be it, but it's wrong to toss KVB into a bonfire over it. That's all.

I do agree that the Duke lacrosse hoax has nothing to do with KVB and her comments but somehow it was dragged into this dissection of them. When you made absolutely untrue statements about it, I felt the need to set the record straight even if this veers way off topic.[/quote]

Epileptic playing Jenga wrote:

ho hum wrote:

Please don't format your posts like that. It's irritating to read and even more annoying to respond to.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Ritalin.jpg

My attention span is perfectly fine, hence my asking you to express yourself like a human being instead of a quote bot.

Allister wrote:

Duke is not on the same academic level as "real" schools, yet they want to be "elite", which attracts entitled douchebag fratboy types whose parents dressed them in Brooks Brothers kids clothes, and they still wear that shit.

Dartmouth Grad

This is coming from a Dartmouth grad? Isn't Dartmouth (aka the Duke of the Noth) the home of animal house. Dartmouth = fraternities of the north for smart people.

Duke = fraternities of the South for smart people.

Jeffrey D. Boomhauer wrote:

Canadians are just smarter wrote:

Brilliant and measured response by Kate VB to the ignorant flailing of an anonymous poster.

Americans should take note of the level of discourse in this interview, compared with the canned questions and cliched answers in 99% of your sports media.

Canuck out.

canucks should take note of the flood of Americans headed to canada to attend college to compete for those formidable athletic powerhouses of the great white north, lol

Aaaaaaaand point missed.

Thanks for proving my point.

Exactly. No way should this be censored or outlawed, but I would prefer to live in a society that just has no interest in promoting this kind of gender imbalance. Unfortunately, we're not there yet.

This reminds me of that ridiculous Robin Thicke video Blurred Lines. It's completely wrong on so many levels, from the sheer inanity of the lyrics to the very topic discussed here (naked women prancing around men in suits), and it would go away if we just ignored it. But we don't.

did not used to be liberal wrote:

"Liberal freaks" have taken over Duke. It was never more apparent than the reaction from multiple professors during the Duke lacrosse case. Professors blatantly changing lacrosse players' grades in revenge. Professors participating in marches, writing op-eds, openly proclaiming the players' guilt in class before any of the facts had come out, and openly supporting the women - who was convicted of murdering her boyfriend last week - over their own students.

Their rush to judgment was breathtaking, not to mention their open hatred of white men.

As for Duke Lacrosse, you forgot the one person who was more to blame than anyone else:

The DA.

If the DA follows the "liberal" tradition of requiring proof of a crime before blabbing to the media, then Duke Lacrosse doesn't happen.

It is funny how liberals--who traditionally get blamed for being "soft on crime" since they are against things like the death penalty and unreasonable searches and seizures-- also get blamed for the DA;s office doing the same thing to white defendants that it has done to others much more often.

How about you people keep Kate Van B's comments in perspective.

She did not make a statement about sexism at Duke; she responded to a specifically worded question in an interview.....BY GIVING HER OPINION AND PERSPECTIVE.

That is a huge difference.

Funny how she bashes everybody for being sexist in one sentennce, then in the very next calls the Baldwin Scholars "insanely bright, talented, progressive young women" as if it's somehow an "insane" notion to her that women can be smart.

I agree that Dartmouth does have some of the very same issues as Duke in terms or fraternity excesses, and there are certainly plenty of entitled douchebags at Dartmouth, too. The difference for me comes in when kids from places like Jersey go to Duke and adopt what I see as a very Southern type of frat image; popped collar preppy kids that want to wear their patchwork madras pants to the Derby or whatever. It just seems intentionally anachronistic and regressive, but maybe I'm just too much of a Yankee.

jeffrey d. boomhauer wrote:

Ironic that Duke is picked on - the site of the embarrassingly botched Duke Lacrosse team fiasco a few years back, where our society wrongly convicted some Duke athletes because of an all consuming fear of not being PC or 'tolerant' enough..

Duke lacrossers had a well-documented history of douchebaggery prior to the 2006 rape accusation. In 2005 Coach Mike Pressler was told point-blank by the AD to clean up the program, and his players failed to get the message. In the end, the accused were subsequently cleared of all criminal charges, but their depraved team culture left a rather permanent stain at the school.

yeah - falsely accusing people of felonies to the point their lives are ruined & they're facing serious prison time is absolutely justified if the bad guys are white dudes, right? Especially white, rich dudes? We'll give the poor black 'ho a pass, just like we should give all disadvantaged 'victims' a pass.. Hey, at least she's not a murderer or anything..

Jeffrey D. Boomhauer wrote:

yeah - falsely accusing people of felonies to the point their lives are ruined & they're facing serious prison time is absolutely justified if the bad guys are white dudes, right? Especially white, rich dudes? We'll give the poor black 'ho a pass, just like we should give all disadvantaged 'victims' a pass.. Hey, at least she's not a murderer or anything..

And THAT ladies and gentlemen is how you destroy a straw man