WEBCommentary Contributor

Author: Michael J. Gaynor
Date:  September 22, 2007

Topic category:  Other/General

Duke Case: Courageous Book, Contemptible Brodhead


Yale had thrown Mr. Van de Velde under the bus as though he had been a Duke male lacrosse player being accused by an ex-convict stripper with a history of mental problems in a county with a white district attorney about to lose his job unless he threw white meat to the kind of people who agreed with Chan Hall, then a 22 year old North Carolina Central University, that the Duke students should be prosecuted "whether it happened or not" as "justice for things that happened in the past."

But for one wacko leftist out to sabotage the book's overall Amazon.com rating and sales of Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor, Jr. and KC Johnson, all the reviews posted on Amazon.com are five star.

These reviews won't make Duke University President Richard Brodhead's day, but the reviewers deserve to have their say.

Naz: "This is truly the definitive book for those looking to get the entire story of the despicable Duke rape hoax. Perhaps even more scary than the book's depiction of disgraced DA Nifong, are the sections on the Duke professors and officials who were so willing to destroy (i.e. send to prison for 30 years) 3 innocent boys in the name of political correctness. It makes you wonder if these people have a conscience and how they are in charge of teaching young people. The authors present very granular evidence of the incompetence of Duke President Brodhead, who comes across as a coward, and also the group of 88 'professors' who still teach at the school. These folks, plus the DA and police have made the name 'Duke' soiled. This book makes sure that they will be remembered for the cruel fools they are for eternity."

Lynn Hanley:

"Until Proven Innocent is powerfully written and highlights problems in the justice system and problems in academia. Anyone who cares about higher education should certainly read this and then ask for an accounting from the colleges and universities: Who on their faculty is teaching our children what really counts? Who settles for folly and foolishness? How many academics hold their students in high regard and nourish the best in them?

'I enjoyed reading details about the innocent young men and their devoted families and teammates who saw them through the worst of times. I loved reading the whole truth after so many falsehoods. I applaud KC Johnson for staying with the story until the young lacrosse players were home free.

'In contrast, it was also interesting to read about the morally bankrupt and their witch hunting. Now I have better insight into how witch hunters must have been adding things up and drawing wrong conclusions."

Hershel Parker:

"UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT: POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND THE SHAMEFUL INJUSTICES OF THE DUKE LACROSSE RAPE CASE. UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT is more terrifying than any thriller you will read this year. Stuart Taylor, Jr., and KC Johnson trace what happened when three young men were falsely accused of rape. Rather than being defended by Duke University, they were defamed, threatened with castration, thrown to the rogue prosecutor. Many Duke professors as the 'Group of 88' egged on the mob who had begun to harass the lacrosse players. There were almost no heroes at Duke, although a very few professors ultimately spoke out against the rush to judgment which proved to be a rush to the wrong judgment. The women's lacrosse coach Kerstin Kimel is depicted here as the kind of person you wish you had been when you look back at a crisis you lived through. Her decency and bravery shine in this dark book. James E. Coleman, Jr., a Duke law professor, is another hero. KC Johnson is another kind of hero: the American professor who sensed that something wrong was going on at Duke and set out to document the events in a blog that ultimately helped turn the tide against the Duke mob. One of the most terrifying sections of this book shows that rather than being punished after the truth was undeniable these professors in the Group of 88 were rewarded with greater control of Duke committees. One of the most exciting sections shows how bloggers became heroes when the national media, including Nancy Grace and the New York Times, had joined the mob. This section gives hope that other national lies will be exposed promptly and exposed repeatedly until the country pays attention. The times have changed for the better in this regard even if the Times has not.

"Knowing that Brodhead, the master of sly innuendo, as a literary critic habitually ignored the facts and rushed to judgment, whatever the cost to his victim's reputation (see Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 62 [June 2007] pp. 29-47), I recognized the weakling Taylor and Johnson portray in 'Richard Brodhead's Test of Courage': 'Confronted with a crisis of epic proportions, with Duke's hard-won reputation at risk, he faced his ultimate test of courage. And in an extraordinary moral meltdown, he threw in his lot with the mob.' The only criticism I have of this book is that the publishers should have put 'Rape' in quotation marks, since no rape occurred."

Timothy Murray:

"This book does not mince words. Certain unscrupulous academicians, certain radical feminist and black studies scholars, certain woefully misguided editorial boards of well-known newspapers, and certain dishonest Durham public servants all were singularly bent on destroying the lives of three young people, and the families that love them, solely because they happened to have been born white males.

"This is a superbly crafted but chilling, and at times extremely depressing, narrative detailing how persons with no interest whatsoever in the facts were zealously motivated to punish these young men not for what they did (because they did nothing) but because of what they are, and because they seemed to embody 'white male privilege.' The narrative, which chronicles the facts in a manner beyond compelling, renders this conclusion inescapable. (One suspects those who declared the boys 'guilty' from the time they were fingered in an immoral and unconstitutional line-up surely must not be happy that the accuser, in fact, was not raped. If so, that would be the most twisted thing about this sad affair.)

"This may be the definitive case study to illustrate how prominent crusaders against unfair stereotyping in other contexts are themselves more than capable of stereotyping and unfairly prejudging, and destroying lives, when it happens to suit their agendas. Aside from the damage caused to three young lives and their families, such shameful misconduct tarnishes what responsible black and feminist leaders have worked so hard to accomplish.

"Bravo to the authors for this epiphany."

Scaramouche:

"The authors have penned a frightening tale of how three white middle class athletes at what had been considered an elite university entered into a nightmare designed by a corrupt prosecutor who merely wanted to pad his pension by winning an election that, if he lost, would, he feared, be lowered! Michael Nifong, the prosecutor, believed that indicting the three kids would pander to African American voters in the relatively poor college town of Durham, North Carolina. His strategy was effective and he won the election that polls showed he had been significantly trailing in before the indictment. It became obvious early on that the rape charge by a black stripper was bogus but still the prosecution went forward. With a host of villains including the mainstream media, a pathetic and likely corrupt police force, the NC NAACP, the Duke administration including its craven President and Board of Trustees and a group of Duke professors who used the rape allegations to both prejudge the case and advance their own loony agendas the authors scare readers with the fear that this could happen to you, your children and your friends despite complete innocence of the charges. There were heroes as well including a few, very few Duke professors, a few reporters, the men and women's lacrosse team and the authors themselves who apparently tirelessly called for justice for over a year in blogs and articles. An incredibly good, yet terrifying read."

Gary L. Packwood:

"If you believe that faculty and towns people won't turn on your son or daughter who is a highly visible athlete on campus, you need to read this book and take notes.

"While turning the pages you will get first hand and real example of political correctness out of control and hopefully at the same time, you will be forming a strategy in your mind of how your are going to get a first rate attorney in front of your child before rather after your son or daughter actually needs an attorney.

"The authors explain that undergraduate universities are in the 'kid' business however there are a few faculty members who don't much care for kids and who will advance their political and social agenda at any cost. Examples provided about these individual 'loopy left' professors at Duke will not be easily forgotten to include one professor who presents himself as a thug/[...]/intellectual...in the lecture halls...in front of students.

"You will laugh a little, cry a little and connect instantly with the Mom's of these students who only wanted the best for their children and never dreamed that they will need to travel through three levels of hell to pluck their youngster out of the jaws of a vicious prosecutor, eighty-eight faculty members with agendas not related to the kids they promised to care for and a whole gaggle of interesting characters in the town of Durham, North Carolina who are living in a civil war era of their own invention.

"And, the kids got out alive.

"An important and thoughtful book for parents and grandparents of students athletes."

Jack L. Rutner:

"Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson have written a superb book about a perfect storm that was the Duke-Lacrosse case. Were it not so hideously real, it would read like a work of fiction. Taylor and Johnson portray how a bi-polar black, woman who deserved to be institutionalized but did not want to be, told a fib that grew into a monstrous lie (actually many lies). They describe how A SANE nurse could be perfectly insane by believing that any woman making a claim of rape had to have been raped, regardless of all evidence to the contrary. They describe how three white boys who were good athletes, good students, good people and from well to-do families, could be portrayed as being evil people who had taken advantage of a poor black woman just trying to raise her children while going to NCCU, and oh yes, stripping and whoring on the side. They describe how the black population of Durham had, for the most part, been gulled by their leaders into thinking that every black is a victim and every white an aggressor and a villain -- a sort of reverse KKK mentality. They descibe a DA who had lost his moral compass and who, for a mess pottage, pandered to the black community of Durham to be elected; and they show how he suborned perjury, not once but at least three times (although Taylor and Johnson never use that term); and they show how he avoided any evidence that would not fit his preconceived notion of the truth. They describe how policemen because of their hatred of Duke student aided and abetted the DA in his attempt to frame three innocent people. They also describe a couple of questionable judges who never met a DA they doubted, with the consequence that three innocent people had their lives turned upside down for no reason. They describe Duke University as having 88 faculty members who pretend to be scholars, but whose scholarship, for the most part, does not rise above the jejeune, and they describe how those 'scholars' threw gasoline on a smoldering fire, with 87 of them, even today, not being able to figure out what it was they did wrong. They describe how Duke, by selecting those pretend scholars to be on its faculty, chose diversity over merit thereby getting diversity at the cost of scholarship. They describe how Duke's administration was absolutely supine in the face of those faculty memebers, and how its President, the inaptly named Brodhead, provided the leadership of a spineless jellyfish. They describe how Brodhead never wanting to be confused by the evidence in the case ran from being informed about it. They describe how the main stream media reported half-truths and untruths which has become its modus operandi. (You can bet, if it's in the MSM it's not true and if it's true, it's not in the MSM.) They describe in particular how the New York Times provided biased reporting under Duff Wilson's by-line. (It appears that the MSM were as uncritical as the jejeune scholars at Duke, and that they too threw gasoline on a fire that was raging all across the country.) All of that led to a perfect storm that was the Duke-Lacrosse case.

"Of course, they also describe what ultimately contained that perfect storm. It was three families who believed their sons; it was a group of excellent defense lawyers; it was an honest judge; and it was a group of internet bloggers who would not give up in exposing the untruths of this case.

"The Taylor-Johnson book has exposed something else. It is how a large segment of America has become unthinking over the past forty or so years. For that segment, if it's black-woman-poor-transgender it must be good, if it's white-male-well to do-heterosexual, it must be bad. Another thing the book has exposed is how useful the internet and its blogs have become in exposing the mendacity of some our leading institutions -- in particular,the MSM, the so-called ministers of justice, and finally the scholarship amongst certain components of the university faculties that is not scholarship. I highly recommend Until Proven Innocent as an eye-opener to those unfamiliar with the details surrounding this Duke-Lacrosse case."

J. Dolce:

"Well written and thoroughly researched. The miscarriage of the Duke lacrosse case is already well known but the authors give chilling insight into the academic bankruptcy of a politically correct Duke faculty, willing to throw their students under a bus to promote their politically correct agenda. It is clear these professors have no interest in due process and could not resist the opportunity to support their race, gender class agenda. They were not about to let the truth get in the way.

"The Duke administration fearful of the liberal faculty and mindful of its delicate relationship with the city of Durham disowned the players from day one and continued to do so even as the facts came out and it was clear there was no criminal activity.

"After reading this book it is hard to imagine why any parent would send their child to Duke."

The post at TalkLeft by America's Herman Melville expert, Professor Emeritus Hershel Parker, gives parents and prospective students fair warning, in addressing the question whether the authors of Until Proven Innocent were too hard on President Brodhead:

"Some charitable posters here are very willing to give Brodhead the benefit of the doubt even when Tortmaster lists some of what I see as examples of egregious behavior on Brodhead's part. Please let me tell you briefly my experience with Brodhead in 2002. He got the job of reviewing the second volume of my biography of Herman Melville in the New York TIMES. Weeks before the review came out in June he whined a little at Duke for having to work a little at spring break on the review. What he published was extraordinarily grudging and arrogant at the same time. How did he know what he said I resolved to do decades before? Most of the review could be put down to elitist snobbery, but one part was devastating to my reputation. A Yale Dean in the New York Times declared that I merely surmised the existence of two volumes I discussed, the book Melville finished in May 1853 and the collection called POEMS which he left for publication 7 years later, when he sailed for the Pacific. Brodhead went beyond sly insinuation when he declared that if Melville actually wrote a book called Poems 'a stretch that had seemed empty of literary strivings was instead a time of new effort and new failure--a black hole Parker alone has the instruments to detect.' That may not strike you as objectionable, but he was saying that only I knew about this book, and very iffy it was. Now, the 1853 book had been talked about a long time. Hayford in 1946 laid out evidence that he started it. Davis and Gilman in 1960 asserted that Melville finished it. Sealts later more than once said Melville finished it, and took it to the Harpers in June 1853. What I discovered in 1987 was the title, The Isle of the Cross, and the actual or maybe just closely approximate date of completion, 22 May. The 1860 POEMS is a whole different matter. Everyone had known all about it since 1922. Everyone. It's in biographies, the 1960 Letters, the NN Correspondence--everywhere. Everyone had read Melville's 12 point memo to his brother Allan on the publication of his verses. This is just an outright lie, the assertion that only I had the instruments to detect [the book in] the black hole. And not only was he slurring me as unreliable, he was trashing two generations of real scholars, people who had worked in the archives from the 1920s on. This is a seriously bad thing to do. This is writing out of existence some pretty heroic laborers. For me, his review was devastating, as I said. Because the great Dean Brodhead had spoken, others jumped on me, echoing him. Andrew Delbanco, who like Brodhead had never done any archival research, was the worst, but Elizabeth Schultz showed a special malice. I kept my silence, trying to heal from the assault, and I worked through the next years. Finally in the June 2007 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE, Vol. 67, pages 29-47, I published an article showing the damage these three critics had done to what people think of as the trajectory of Melville's career. Before any of you say there is no pattern of rushing to judgment, no pattern of willful disregard of the facts, no love of sly false insinuations, please read my article. I will send a pdf to you if you ask. Brodhead's reputation as a scholar is wholly unearned. He is a critic, not a scholar. More about that, if anyone wants to know. Imagine how I felt when Brodhead let three young men take a chance on many years in jail because he rushed to judgment (as NEWSWEEK said on the 10th [of September 2007]) and exhibited a willful disregard for the facts. I had been there."

Meanwhile, President Brodhead is using the "time to move on" strategy implemented at Yale after he rushed to judgment as Yale Dean in the Van de Velde case.

Wikipedia: "In March 2000, ABC television network's newsmagazine show 20/20 examined the case, and quoted 'a University spokesman' as saying that Yale wanted to move on and that attention to the murder 'can only hurt Yale'. ABC later named Thomas Conroy, now Yale's deputy director of public affairs, as the spokesman in question, but Conroy denied making the statements and a press release by Vice President and University Secretary Linda Lorimer said 20/20 was mistaken. In the March 30, 2000 edition of the Yale Daily News, Jovin's parents published a letter responding to the show and Yale's reaction. 'The statements by the Yale College administration in reaction to the outcry on and off campus to the callous position of the University reported in the 20/20 program are disingenuous, hypocritical [and] self-serving,' they wrote; 'It was a tragic mistake to send our daughter to Yale College for an education.' Van de Velde also expressed his skepticism, saying 'I have no doubt, therefore, that [Yale President Richard] Levin and Lorimer specifically wrote or approved the Yale statement.'"

Yale had thrown Mr. Van de Velde under the bus as though he had been a Duke male lacrosse player being accused by an ex-convict stripper with a history of mental problems in a county with a white district attorney about to lose his job unless he threw white meat to the kind of people who agreed with Chan Hall, then a 22 year old North Carolina Central University, that the Duke students should be prosecuted "whether it happened or not" as "justice for things that happened in the past."

Wikipedia: "Yale first cancelled Van de Velde's classes for the following 1999 spring term, citing the disruptive effect of the case, then did not renew his contract for the following year; the stated reason was not suspicion of Van de Velde's guilt, but rather that he would not have been invited back as a matter of course. Many were skeptical, however; the dismissal of such a popular and successful instructor without some sort of cause would have been unusual, and it seemed to many like an undeserved sudden end to what had been a promising career. Alan Dershowitz, for instance, noted that it seemed to suggest that the police could influence hiring and firing of university faculty at will, by merely advancing rumors."

Michael J. Gaynor


Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.


Copyright © 2007 by Michael J. Gaynor
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