Topic category:  Other/General

It's official: Duke University's Board of Trustees received the report from a presidential review committee on Richard H. Brodhead’s first three years as president.

Duke's Office of News & Communications dutifully reported:

"Duke regularly conducts such reviews of its officers and deans. President Nannerl O. Keohane went through a similar review in her third year of office." "Trustee vice chair Dan Blue, who chaired the presidential review, told the trustees his committee had interviewed some 120 people and directly solicited comments from members of the university community and others with knowledge of the president’s leadership. Overall, the committee heard from more than 500 people, including some with no relationship to Duke.

"Blue said the 'review committee’s report affirmed Brodhead’s leadership, after considering his goals and vision for the university, his effectiveness in advancing its interests, the exciting challenges and opportunities facing Duke, and the wide range of comments and opinions we heard.' Referring to the Duke lacrosse case, he said, 'The committee heard from people who were disappointed with Duke’s handling of the case and others who felt strongly that President Brodhead had managed a uniquely difficult situation with maturity. Those who communicated with the committee can be confident the spectrum of views was heard, considered and reported to the trustees and to President Brodhead. The review committee has now completed its work.'"

Amazing. Some people are deluding themselves that Republican presidential hopeful is unfit to be President of the United States because he is Mormon, while the Methodists responsible for Duke University are planning to keep Richard H. Brodhead as Duke's President.

Ironically, the possibility that enough truth would emerge in time to make Duke's Board of Trustees end Mr. Brodhead's reign instead of extend it when the Duke Three chose to settle confidentially instead of to pursue discovery and go to trial.

The unindicted players could have filed lawsuits long ago and put a spotlight on the wrongdoing at Duke, but they have not yet done so. Great news for Mr. Brodhead and his pernicious supporters.

LieStoppers' "Baldo": "Duke University, while it has had a history of producing excellent graduates and research, has set a disastrous course for its future. It has a rotten core, including the Board of Trustees."

It had more than enough money to make a confidential settlement and shamelessly stay on its shameful course.

Hero of the Hoax Bill Anderson:

"We have to grasp the enormity of the situation here. Brodhead did the following:

1. Consciously and purposely ignored evidence of innocence, refusing to look at anything that would demonstrate the fact that Nifong was lying;

2. All-but-declared the players guilty in his public statements;

3. Did absolutely nothing to stop the campus hatefest against the players;

4. Kowtowed to the most radical and vocal faculty members at Duke;

5. Did nothing to stop faculty abuse of their students in the classroom, which is one of the worst things any faculty member can do.

"The typical line is that 'had Brodhead spoken out, it would have looked as though Duke was trying to muscle in on the prosecution and get guilty people off.' That, my fellow Blog Hooligans, is crap, and pure crap at that.

"Truth stands by itself, period. However, Brodhead helped set the tone and when Joe Alleva declared, 'It is not about the truth, anymore,' he was only parroting what Brodhead's actions were dictating.

"If Duke University's leadership is so afraid of Durham and so afraid of alienating hardcore leftist radicals that it refuses to permit Truth to intervene, then all is lost at that place. Furthermore, by taking the coward's way out, Duke University has helped set the stage for future hoaxes.

"What if Brodhead had spoken out early and insisted that there be due process? What if he had insisted on the truth and nothing but the truth? Oh, yes, Mark Neal and Karla Holloway would have been all over him, and the New York Times would have been critical. But, in the end, he would have been vindicated.

"Instead, we saw cowardice and cynicism that has become the hallmark of elite higher education in this country. And for that, the BOT gives Brodhead, who personified the very worst that higher education has to offer in those dark days of 2006, a free pass."

Duke's Board of Trustees will extend Mr. Brodhead's time as president, because, with a majority of them, pandering to political correctness extremism trumps demonstrating courage and decency.

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.