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Fear Tactics
At a time when the Duke players were in grave jeopardy from a prosecutor increasingly veering out of control, their own school was portraying them as rowdy, drunken white racists who might well be rapists too.“The faculty was a lot worse than the students,” Coach Pressler recalled. “It was appalling.” For months, virtually none of the 600-plus members of the arts and sciences faculty publicly criticized the DA or defended the players’ right to fair treatment. Some admitted privately that they were afraid to cross the activists, lest they be smeared with charges of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia or right-wingism. One chemistry professor would personally experience the backlash for speaking out.
Months after the team’s innocence had been made clear, this professor became the first member of the arts and sciences faculty to break ranks with the academic herd when he wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Chronicle. Within 24 hours, the head of the Duke women’s studies program accused the professor of using racially charged language.
Leading the rush to judgment was Houston A. Baker, Jr., professor of English and of African and African American studies. In a March 29 public letter to Duke administrators, he demanded the dismissals of the lacrosse players and coaches. Acknowledging that the rape allegations were unproven, he called the players “white, violent, drunken men, veritably given license to rape, maraud [and] deploy hate speech.” He bemoaned their alleged feeling that “they can claim innocence and sport their disgraced jerseys on campus, safe under the cover of silent whiteness.”
The university provost publicly criticized that letter, but for his insights, Baker was in demand among TV hosts such as MSNBC’s Rita Cosby and CNN’s Nancy Grace. He was also quoted in newspapers such as The New York Times and USA Today.
Baker responded to one critic with an e-mail that said, “You live in a white supremacist fantasyland.” In another e-mail, sent to the mother of a lacrosse player, Baker called her son and his teammates “farm animals.”
Many Duke students were enraged by Baker’s hate-filled antics. But he had plenty of faculty companions in his crusade, especially humanities and social sciences professors trained to consider American society deeply flawed, with powerful white males oppressing women, minorities and the poor.
At the same time, Mike Nifong could hardly have hoped for a more obliging helper than university president Richard Brodhead. Though Brodhead said that the legal process must run its course, he publicly assailed the lacrosse team, albeit in more muted ways. In early April, athletic director Joe Alleva told Pressler that the rest of the season would be canceled. It was a heated meeting. Pressler later jotted down what was said.
Pressler: “Joe, you believe the kids are right; you believe in the truth. What message does it send to the students if we as educators say the truth only matters when it’s convenient?”
Alleva: “It’s not about the truth anymore. It’s about the faculty, the special-interest groups, the protesters, our reputation, the integrity of the university.”
Pressler stressed that the DNA results clearing his players could come back any day. (Nifong already had the first round of test results by now, but he delayed turning them over to the players’ attorneys until April 10.) Pressler left the meeting thinking he had won some time.
But later in the day, he got a call from Alleva, who demanded to see him. Alleva said the season would in fact be canceled and that Pressler must resign immediately or face suspension and possible removal. Brodhead would announce the resignation. The coach felt he had no choice.
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