After Duke University administrators slandered innocent coaches and players, falsely accusing them of being Neanderthal racist rapists and lording their privilege over those that they oppress, there apparently will not be any outpouring of grief and remorse.
According to the Washington Examiner:
“None of the campus administrators who branded the young men as rapists before the evidence was collected ever faced consequences, and it appears they have no remorse for their actions.
Richard Brodhead is still president of Duke, and in an interview with the Duke Chronicle, said he was "certainly at ease in my conscience" regarding the way he and his administration treated the innocent students who were falsely accused. Brodhead also said "I don't spend my time looking back on this" and said the whole incident "was distracting."
Oh, so sorry that forever tarnishing the reputations of innocent students was "distracting" for you, Mr. president.
In 2007, Brodhead showed a little more remorse, calling his actions "a mistake" and apologizing for what he had done. Yet now, Brodhead appears to be just fine with what he had done to the students and their families.
K.C. Johnson, who co-wrote the book on the case, pointed to a statement Brodhead made in 2006, in the heat of the accusation, where he presumed the guilt of his own students and blamed them for possibly being falsely accused.
"If our students did what is alleged, it is appalling to the worst degree," Brodhead said back then. "If they didn't do it, whatever they did is bad enough."
Brodhead isn't the only administrator who seems to have no remorse for his actions. Members of the "Group of 88" – faculty who distributed advertisements asking "what does a social disaster sound like?" and quotes from students condemning the lacrosse players as if they were guilty – have tried to rewrite history regarding their actions. At least 50 members of the 88 are still employed by Duke, and many others have gone on to other schools.
One former Duke lecturer, Christine Beaule, claimed to the Duke Chronicle that the flyer "wasn't about the kids at all." Sure it wasn't, Beaule, sure it wasn't; it just included comments from students claiming "the kids" were racists and rapists.”
But of course, there is an element of truth to both what Beaule said, and what Brodhead said. The backlash against the lacrosse players wasn’t really about them, and the facts of the case didn’t matter. Because the case wasn’t about facts. The case was about social justice war-mongering from militant leftists overcome by their desire to contort this incident into something matching their warped worldview.
Their worldview? That of racist, oppressive, rich, white southerners abusing and oppressing harmless and defenseless minorities. The lacrosse player’s crime wasn’t being rapists. Their crime was being white, privileged, southern males out for some fun on a Saturday night. Which is why, to activists like Brodhead and Beaule, they were guilty on arrival. And always will be.
