K.C. Johnson, at Durham in Wonderland, is still following up on the Duke Lacrosse Rape case, and posts this amazing bit of information.
On September 12, Captain Ed Sarvis of the Durham Police Department admitted that the Durham Police had an official policy of meting out disproportionate punishment Duke students, as a class, for alcohol- and noise-related offenses. When confronted with police records showing that Sgt. Mark Gottlieb had arrested 10 times as many Duke students as the other three District Two supervisors combined, Sarvis replied that the sergeant “was doing his job, and doing what I asked him to do.” The implication? The sergeants who didn’t handcuff and arrest Duke students (and only Duke students) for minor alcohol-related offenses weren’t doing their job.
In other words, it appears to have been official policy at the Durham Police Department to target Duke students for special treatment. And the universities response has to date been literally nothing. Which isn’t a surprise given how the university abandoned not only the three men falsely accused of rape, but also the entire Lacrosse team. And if you think it is just the athletes who get the special treatment think again.
In late March, outgoing DSG president Elliot Wolf penned a memorandum expressing concern that the Office of Judicial Affairs, led by Associate Dean of Students and Director of Judicial Affairs Stephen Bryan, had chosen to “pursue judicial action against a student based on evidence collected by law enforcement officers that was illegally obtained or otherwise insufficient to serve as the basis for criminal prosecution.” In other words, Bryan was intending to use evidence that even Durham’s blatantly pro-prosecution judges viewed as suspect.
Dean Bryan’s response can be summed up as an admission that indeed Duke University does use this rather dubious evidence to prosecute its own students.
Bottomline is that if you go to Duke University as a student you will be on your own, and can count on no help whatsoever from the University, and you’ll pay well over $40,000 a year too. I’m thinking you can find a better university to attend.
