<p>
[quote]
I am sick of hearing everyone ***** and moan about white privilege and somehow connecting this to Duke. It is the word of three coked out LAX guys vs. a stripper. Nothing more, everything else is speculation and melodrama. So shut the **** up, stop making our school look bad by crying and complaining all day on the quad to the news. Innocent until proven guilty aka shouldnt ***** until the verdict.
<p>What is really sad is that the accomplishment of the women's basketball team making the Final Four is literally being overshadowed by this.<br>
I didn't realize hazmat had such a unpleasant history here - insinuating that somehow rich alumni are behind this scandal or that laxers are more likely to be legacies. I guess the god complex coming from Skull and Bones has really done this country a lot of good...
And how do you figure that a forfeit is not a loss??? As an earlier poster said, their season is probably over, and I imagine the coach will be asked to fall on his stick before all is said and done.</p>
<p>tsdad - Thank you so much for taking the opinion of one, widely reviled Duke student (who may not even be a Duke student anymore) and posting it to two forums. You are definitely helping us to find clarity in a very difficult situation and should be commended for both your judgment in selecting sources and your selflessness in spreading the word far and wide.</p>
<p>A hearty "amen" to BDM's post. It would've come better two weeks ago, but better late than never, eh? This week was odd timing for the whole thing, though, considering it's sexual assualt prevention week. </p>
<p>indydukie- Not quite...there are plenty of us hoping that Duke beats LSU's (and UNC's) tail. :D</p>
<p>Kobe Bryant--there's a fine example. Why not OJ?? Just because you beat a rap does not mean you are not guilty. Sometimes you just had the better lawyer.</p>
<p>Barrons, would you mind stating your point a little more clearly?</p>
<p>For example, you might be arguing:</p>
<p>"If it turns out that the lacrosse players are acquitted, they should still face sanctions based on an independent assessment by the University, using a lower-than-courts determination of guilt, since courts frequently use too high a standard."</p>
<p>If that is your argument, I agree with it. But please, people, explain to me what you would want to see happen, don't just state strange facts and expect to have scored a point.</p>
<p>I recognize that there is a lot to be criticized in the way that this situation has been handled, and there are a lot of issues wrapped up in the larger Duke community that this scandal has unearthed.</p>
<p>But this is the 1 thing I am asking of every person who reads this post. Could you please just take 1 minute out of your day to think about the woman? Don't think about the lacrosse team, the Duke administration, Larry Moneta, Richard Brodhead, Joe Alleva, or 610 Buchanan Street. Just take a moment of your life to think about this woman and the people who love her. Think about her suffering and everything that she is going through right now. Think about her parents, her children, her friends, her family, and her loved ones. Please just imagine what she has to be experiencing right now, and the extraordinary pain she must be in.</p>
<p>We have been so busy assigning blame, pointing fingers, distributing punishments, shunning lacrosse players, and badmouthing the administration that I feel like this poor woman's struggle has been lost in the process. It's Sexual Assault Prevention Week here, guys. Let's try to get back to the original spirit of the week and send our prayers out to the woman who had to experience this firsthand - I know everyone feels for her, but recently I feel like the empathy has been drowned out by blame.</p>
<p>and how she will pay her rent, feed herself & her children plus cover other expenses. Will the system remove her children from the home? Is there a victim's assistance fund in your community? How about those issues? I recognize that alleged victims are not proven at this point but who is suffering more in this situation? I predict that the Duke folks won't be worrying about having a place to sleep, food to eat or keeping the utilities turned on. How about that student loan/grant that must be repaid when she is unable to maintain attending school? There is a lot that I have wondered.</p>
<p>oib, please justify your comment with analysis or refrain from commenting.</p>
<p>If you believe Duke should be taken off the list of top universities because of this scandal, please give reasons for this opinion - do you believe this will undermine our ability to provide a quality education? If so, why?</p>
<p>as for definition of "top university" I'm not sure it should be exclusively about "quality education" - A "quality education" without a moral compass will lead you to oblivion.</p>
<p>Please don't think that this one isolated incident (if even true) reflects on the entire student body. If you think this one case means Duke should be dropped down to the bottom of the pile, then by your reasoning West Point should be in hell with their history.</p>
<p>oib, I'm still trying to draw out your argument here.</p>
<p>Do you believe this incident will change Duke for the worse? That it reveals something bad about Duke University as a whole, bad enough to compensate for all the things that are done right around here?</p>
<p>What would you rather have seen our administration do?</p>
<p>hmm - see recent news items about the Duke Lacrosse team, the rape, the refusal of the team to break ranks and testify - and maybe the article link below didn't come through - a compendium of activities and abuses by more than the Lax team.</p>
<p>Here's a part of the preamble to the Duke Honor code - President Brodhead might want to figure out a way for freshman at Duke to revisit it.</p>
<p>An essential feature of Duke University is its commitment to integrity and ethical conduct. The honor system at Duke helps to build trust among students and faculty and to maintain an academic community in which a code of values is shared. Instilling a sense of honor, and of high principles that extend to all facets of life, is an inherent aspect of a liberal education.</p>
<p>And thanks smokeylarue for your generous comments about the men and women who actually go out after graduation and put themselves in harms way to protect your sorry behind. Or maybe you're just trying to prove my point.</p>
<p>Smokey's point was that you can't use the actions of a few to judge an entire school - one that you still seem to miss. Tell me again, what makes you think the student body as a whole lacks a moral compass? </p>
<p>EDIT: And frankly, smokey was much more respectful in making his point. He never implied that West Point as a whole was morally depraved. He simply pointed out that it too has a history of unsavory conduct from a few students. And instead of actually responding to him with something substantive, you resorted to even more insults.</p>
<p>Oib1 - I also really don't understand your point or your attitude in general.</p>
<p>Along with many other students here, I certainly do not condone the lacrosse team and its actions. I feel that they are likely guilty and definitely unworthy of being at Duke, based on their prior actions in addition to what is going on currently. As I said before, the university administration should have made a stronger response immediately, but it's a very difficult situation for them also. </p>
<p>To criticize the entire university and its student body as immoral and ethical, based on the actions of this one specific group, is inexcusable.</p>
<p>oib, i feel that you have a certain bias against duke and this incident seems like a prime example of why your opinion is right. i doubt anyone here is going to be able to convince you otherwise, and i respect that. to each his own. </p>
<p>but in my opinion i dont think is fair to say that 3 lacrosse players are moralless due to their stint in duke, despite the fact that it's only a small portion of their lives. or that because of that small selection, the members of the duke community are suddenly moralless and not up to par with the other top tier schools. there are many more students here voicing their views and from their responses you can tell that they are of high moral caliber and definately not stupid. so this sampling isnt large enough to show that duke's a top institution... but 3 lacrosse players are sufficient to show otherwise?</p>