Boston Globe: Duke players' lives are "shredded"

[pnwmom]

http://www.boston.com/sports/articles/2007/04/12/charges_dropped_but_its_not_over_for_duke_players/

SNIP

Do you really think it's over for the players? It will never be. Twenty years from now, the allegations of rape, kidnapping, and sexual offense will follow these men through their own personal Wikipedia. It's more than unwanted spam; it's a stain that has branded them in indelible ink. No matter how many times you invoke the word "innocent," they are forever linked to a scandal that has cost them and their families hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

The cost to their psychological welfare is incalculable. They have been living in fear for more than a year that the lies of others would decimate their future. They have remained silent throughout, believing initially their university would support them. Instead, president Richard Brodhead, new to the job and feeling pressure from within the university as well as from a frenzied national media, turned his back on them.

SNIP

The Baltimore Sun has reported the families have asked Duke to pay their legal fees. It would be a wise move on the university's part to comply. The last thing they need is another ugly legal mess.

SNIP

(Coach) Pressler lost his job, and overnight, his reputation. His program was characterized as out of control, and he paid the price for that perception. , , . He couldn't stop the rush to judgment that steamrolled over him and his program, a judgment fueled by a group of professors on campus who did not do their homework and a frenzied media contingent who did not do their homework, either. Like I said, there are no winners here. Let's hope we've all learned something.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Great post. Many thanks.

[pnwmom]

8. You're welcome, Buzz Clik. You've been a voice of reason on this case

from early on.

:hi:

[rfranklin]

2. Perhaps they shouldn't have hired a naked dancer...

to "party" with. That seems to escape everyone here. There is something wrong with women who dance around naked in front of guys--and there is something definitely twisted about sitting there watching it. I love looking at naked females, don't get me wrong, but I find the whole gang bang mentality of stripping unattractive.

[skooooo]

3. you're right...

...they hired someone who was trying to make money to support herself in college. They definitely deserved the false accusation.

:crazy:

[pnwmom]

What you're doing is called "blaming the victim."

It's exactly the same as if you had said of a real rape victim, "Maybe she shouldn't have been outside late at night." Or "Maybe she shouldn't have worn that short skirt."

These students were persecuted by a rogue D.A., for his political benefit. They didn't deserve this, period.

[msongs]

5. you love looking at naked females and others are not allowed to do so? hmmm nt

[rfranklin]

10. Willing companions, not mentally disturbed strippers....

There is a difference between the two.

[skooooo]

11. you're right

They deserved the false accusation. :eyes:

[pnwmom]

12. Were the students supposed to know that this was a mentally disturbed

stripper?

I'm sure they didn't request one. Or are you implying that all strippers are mentally disturbed?

[rfranklin]

14. Most of them have a history of being abused...

It's just one step away from being a hooker.

[pnwmom]

16. Yeah? Do you have a link for that?

And do you think these young men should have known that? I never learned that in my classes in school.

I think the students realized their mistake in getting involved with these women, and learned the lesson they needed to learn, when the dancers left after a 5 minute performance and took the $800.

What you keep doing is blaming the real victims here, the students who were the victims of a rogue prosecution.

[rfranklin]

21. Do you think it would be a healthy sign if your daughter stripped?

Stripclubs According to Strippers:
Exposing Workplace Sexual Violence

Part 2, Survey Data

Ó Kelly Holsopple, 1998

[e-mail]





PART 2: SURVEY DATA

One hundred percent of the eighteen women in the survey report being physically abused in the stripclub. The physical abuse ranged from three to fifteen times with a mean of 7.7 occurrences over the course of their involvement in stripping. One hundred percent of the eighteen women in this study report sexual abuse in the stripclub. The sexual abuse ranged from two to nine occurrences with a mean of 4.4 occurrences over the course of their involvement in stripping. One hundred percent of the women report verbal harassment in the stripclub. The verbal abuse ranged from one to seven occurrences with a mean of 4.8 occurrences over the course of their involvement in stripping. One hundred percent of the women report being propositioned for prostitution. Seventy eight percent of the women were stalked by someone associated with the stripclub with a range of one to seven incidents. Sixty one percent of the women report that someone associated with the stripclub has attempted to sexually assault her with a range of one to eleven attempts. Not only do women suffer the abuse they experience, all of women in the survey witnessed these things happen to other strippers in the clubs. The overwhelming trend for violence against women in stripclubs was committed by customers of the establishments. Stripclub owners, managers, assistant managers, and the staff of bartenders, music programmers or disc jockeys, bouncers, security guards, floorwalkers, doormen, and valet were significantly less involved in violence against the women. According to the women in this study, almost all of the perpetrators suffered no consequence whatsoever for their actions.

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/stripc2.htm

[pnwmom]

22. No, I wouldn't want her to. But these students didn't cause any problem

for the stripper -- it's not their fault that she's an "exotic dancer." She took their money and left after 5 minutes.

She's the one that hurt them, remember?

But you'd rather blame some 19-22 year olds for the life of a 28 year old they'd never even met.

[Buzz Clik]

13. That would explain why you weren't at the party. However, ...

... having an appetite for naked dancers (which is legal) is a far cry from being a rapist.

[rfranklin]

15. Calling people "nappy-headed hos" is legal too....

but I don't partake.

[Buzz Clik]

17. No one took Imus away in handcuffs.

Calling a person a hideous name will not have you barred from a college campus.

Your parallel makes no sense.

If you don't like strippers, stay away from them. But insinuating that someone who does is a breath away from being a rapist makes absolutely no sense.

[pnwmom]

19. Neither do any of the accused students.

They didn't use racial slurs.
They didn't request a black stripper (despite some claims that they set out to demean black women.)
They didn't know that she was going to be a mentally-disturbed and high on alcohol and flexeril.

So these young men used poor judgement in hiring a stripper for a party. They lost their $800. That was plenty of punishment.

[pnwmom]

18. And doesn't warrant the punishment of a false prosecution. n/t

[MikeNearMcChord]

4. I agree, but there are thousands of people

who are in the same predicament, especially those who get accused of child molestation and eventually are aquitted or charges dropped, and it is ten times worse. Then there are those racial minorities, because they don't have high paid lawyers, who spend time in jail, even though they are innocent. We just don't need health care reform, in this country, but legal reform also.

[pnwmom]

6. If you'd listened to the students yesterday, you'd know they addressed

precisely that issue. The system is broken.

It's not a reason not to feel for what they've gone through.

[Bitwit1234]

7. How come the media

rushs to judgement with slim to no evidence but yet approve and praise bush with loads and loads of evidence to the contrary.

There has to be a remedy for the press. I can't say it enough.

[pnwmom]

9. You're right. And it probably comes down to the fact that the media

has little interest in actually getting at the truth these days, or even allowing competing ideas of the truth to emerge.

All the media is about is making money, in the easiest way that it can.

Maybe the blogs are beginning to fill in the gap, though. K.C. Johnson is one example of a blogger who made a tremendous difference in this case. Kirk Osborne, the attorney, also effectively used the internet by posting case documents on his website.

[underpants]

20. The oddest part of this case, to me, was how the media rushed to the players defense

don't get me wrong that is how this is supposed to work but you NEVER see the media come near the sudden and complete refutiation of all charges. Yes they were right (odds are that they had to be sooner or later) but this whole thing, again my opinion, was right from Fox News. They were on this from before the actual beginning.

See Terry Moran's article here as well

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=274471&mesg_id=274471

[pnwmom]

23. The media piled on these students from the beginning. The NYTimes

never wrote a fair article, until yesterday. I'm not sure what you mean. Are you referring to the sudden turn-around? Maybe they felt guilty for not doing their job in the first place.

[underpants]

24. Well I have to diasgree with you

from what I have seen the media (as a group) have jumped on the STRIPPER the BLACK STRIPPER from the beginning. The not to subtle implication is that these sons of industry and power couldn't possibly have done this no chance.

That has been my take on it from the beginning. That is what I heard and saw.

[pnwmom]

26. The media insisted on calling her an "exotic dancer" until yesterday.

Or a "mother" and a "student." The general media never covered her known mental-illness problems and faithfully recorded her claim to have never stripped for men before that evening. They never mentioned the fact that several years earlier, while performing a lap dance in a club, she stole car keys from a taxi-driver, then stole his cab and aimed it, in a drunken state, at a policeman on foot.

The general media gave her the kid glove treatment, with the possible exception of Fox. (I don't watch them, but I certainly saw plenty of coverage on the other major networks, and in the major newspapers.)

[pnwmom]

25. I just read that link. You'd almost think the writer didn't listen to the students

expressing those same sentiments at the press conference. If it took so much money and talent from top attorneys to get justice for them, what about other people who are the victims of prosecutors like Mike Nifong? The system is broken.

I think that those young men deserve the same sympathy that anyone would in their position -- it was a gross abuse of the system for them to be indicted and to have been living under this cloud for a year -- and really, the rest of their lives. It's completely unfair for people to assume that this experience hasn't already scarred them.

And I didn't refer to the students as boys, so I don't know why you brought that up. I'll tell you, though -- many of the same people who insist on calling these 19-22 year olds "men" have been calling the 28 year old "the young lady." Like she was 14.