KC Johnson: The Virginia Murder Case and the Duke "Rape" Case
[KC Johnson is a professor of history at Brooklyn College and author of Durham-in-Wonderland, a blog about the Duke lacrosse case.]
It’s unsurprising that the case of University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely — charged with murdering women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love — has attracted widespread media attention: A Division I athlete accused of killing another Division I athlete is extremely rare. The last such instance appears to have occurred in 2003, when former Baylor men’s basketball player Carlton Dotson murdered another team member, Patrick Dennehy. Dotson is currently serving a 35-year sentence for the crime.
Yet in the mainstream media, none of the early Huguely coverage compared the Virginia case to the Baylor killing. Instead, the Duke lacrosse case, often presented in false or misleading terms, provided the preferred frame of reference. The Washington Post, after noting that Huguely had commented on the Duke case several years ago, recalled that the charges against the Duke players had been "dropped." (Actually, the North Carolina attorney general issued a public exoneration.) The AP, through ESPN, reported that the falsely accused Duke players had attended the same prep school as did Huguely. (Actually, only one did.) And Emily Friedman of ABC linked Huguely’s high school to the "2006 rape scandal" at Duke. She didn’t explain how the phrase "rape scandal" could describe an event in which no rape occurred....
No handbook exists for how a university should respond to the killing of a student, much less a killing in which the accused is another student. And on this front, the Duke lacrosse case provided no guidance for Virginia administrators. At Duke, the lacrosse players from the start proclaimed their innocence, their lawyers made public considerable exculpatory material, and Durham authorities struggled to produce any evidence that a crime had even taken place. At Virginia, a crime obviously occurred, and according to police, Huguely confessed to forcibly entering Love’s room, shaking her, and “repeatedly” hitting her head against the wall. Huguely’s attorney hasn’t denied the police account, but has suggested that Love’s death was “not intended,” and thus, presumably, is manslaughter rather than murder....
As an article in Wednesday’s Baltimore Sun discussed, the Huguely arrest also has revived commentary about the allegedly troubling culture of college lacrosse. Those criticisms have appeared in a variety of forms — ranging from an out-of-character tweet from the normally responsible Dan Wetzel to a lengthy article, entitled “Are The White Boys Of Lacrosse Predestined To Be Dicks?,” in the prominent sports blog Deadspin. The latter piece used spreadsheets to illustrate that "laxers can have a certain cadence to their speaking and a swagger to their step that can really rub people the wrong, assholey, douchey way." Neither Deadspin’s spreadsheets nor any other evidence has shown that lacrosse players are more likely than anyone else to engage in physical violence against people they date, much less to kill former girlfriends....
Attacking Huguely now might provide an emotional release, but accomplishes little of substance, and certainly does nothing for the women’s lacrosse players who are dealing with Love’s death. The criminal justice system appears well-equipped to handle Huguely, and there will be plenty of time to condemn him if a court convicts. Beyond that, extrapolating from his behavior seems as likely to obscure as to illuminate. As U.S. Lacrosse board member Miles Harrison pointed out, it is “unfair for the sport of lacrosse to have any black mark against it because of the behavior of an individual.”
Read entire article at Inside Higher Ed
It’s unsurprising that the case of University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely — charged with murdering women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love — has attracted widespread media attention: A Division I athlete accused of killing another Division I athlete is extremely rare. The last such instance appears to have occurred in 2003, when former Baylor men’s basketball player Carlton Dotson murdered another team member, Patrick Dennehy. Dotson is currently serving a 35-year sentence for the crime.
Yet in the mainstream media, none of the early Huguely coverage compared the Virginia case to the Baylor killing. Instead, the Duke lacrosse case, often presented in false or misleading terms, provided the preferred frame of reference. The Washington Post, after noting that Huguely had commented on the Duke case several years ago, recalled that the charges against the Duke players had been "dropped." (Actually, the North Carolina attorney general issued a public exoneration.) The AP, through ESPN, reported that the falsely accused Duke players had attended the same prep school as did Huguely. (Actually, only one did.) And Emily Friedman of ABC linked Huguely’s high school to the "2006 rape scandal" at Duke. She didn’t explain how the phrase "rape scandal" could describe an event in which no rape occurred....
No handbook exists for how a university should respond to the killing of a student, much less a killing in which the accused is another student. And on this front, the Duke lacrosse case provided no guidance for Virginia administrators. At Duke, the lacrosse players from the start proclaimed their innocence, their lawyers made public considerable exculpatory material, and Durham authorities struggled to produce any evidence that a crime had even taken place. At Virginia, a crime obviously occurred, and according to police, Huguely confessed to forcibly entering Love’s room, shaking her, and “repeatedly” hitting her head against the wall. Huguely’s attorney hasn’t denied the police account, but has suggested that Love’s death was “not intended,” and thus, presumably, is manslaughter rather than murder....
As an article in Wednesday’s Baltimore Sun discussed, the Huguely arrest also has revived commentary about the allegedly troubling culture of college lacrosse. Those criticisms have appeared in a variety of forms — ranging from an out-of-character tweet from the normally responsible Dan Wetzel to a lengthy article, entitled “Are The White Boys Of Lacrosse Predestined To Be Dicks?,” in the prominent sports blog Deadspin. The latter piece used spreadsheets to illustrate that "laxers can have a certain cadence to their speaking and a swagger to their step that can really rub people the wrong, assholey, douchey way." Neither Deadspin’s spreadsheets nor any other evidence has shown that lacrosse players are more likely than anyone else to engage in physical violence against people they date, much less to kill former girlfriends....
Attacking Huguely now might provide an emotional release, but accomplishes little of substance, and certainly does nothing for the women’s lacrosse players who are dealing with Love’s death. The criminal justice system appears well-equipped to handle Huguely, and there will be plenty of time to condemn him if a court convicts. Beyond that, extrapolating from his behavior seems as likely to obscure as to illuminate. As U.S. Lacrosse board member Miles Harrison pointed out, it is “unfair for the sport of lacrosse to have any black mark against it because of the behavior of an individual.”