after the party

by Cliopatria

After the notorious party at 610 N. Buchanan Boulevard in Durham, Duke lacrosse player, Ryan McFadyen, sent out this e-mail at 1:58 a.m. on 14 March:

To whom it may concern
tommrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over to edens 2c. all are welcome.. however there will be no nudity. i plan on killing the bitches as soon as the walk in and proceding to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex. all in besides arch and tack please respond.
41

Edens 2c is (or, was) McFadyen's dormitory room number and 41 the number he wore as a member of the lacrosse team. His coach has resigned, the team's national title-contending season is canceled, and young McFadyen has apparently been suspended. Thanks to David Weigel in comments at Eric Muller's Is That Legal? for the tip. Chris Lawrence, Margaret Soltan, Alan Allport at Horizon, and Scott Jaschik,"From Bad to Worse at Duke," Inside Higher Ed, 6 April, have more on the story.
Correction: 2c is the number of McFadyen's house (not his dormitory room) in Edens Quadrangle at Duke. Thanks to Chris Lawrence in comments for the correction.
Addition: The attachment to the search warrant identifies"Adam, Matt, and Bret" as the three men alleged to have raped the young woman, so McFadyen may not be one of the accused. But there are discrepancies about their names among other accounts of the events. See: this site, the triangle area's NBC channel 17, and Rachel S. at Alas, a blog.

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Ralph E. Luker - 4/11/2006

I suggest that you send your advice to Duke's president. Undoubtedly, he hasn't had enough good advice lately.

John H. Lederer - 4/11/2006

Putting aside the email for the moment, would not a reasonable conclusion be:

The Duke Administration failed to take any action on the boorish behaviour of the LaCrosse team until false accusations of rape were made, at which point they acted precipitously and without a chance for the team members to respond.

(assuming of course that they were false).

In regard to the email (assuming it is true):

The Duke Administration, accepting the principle of communal guilt, decided to puish the 47 members of the LaCrosse team because a single member had sent an outrageous email.

I think Duke will have a tough time coming out of this well. If they should hve acted, they should have acted earlier. If they should not have acted earlier, they should not act now.

Robert KC Johnson - 4/11/2006

If the Duke president were smart, he'd use this entire affair to decide that it might sere the best interests of all involved not to revive the lacrosse program. No one's entitled to a sports team, especially in the Title IX environment, when--for very good reasons--there's mandated gender equality in intercollegiate sports. Interpreting the facts in the most benign manner for the lacrosse team, their behavior has brought shame to the institution.

That said, I do think the Duke administration could have done more than it did to remind its students of the presumption of innocence in the judicial system. When dealing with "lessons" of the affair, I've been struck at how a segment of the campus protesters and a few of the faculty on campus who have commented have seemed to presume that a rape occurred.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/11/2006

Why would it leave Duke administration in an awkward spot? There's a clear track record of boorish behavior by lacrosse team members and a disgusting e-mail from one of them on public record. Duke has a right to determine that it wants to be about something other than that.

John H. Lederer - 4/11/2006

Actually that is an unfair comment (about the possibility of an election). If the DA was concerned with finding out the truth of what happened, requiring DNA testing would be a logical step.

If the DNA testing is fairly definitive in the circumstances, doesn't this leave the Duke administration in a pretty awkward spot?

John H. Lederer - 4/11/2006

Are DA's elected in North Carolina and is there an election campaign going on? .

Robert KC Johnson - 4/11/2006

But he didn't just ask the players to voluntarily submit--he then went and got a court order compelling them to do so. And he did so after he had already gone on national television saying he believed the accuser was a victim of sexual assault--creating the impression, accurate or not, that this evidence would cinch the deal for the indictment.

So he's now in the less-than-ideal situation of having taken a very unusual step of getting a court order to obtain evidence, only to have that evidence wholly support the defendants' version of events.

From the reports I've seen of their behavior (quite apart from this case), most of the Duke lacrosse players seem like extremely unappealing people. But that doesn't justify what seems to me a series of odd decisions by the DA.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/11/2006

Interestingly enough, Glenn Reynolds is taking the position that the taking of DNA evidence should be required in all cases where it may be relevant. The local DA may have made mistakes, but his asking the 45 lacrosse players to voluntarily submit a DNA sample doesn't seem to have been one of them.

John H. Lederer - 4/11/2006

It gets curiouser and curiouser:
http://www.wral.com/apncnews/8580180/detail.html

Robert KC Johnson - 4/10/2006

At the very least, I know if I were a county resident, I'd be voting against D.A. Nifong in the May 22 primary. By taking what seemed to be a remarkably wide sweep and demanding DNA tests from all 46 white players and then (if these initial reports are correct) having those tests come up empty, he's made any subsequent prosecution extraordinarily difficult.

It might be, of course, that the players are innocent. But if three of them are guilty, Nifong's tactics have made a conviction far less likely.

John H. Lederer - 4/10/2006

the news today is that:

1. DNA testing does not implicate any of the white members of the Lacrosse team(the lone blak me,ber was not asked for a sample).

2. MacFayden, according to friend ,deeply regrets his email.

What is going on? Beats me. Bad testing? Bad friend?

Chris Lawrence - 4/6/2006

Edens 2C is the "house" (stairwell) within Edens Quad; I can't remember the room number offhand.