Saturday, October 27, 2007

Duke’s Hoax “conservation” policy

With a drought hitting North Carolina, we’re being told to conserve water and given conservation tips: “Check for leaks” and “Cut the flow off as quickly as possible.”

That’s all gotten me thinking about Duke University’s conservation policies.

Say what you will about President Brodhead and BOT Chair Steel bungled and shameful response to the Mangum/Nifong lies and faculty/”activists”/media pressure, those two fellows and the people they direct are wonderful conservationists.

Do you know of a single leak at the Allen Building concerning why Brodhead decided to say nothing when the black racists threatened Reade Seligmann outside and within the Durham County Courthouse?

When President Brodhead made his prepared, unannounced “too little, too late” apology, no member of the University community or the press was permitted to ask a single question.

Could Brodhead and Steel have done any more than that to cut off the flow of information the Duke community and the public have a right and need to know about what they and other Duke leaders did and didn’t do during the Hoax?

At least that’s the way I see it. It’s also what I hear from many Duke parents, alums and others who say they’ve gotten stonewalled by the University when they’ve asked questions they felt they were entitled to ask.

Have you had any first-hand experience with Duke's Hoax "conservation" policy?

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

John, I, and others, have tried a number of times to get information on Duke's recent fundraising numbers. I believe that Duke "managed" these numbers by using its close relationships with several large donors ( e.g. The Duke Endowment and The Gates Foundation ) to accelerate contributions into the year ended 6/30/07. Duke did not want to show any adverse impact from its terrible handling of the lacrosse incident.

The people at Duke Development who have responsibility for this information refused to answer my questions. These were very straighforward questions which would not have required much time to answer. I was left with the impression that Duke was trying to hide certain information. Unfortunately, this is consistent with Duke's lack of transparency with many of its actions in the lacrosse incident.

BN, a Duke parent