The once and former Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney Thomas Nifong has been officially disbarred,
and his bosses have taken away his badge and locked him out of the building. The arrogrant ex-lawyer had actually intended to remain on the job for another month after his disbarment.
This author and this publication called for Nifong’s disbarment and removal from office very early last year, soon after the story hit the newspapers with a huge bang. I’m glad that Nifong has received his due, and I hope that the civil suits against him, brought by the young men he falsely prosecuted, will be highly successful.
But there’s more to be done.
The state must bring criminal charges against Nifong. The accuser must be charged and brought to justice. Duke University president Richard Brodhead must be fired. And the Duke faculty members who rushed to sign an advertisement condemning the incident as representative of prevalent campus attitudes should be fired as well. Every one of them.
Thomas Sowell, who has been writing about the case since last May, has provided a fine summary of the issues on National Review Online. He notes that the real moral corruption at Duke was among the faculty and administrators:
This case served their purposes. That trumped any question about whether the charges were true or not.
Don’t expect any of these people to recant or apologize. But be aware of how wide and how deep the moral dry rot goes.
That such people are teaching students at an elite university is a chilling thought. That they promote a campus atmosphere where political correctness trumps the search for truth is painful.
That such attitudes and such atmospheres are not peculiar to Duke University, but are common on elite college campuses from coast to coast is a time bomb with the potential to destroy individuals and ultimately undermine the whole society.
Sowell is correct to observe that the Duke administration and faculty won’t purge these people on their own. It would take courage from the trustees to accomplish that. And given the mindset of most college trustees today, that is not going to happen.
Dear Mr. Karnick:
I agree with everything you and Thomas Sowell have said on the matter.
However, it may require a nuclear bunker buster to dislodge the “Group of 88”; arrogance and intractability were the hallmarks of many college staff members of my acquaintance, and, along with you, I’m not sanguine about the college trustees doing the right thing.
Respectfully,
Mike Tooney
S.T.: I’m a lifelong resident of Salem, MA, which as you may know, was the scene of the infamous Witch Trials, which is now a major industry here, but I digress. The Salem Witch Trials are always used by the left as a warning against intolerance (e.g. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible). I wonder if those 88 Duke faculty members realized that they were acting just like the accusers in the Salem Witch Trials?
It’s irrelevant, but I can’t help noting, every time I hear the man’s name, that its pronunciation is almost identical to an old Norwegian cuss phrase I grew up hearing–“Nei, fa’n!”
Which means, literally, “No, the devil!”
When I learned that the Duke profs are called the group of 88 I immediately thought of a sham piano, its 88 keys being all the same note.
And then I thought of the classic Ebony and Ivory, tune by Paul McCartney, lyrics by Stevie Wonder.
If some talented WAG would adapt the lyrics to reflect how these profs sow discord instead of harmony, we might be on the short path to achieving your wish.
Such is the power of a good parody.