Sunday, 26 March 2006

My friends and neighbors

The fun and excitement level of living in Trinity Park seems to be leaning more in the “excitement” direction lately—and not in a good way. The two big highlights: they found a dead guy in a ditch just across from East Friday morning, and a recent party at 610 Buchanan Blvd involving members of the men’s lacrosse team resulted in rape allegations against 3 unidentified team members and a few neighborhood folks seeming to cross the line from holding a vigil to becoming vigilantes—assembling outside private residences and hurling insults at the occupants doesn’t strike me as particularly productive behavior, although perhaps it is understandable given the bad blood between the university and wider community on a variety of issues. (Standard conflict-of-interest disclaimer: I have taught and am teaching members of said team at Duke; I have no idea if any of the students I have taught were involved in this alleged incident, or even at the party in question.)

More thoughts on the latter incident from University Diaries.

Update: See also Brendan Nyhan and the notorious dukeobsrvr .

3 comments:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.
[Permalink] 1. Wesley wrote @ Sun, 26 Mar 2006, 6:10 am CST:

Nothing snappy about Duke’s loss?

 

Saw your comment over at UD and you make a good point to limit the overreaction until all the facts are out there. Local papers make it sound as though the entire team was present at the ‘performance.’

My suggestion regarding some sort of swift and decisive action from administration is coloured by watching the reputation of my former institution brought down by waffling at the highest levels and pandering to the athletics department. Walked by the house this morning and, as you describe vigils turning to vigilantes, the place is a zoo with everyone trying to grab their 15 min of media fame.

 

Wesley: Doubly disappointing, coming against the (blech) LSU Tigers. At least the women are still in it. Oh, and props to George Mason for disposing of hated UConn.

Abel: A perfectly understandable reaction on your part.

 
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