None of the faculty are going to be held accountable. With the Duke settlement, they are de jure cleared of any possible consequences. I see no reason at all why they, or other faculty like them, shouldn't beat the drums of activism the same way again.

It's going to be up to alumni and prospective students to hold Duke accountable for its failure to hold either its faculty vigilantes or its president accountable for their role in fanning the flames of he trumped-up case against the lacrosse players.

One aspect of Dr. Johnson's work has been reporting on the activities of the President of the Board of Trustees at Duke, which have consisted of an unqualified defense of Dr. Brodhead.

Do you recall Charles Sykes' book The Hollow Men? It was a short history of Dartmouth College during the period running from 1971-1990. Who the hollow men were was left implicit but unmistakable: the Trustees.

Why trustees function as vacuous booster boards and have allowed academic institutions to degenerate into faculty sandboxes is a question for students of social psychology. Boards are generally formally constituted by self-replication and are too large for effective deliberations: unweildy secret societies, in effect. One might suggest three sets amendments to state laws that might have a meliorative effect.

1. Amendments to state corporation law that would annul the charters of those extant tertiary institutions which are not subsidaries of other corporate bodies, and replace them with standard charters with the following provisions:

a. The Board of Trustees is to consist of between five and 21 members;

b. It is to be elected by a postal ballot of the alumni;

c. Candidates for positions on the board are to be nominated by petition or by payment of a deposit. There shall be no 'nominating committee';

d. The roll of electors is to be maintained by the local board of elections, county clerk, or secretary of state. Said official shall be responsible for mailing to all electors a prospectus composed of statements written by each candidate explaining their candidacy;

e. The ballots are to be tallied by said local authorities;

f. There shall be standard language in all charters, and mailed to every candidate for a position on a board, that it is the responsibility of the trustees to determine the educational mission of the school; that the exercise of such discrection includes deciding which disciplines the institution will and will not teach and what the institution's investment in each discipline will be; that the departmental faculties are no more competant than the trustees to superintend any matter outside the realm of the speciality of each department; and that neither the trustees nor their agents should delegate authority to elected committees of the faculty;

2. Amendments to state labor law which render any contract of employment enforceable for periods of no more than six years. After six years, a faculty member would have to be issued a new contract or would be terminable-at-will;

3. Amendments to state education law which

a. Scrap teacher certification requirements and shut down state teachers' colleges, allowing any displaced professor to readily find work at a secondary institution which will hire him;

b. Incorporate the following definition into the language of the statute, to be printed on a palm card given to every teacher hired at all levels, "Academic freedom is the liberty to affiliate with an institution which shares your goals. If you do not like it where you work, you are free to leave.".

As an attorney, and specifically as a prosecutor, I'm glad to see that MY profession at least does hold such outrages to account. Mike Nifong gets disbarred, but meanwhile, the academic lynchmob behind him is left to its own devices essentially untouched.

Art Deco, see Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 518 (1819), for why those ideas, while possibly good ideas as policy, would almost certainly be deemed unconstitutional impairment of the obligations of contract.

Contracts with whom, and with reference to which constitution?

Dorothy has continued the bad reporting in this long dismal affair that misconstrues Duke faculty interest in issues of campus life as a miscarriage of justice toward the now exonerated students. It would be great if the mob mentality ascribed to the so called Duke 88 was not so consistently and wrongly turned toward them. If Dorothy was interested in journalism, she might actually read the KC Johnson blog site and witness the incredibly offensive racist postings there --- and all the encouragement that readers get to send Duke faculty their invectives, including their email and sometimes home addresses. (But note, KC removes the most offensive racist commentaries quickly.) There are indeed many lessons to be learned, but Dorothy is simply copying from someone else's bad notes.

It's odd that a site that usually sides with groups like FIRE is asking for some sort of action to be taken against people for their speech. The faculty acted unethically, but they were well within their 1st Amendment rights. And let's not pretend that it was only the Duke faculty who made presumptions about guilt and innocence. Let's get nearly every CNN and Fox News talking head against the wall for consistently presuming guilt and innocence in ongoing investigations.

"The faculty acted unethically, but they were well within their 1st Amendment rights. And let's not pretend that it was only the Duke faculty who made presumptions about guilt and innocence. Let's get nearly every CNN and Fox News talking head against the wall for consistently presuming guilt and innocence in ongoing investigations."

The quote above by "Linval Thompson" is a typical misdirection argument in favor of the status quo. In case anyone reading these comments is unaware of it, the CNN and Fox talking heads are not university faculty members. There is no similarity between their jobs and responsibilities and those of the Duke 88. I'm no legal scholar, so I don't know how far within their 1st Amendment rights the Duke 88 were, but the university administration, in settling with the lacrosse players, seems to have had some concern about their condemnatory public comments. But maybe this is not so much a 1st Amendment issue as it is one of harassment of students, denial of due process, and incitement to hatred.

"Linval Thompson" appears obsessed with ACTA and Critical Mass. No matter how benign the subject (e.g. The business of poetry), LT can't seem to help itself from posting some sneering comment that fails to actually address the issue at hand. The call for a more rational, less PC campus environment makes LT just a little nuts. And I like that.

Art Deco, part of the premise of the holding in the Dartmouth College case is that a corporate charter is, among other things, a contract between the sovereign and the shareholders in the corporation (even when the sovereign is successor-in-interest to the original party to the contract, as New Hampshire had succeded to the contractual obligations of the Crown upon independence). Modern state corporate statutes contain reservations allowing the legislature to alter many things retrospectively after a corporation is incorporated, but a corporation that predates the adoption of those reservations is going to be insulated from them. As for what constitution, it's the federal constitution: the Contracts Clause is expressly binding on the states.

Linval, how is Duke University bound by the First Amendment? Last I checked it was a private institution, not a state actor.

Good point, David J. (Are you the same David J from Bauhaus and Love and Rockets?)

I mean, so long as it's anybody besides the gov't punishing you for your ideas, we're all good. That way, Duke can punish people for all sorts of ideas.

Dave J.

I put the question to you because just ten years ago the State Board of Regents in New York deposed the Board of Trustees of Adelphi University for (among other things) the compensation package awarded the institution's president. Another institution here in New York is in danger of closing due to the unwillingness of the Board of Regents to renew its charter for aught but a probationary period. (The institution in question has aroused the ire of Regent John Brademas for obscure reasons, and he has offered a number of pretexts as to why the institution's charter should not be renewed).

You appear to be referring to provisions of charters issued in the early 19th century, well antedating the incorporation of a comfortable majority of tertiary institutions today.

I would wonder how many of these antique charters have any of the following provisions:

a. Guaranteeing an exemption from direct taxation.

b. Guaranteeing the privilege of receipt of public subventions on a par with other institutions.