Amended lacrosse suit harsher on Duke trustee

DURHAM -- Three unindicted Duke University lacrosse players have amended their federal civil-rights lawsuit against the school and the city, sharpening their attack on the school's top trustee and levying new allegations of misconduct against city officials.

The filing on behalf of current or former players Breck Archer, Ryan McFadyen and Matt Wilson came late last week.

In it, attorney Bob Ekstrand alleged that Duke trustees Chairman Robert Steel controlled the school's response to an exotic dancer's false charge that she'd been raped by three members of the 2005-06 lacrosse team.

His decisions among other things prompted the Duke University Police Department to step aside and let Durham police control the investigation, even though the party that sparked the stripper's charge occurred on school property, Ekstrand said.

Steel also had Duke line up behind the public-relations campaign that police and former District Attorney Mike Nifong mounted against the lacrosse team to protect the school's image, Ekstrand contended.

He believed Duke's interests "were best served if [team members] were tried and convicted" on charges stemming from the stripper's allegations, even though a miscarriage of justice was "occurring in plain view," Ekstrand said.

Steel was fully briefed, so he knew the charges were false, the stripper was mentally ill, that police and Nifong were lying and that by distancing itself from the players, Duke would feed the public's perception of their guilt, Ekstrand said.

(from the latest amended complaint)

ALLEGED :

XVII. THE CHAIRMAN’S DIRECTIVE
(Robert Steel)

451. The Chairman knew Plaintiffs were innocent, and, to the extent he was not certain, he ensured that neither he nor any senior University officials saw the evidence of innocence that he knew was offered.

452. To the Chairman, Plaintiffs’ innocence was irrelevant: what was “best for Duke” turned upon perception.

453. Aware of these things, the Chairman announced that it would be “best for Duke” if Plaintiffs were tried and convicted on Mangum’s false accusations.

454. In response to a plea for Duke to show some measure of support for the students who were being framed in plain view of the University’s leadership, the Chairman explained, “sometimes individuals have to be sacrificed for the good of the Organization.”

455. The Chairman’s Directive, as it was understood by one who received it, was straightforward: “Steel is going to f**k those lacrosse players.”

XVIII. THE CONSPIRACY TO CONCEAL THE DUKE POLICE DEPARTMENT’S STATUTORY AUTHORITY TO INTERVENE AND INVESTIGATE

456. To that end, the Chairman directed the Duke Police Department to act in furtherance of that objective. For example, the Chairman, through Brodhead, Trask, Burness, and Graves, directed the Duke Police Department:

A. To cease all efforts to find evidence of the truth, particularly evidence that contradicted the accuser’s account;

B. To conceal evidence of Duke Police Officers’ prior investigative role in the investigation;

C. To conceal all evidence of the Duke Police Department’s primary jurisdictional authority to control the investigation and its power to intervene to prevent the wrongs conspired to be done;

D. To fabricate false and misleading police reports, disguise them as bystander
“witness” statements, that covered-up the Duke Police witnesses’ personal knowledge of Mangum’s psychosis, her radically changing story, the overwhelming consensus among her doctors and nurses at DUMC that she was lying, and the inability of any doctor, nurse, or police officer to find even a spider-web of evidence that she was raped or sexually assaulted; and

E. To direct those who were at the hospital on March 14th to give “not-for attribution” false reports about Mangum’s appearance at DUMC in order to lend credibility to Mangum’s false claims in the eyes of the public.

457. At all times subsequent to the Chairman’s Directive to force a trial and convictions, the Duke Police Department had the power to revoke its delegated authority and/or to intervene to prevent or aid in preventing the unlawful conspiracies and violations of Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights as alleged herein, and, yet, refused to do so.

http://download.yousendit.com/E657D2DA0331FE65 (486 pages)

I hope those boys tear Duke’s collective ass up.

... and the Gang of 88 leftwing weasel academics, including Kim Curtis.

Here's the academia babe who was charged with engaging in "outrageous and unethical conduct" with regard to the Kyle Dowd grade in retribution for being a white lacrosse player on a PC campus..

Kim F Curtis, Visiting Assistant Professor

Contact Info:

Office Location:
Office Phone:	+1 919 660 4300
Email Address:	kcurtis@acpub.duke.edu

Education:: PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1991; BA, San Francisco State University, 1979

Research Interests:: Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science,specializes in political theory with particular concentration in contemporary continental work and feminist theory. She has written Our Sense of the Real: Aesthetic Experience and Arendtian Politics. She has also published articles on multicultural education, ethical debates among feminists over new reproductive technologies, and the early women's liberation movement. She is currently at work on a book on the feminist movement in the United States that examines the relationship between theory and practice.

Curriculum Vitae

Recent Publications (More Publications)

K.F. Curtis, Rapture and Rupture: Ruminations on Enclave Politics, Political Oblivion, and the Need for Recognition in the Early Women's Liberation Movement, Constellations (Submitted, final stages of review) .
K.F. Curtis, "Aesthetic Experience and the Public Sphere", in Zwischen Forum and Basar (2001), Graz, Austria: Forum Stadpark .
K.F. Curtis, "Free Speech Under Attack", The News & Observer (October 24, 2001) .
K.F. Curtis, "Multicultural Education and Arendtian Conservatism: Memory, Historical Injury and Our Sense of the Common", in Preserving Our Common World: Essays on Hannah Arendt and Education, edited by Mordechai Gordon (2001), Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press .
K.F. Curtis, Our Sense of the Real: Aesthetic Experience and Arendtian Politics (1999), Ithaca: Cornell University Press .

Durham Native Robert Steel Elected Chair of Duke Trustees

Steel is the first Durham native to chair the board since Duke became a university in 1924

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Durham, N.C. — Duke University alumnus Robert K. Steel has been elected chair of the Duke University Board of Trustees, effective July 1, school officials announced Saturday.

Steel, the first Durham native to chair the board since Duke became a university in 1924, has served as vice chair since July 2000. He chaired the 19-member presidential search committee whose recommendation led to the board’s selection in December 2003 of Richard H. Brodhead as Duke’s ninth president.

Steel succeeds Peter M. Nicholas, who has served as board chair since July 2003. First elected as a trustee in 1993, Nicholas will retire from the board on June 30.

“Bob will be a terrific chairman of the board,” said Nicholas, the co-founder and chairman of Boston Scientific Corp. “He is well-versed on all the critical issues at Duke, has been a key contributor to all major decisions taken at the executive committee over the past few years and has outstanding relationships with trustees, faculty and administrators. Further, Bob has all his life been professionally associated with a leadership enterprise and knows first-hand what excellence is all about.”

Steel retired as vice chairman of Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York City in February 2004 and currently serves as advisory director for the firm. He teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and serves with organizations that include the NationalHumanitiesCenter, The After-School Corp. and the Aspen Institute.

He received his bachelor of arts degree from Duke in 1973, majoring in history and political science, and earned his master’s in business administration from the University of Chicago in 1984. He has maintained strong ties with Duke through activities that include chairing the Duke Management Company (DUMAC), the university’s investment arm, and serving on the trustees’ Academic Affairs Committee and health system board of directors.

Steel and his wife, Gillian, have three daughters and live in Greenwich, Conn. He grew up near Duke’s East Campus and attended Durham public schools before enrolling at Duke. His mother, Elizabeth Steel, and late father, Charles Steel III, also attended Duke.

“Duke has grown and achieved in so many ways since I left as a student [and] we need to maintain our commitment to creative excellence in all of the university’s activities,” he said. “I look forward to working with President Brodhead and his team, and with faculty leaders and the rest of the Duke community to further strengthen Duke’s leadership in higher education. I’m very fortunate to follow Pete Nicholas, who has guided the board so ably and, along with his wife Ginny, been so generous personally to the university.”

In its election Saturday, Duke’s Board of Trustees also selected Karl M. von der Heyden, the former vice chairman of the board of directors of PepsiCo, Inc., as vice chair. Previously, von der Heyden was co-chairman and chief executive officer for RJR Nabisco, and held leadership positions at H.J. Heinz Co., Metallgesellschaft Corp., Pitney Bowes and other firms.

A native of Berlin, Germany, von der Heyden attended the Free University of Berlin. He graduated from Duke in 1962 and obtained an MBA degree from the WhartonSchool of the University of Pennsylvania in 1964. He and his wife Mary Ellen have two children, one of whom, Ellen von der Heyden Gillespie, is a graduate of Duke. The von der Heydens live in Greenwich, Conn., and New York City.

Elected to Duke’s board in 1995, von der Heyden is a member of the Executive Committee and chairs the Business and Finance Committee. He also serves on several other corporate and philanthropic boards.

The board also elected N. Allison Haltom, a vice president and officer of the university, to continue her service as university secretary.

John Burness

Office of Public Affairs and Government Relations

T: (919) 681-3788

Email: john.burness@duke.edu

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