As Durham, North Carolina District Attorney Mike Nifong headed to trial on ethics charges, Duke alum Nader Baydoun, coauthor of the new book The Rush to Injustice: How Power, Prejudice, Racism, and Political Correctness Overshadowed Truth and Justice in the Duke Lacrosse Case, took questions from National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez about the Duke lacrosse fiasco and the lives it forever changed.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: I guess you won the award for first book from the Duke case out. Was that the goal?

Nader Baydoun: Our goal was to seek the truth and tell the whole story in a timely manner. We wanted to have the book ready to be released while the story was still in the news. We did not want this book to be about yesterday’s news, but we wanted to be accurate, truthful, fair, and tell the whole story.

Lopez: Who’s the bigger enemy in this case: DA Nifong or President Brodhead?

Baydoun: They are both guilty of mishandling the situation in their own way, but much of this travesty could have been avoided had Nifong handled this case properly. Nifong’s misconduct led to a tidal wave of extreme political correctness which caused Mr. Brodhead to make knee jerk reaction decisions out of fear for the image of the school rather than doing what is right.

Lopez: Can anything good be said about Mike Nifong?

Baydoun: I cannot think of anything good that could be said about Mr. Nifong. What he did was deplorable and is an embarrassment to the legal community, the criminal-justice system, and society as a whole.

Lopez: What do you say to folks who even knowing some of the prosecutorial wrongs don’t have excessive empathy for guys who were stupid enough to call strippers to their keg party serving underage boys?

Baydoun: I am a parent of three children, two of whom are still in college. While I do not condone underage drinking and the hiring of strippers to perform at parties, I do know that this type of thing took place back when I was at Duke and it still occurs on college campuses across the country to this day. I am incredulous that anyone would judge these young men so harshly that they would not have empathy for them under these circumstances. I would suggest that we should keep things in proper perspective. The ordeal that these young men were forced to endure is beyond any reasonable comparison with a bad decision made out of youthful indiscretion.

Lopez: You’re obviously impressed by Reade Seligmann, Colin Finnerty, and David Evans? Why? By what most?

Baydoun: Nifong could not have chosen three individuals who were less likely to commit the horrible crimes alleged by the accuser than these young men. Their records are exemplary. They are good students who have been regularly involved in community-service volunteer work in their spare time. Everyone that I interviewed about these young men spoke about them in glowing terms. I specifically recall David Evans’s statement that was televised nationally shortly after he was indicted. He was articulate, intelligent, and very poised. I was awed by the fact that a young man at this early age who had just been indicted for a crime that he did not commit could conduct himself in this manner under these circumstances. He faced the mob of television cameras knowing that many of them had been quick to condemn him and his two innocent teammates, and he carried himself with incredible strength and conviction in front of millions of people who were watching him on television. As he looked into the eyes of the cameras and spoke, I was convinced that he was telling the simple truth. What impressed me the most about all of these young men is the manner in which they dealt with this outrageous injustice. The dignity with which they conducted themselves throughout this ordeal is inspiring for us all. Even after they were finally declared innocent by the Roy Cooper, the attorney general for the State of North Carolina, they conducted themselves with grace and dignity when they were asked questions about the wrongdoers who had mistreated them.

Lopez: What’s your advice for schools? What did Duke do wrong that schools should watch to avoid?

Baydoun: A school should treat their students as if they were their own children. When students are accused of doing bad things, give them the true benefit of the doubt until you learn the truth, especially if they are assuring you that they are innocent. If you ultimately learn that they did, in fact, do something bad, then you deal with it appropriately. However, you stand by them and support them throughout the process, and you certainly do not abandon them or punish them prematurely. The Duke administrators in this case acted as if they were far more concerned about the image of the school when viewed in terms of extreme political correctness than they were about the welfare of the students with whom they had been entrusted. When something like this happens, a strong leader of a university should do what is right rather than react to the whims of race baiting, politically correct extremists. If a school does what is right, things will eventually work out for the best, and the school and its leaders will be seen in a more favorable light by others.

Lopez: Is Mike Pressler the fourth victim of this case?

Baydoun: Mike Pressler was certainly an innocent victim as well. The school administrators fired him in the same knee-jerk reaction manner. He was also made a sacrificial lamb by the school administrators.

Lopez: Did Duke to anything right?

Baydoun: The Duke administrators finally invited Reade Seligman and Collin Finnerty to reenroll at the school. However, this was too little, too late. I do not believe that they should have been suspended in the first place. In addition, the school administrators waited much too long to take this action.

Lopez: Any predictions in regard to the outcome of the Nifong trial?

Baydoun: It is likely that Mr. Nifong will at least lose his license to practice law — as he should.

Lopez: What will it take for the media to start ignoring Al Sharpton, who has yet again been exposed to be devoid of credibility?

Baydoun: It never ceases to amaze me that there is not more outrage and criticism by the media of people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. More intense criticism of these individuals is needed. It took a substantial amount of outrage and pressure from the media regarding the Imus statements to bring about his firing.