One of the worst aspects of the Duke horror is how it has brought out all these academic experts wielding their “theories” of race, gender, and class, and acting as if they have some deep-rooted understanding of the case unavailable to the average citizen. Not only are these analyses spurious but they take the focus off the specifics of the situation into some meta-reality where these forces operate independent of facts. So it was in the Tawana Brawley hoax years ago, when some experts excused the dreadful ordeal of the man she falsely accused because the mistreatment she claimed she had received from him was supposedly typical of how black women have suffered at the hands of white men in the past. Likewise now, the imagined scenario of privileged white boys humiliating and assaulting a poor young black woman has taken on a life of its own, a life that stands to survive even the likely exoneration of the three defendants. In addition, some students and other onlookers are relishing the whole thing as a form of racial revenge, a blameworthy attitude to which they would probably not admit in the absence of the kind of popularized academic theorizing that has encouraged it, explicitly or implicitly.
The main way the modern theories of “race, gender, and class” figured in the case is that Nifong saw an opportunity to take meretricious advantage of politically correct sensitivities on those issues and to forego the demands of justice and the rule of law. The faculty and their insinuating ads, blowing up the situation into a generalized experience of discimination, exploitation, and inequality before the facts were in, force us to see how elemental aspects of our civic culture, like the presumption of innocence, are being displaced by generalized theories based on politicized group analysis. It’s ironic too, because it used to be liberals, in such plays and films as Twelve Angry Men, who were eager to expose how bias and cultural prejudices interfered with the proper handling of legal cases. Perhaps one day someone can make an instructive play about this case, and make people not only see but feel the noxiousness of theories divorced from life.
The Latest

San Francisco Mayor Criticizes Renaming of Schools while Students Continue Remote Learning
Students in San Francisco public schools have been learning remotely since the coronavirus pandemic forced a nationwide shutdown in March 2020.

Senate Republicans Take an Early Off-Ramp on Impeachment
By embracing a dubious legal theory, the Senate GOP sets a bad precedent and keeps Trump as the 2024 GOP front-runner.

Supreme Court Could Decide: Who Gets to Tax Remote Workers?
States shouldn’t demand money from people who live and work elsewhere.

Chuck Schumer Begs Joe Biden to Take Power from Congress
All while using a ‘climate emergency’ as the pretext.

John Kerry Suggests Oil Workers Laid Off Due to Biden Policies Should Make Solar Panels
The White House climate czar made his comments during a press briefing at the White House on Wednesday.

A Reply to the Federalist on Impeachment and Mob Rule
The argument for Trump’s acquittal is, in essence, the argument of nihilism and despair.