INC NEWS - Sheehan column: Duke team's silence is sickening (N&O)

[John Schelp]

Column: Team's silence is sickening
Ruth Sheehan, 27 March 2006 (News & Observer)

Members of the Duke men's lacrosse team: You know.
We know you know.

Whatever happened in the bathroom at the stripper
party gone terribly terribly bad, you know who was
involved. Every one of you does.

And one of you needs to come forward and tell the
police.

Do not be afraid of retribution on the team. Do not be
persuaded that somehow this "happened" to one or more
"good guys."

If what the strippers say is true -- that one of them
was raped, sodomized, beaten and strangled -- the guys
responsible are not "good."

This seems an elementary statement, I know.

But I can see loyal team members sitting around
convincing themselves that it would be disloyal to
turn on their teammates -- why, the guys who were
involved were just a little "over the top." In real
life, they're funny. They call their mothers once a
week. They share class notes with friends. They attend
church.

On this night, they were just a little too drunk, a
little too "worked up." It was a scene straight out of
"I am Charlotte Simmons" by Tom Wolfe. Indicative of
the times.

The alleged racial epithets slung at the strippers,
who were black? Those were just ... jokes. Ditto for
the ugly remarks overheard by a neighbor: "Thank your
grandpa for my cotton shirt." Har, har.

After all, these guys are not just Duke students, but
student athletes. The collegiate dream.

And the women? They were... strippers, for Pete's
sake.

I can see the team going down this path, justifying
its silence. And it makes me sick.

Because, of all the occupational hazards that must
come with stripping, one of them should not be rape.
And no, forced sex by a hunky prep student doesn't
make it better.

Unfortunately, because the team members are students
at such a fine university, there is a tendency to
presume that this was an aberration. That these
players are "good guys."

I see it in the references to the "Animal House"
atmosphere allowed to flourish at the team captains'
house.

I sense it in the "dismay" expressed by athletics
director Joe Alleva over the "situation" -- the hiring
of the strippers and the (shocking!) serving of
alcohol to underage teammates.

But drunken parties are one thing. The implication
that this event, if true, is somehow a bash that "got
out of hand" is just plain wrong.

Rape is not part of a spectrum of behavior, the
regrettable end game when testosterone and beer are
ignited by a shaking booty and fanned into flames by
the larger team's permission.

No. Rape is a crime. A very serious one.

Those who commit it are criminals, not "good guys."

I don't know what happened in that house, and in that
bathroom, over in Durham. Ultimately, that will be a
matter for the court system to decide. But who was in
that room is something the police need to know. Now.

They shouldn't have to wait for 46 DNA samples to be
returned.

Every member of the men's lacrosse team knows who was
involved, whether it was gang rape or not.

Until the team members come forward with that
information, forfeiting games isn't enough.

Shut down the team.