No, not a Duke alumn, just found the case very interesting. I'm an alumn from a couple different schools, the last being American University.
I'd agree with you on the freedom of speech thing. Certainly, the professors have all freedom of speech. However, they are in a line of work in which they are supposed to look out FOR their students. I think that any professor that is willing to rush to judgement about a student isn't worthy of being a 'teacher' a 'mentor' or an 'advisor.' They need to go write their own blog, and make a living on something besides student's tuition dollars. I don't think that freedom of speech covers violations of the central tenants of being in a student-teacher relationship. So while they can sign on and print any ad they want, I think that they need to be in different line of work. I think the signers should face departmental repremand, which won't ever happen, since the truth of the story violated the larger, and to them, more important meta-narrative this case was supposed to fit into.
I think the Johnson book is a really good read, but kinda repetitive if you had been keeping up with the case.
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