Institutional Failures: Duke Lacrosse, Universities, the News Media, and the Legal System ed. by Howard M. Wasserman (review)

In March 2006, allegations that several White Duke University lacrosse players raped an African American stripper created a sensationalized journalistic storm focused on the ills of intercollegiate athletics, the town-gown animosity in economically and racially segregated Durham, and the actions of an unscrupulous district attorney railroading a case in an effort to be reelected. But with that scandal came a fruitful laboratory for studying higher education by uncovering the cultural practices among student-athletes and the organizational structures at play when the administration was forced to decide the fate of the accused students, the men's lacrosse coach, and the entire lacrosse team. Howard Wasserman, editor of Institutional Failures: Duke Lacrosse, Universities, the News Media, and the Legal System, assembled a diverse group of contributors—law professors, historians, journalists, and scholars of media—to examine the Duke lacrosse scandal from multiple angles, creating in the process an interesting—and much needed—holistic approach to studying the case.

However, unfortunately for a higher education audience, I found that the book missed the opportunity to discuss some of the more interesting institutional factors shaping the case. The contributors focused nearly exclusively on the actions of an outspoken group of faculty known as the "Group of 88" yet seemed to gloss over the actions of the university president, provost, and athletic director—all key figures in the case. (The "Group of 88" is faculty members who signed a statement published in the campus newspaper early in the scandal condemning the lacrosse players for their role in the alleged assault on the stripper.)

I found fascinating a discussion (unfortunately, toward the end of the book) about how Duke has, only in the last couple of decades, altered its profile as a private regional college to world-renowned research university and national athletic powerhouse, how the role of the faculty athletic council had become quite powerful on campus, and how an internal report issued before the scandal warned that the culture of athletics on the Duke campus was outpacing and outgrowing the stature of academics. I believe that, had Wasserman recruited a higher education scholar's contributions, the book could have explored the rapid changes occurring at Duke and the undergirding cultural beliefs that led to the polarized reactions from faculty and students on the Duke campus.

I found many of the chapters redundant the further into the book I read. In addition to this lack of diversity among the contributors' ideas, it also lacked depth in its research and theoretical base. In several instances, contributors were cross-referencing and citing the works of fellow contributors. In the legal section of the book, too much attention was given to the civil liability the faculty in the Group of 88 could face for unjustly labeling the accused players as rapists, a claim that the contributors acknowledge will most likely fail in court. One of the media experts also asserted that Duke had a legal duty to create a counter-public relations campaign to protect the students during the height of the scandal. I am not aware that such legal justification exists, nor did the contributor provide one.

One of the chapters, however, did a good job of examining the pervasiveness of prosecutorial misconduct. Apparently the sanctioning and disbarment of the district attorney assigned to the Duke case is quite uncommon. And more unfortunately, as was pointed out, impoverished defendants usually are wrongfully imprisoned because, unlike the Duke athletes, they do not have the resources to hire attorneys who will doggedly investigate thoroughly enough to uncover unethical behavior on the part of the state.

Another chapter addressed the interesting theory of groupthink and its dangers in a situation such as the one at Duke. Though this is an interesting angle to explore (even though it unfortunately failed to focus its application on key players in the upper administration), the discussion zeroed...