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A Rush to Injustice: How Power, Prejudice, Racism, and Political Correctness Overshawdowed Truth and Justice in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case
A behind-the-scenes account of the Duke lacrosse rape case from primary sources sheds light on the real victims in the case and highlights the wrongful actions made by the Durham District Attorney, including keeping exculpatory DNA evidence a secret.
260 pages, Hardcover
First published June 5, 2007
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July 31, 2008
My dad wrote this book! It's about the Duke lacrosse rape case. I never thought my dad would write a book, but he did an excellent job! The real cover is different from what it shows here, though.
March 22, 2025
I feel slightly bad saying this, seeing as his daughter wrote a review and might see this, but I am always honest in my reviews.
This book is garbage.
Yes, it does tell the story of the Duke Lacrosse rape case, but unfortunately in an extremely slanted and problematic view.
I will start by saying: what happened to the players was disgusting, an absolute tragedy, it should never have happened. The DA was a corrupt jackass who was clearly only concerned with trying to win an election, even if the cost of his win was that innocent people would get put in prison for a crime that never even occurred. I agree with him there, completely. It's just the rest of what he wrote that is garbage.
I was honestly surprised, because while I read the sub-title, I saw the 'Power, Prejudice, and Racism' part and went "yep yep yep", and somehow that caused me to miss the red flag: "Political Correctness", which changes the interpretation of the previous words. So, I was not expecting the backwards direction the book went, including all the thinly veiled sexism, racism, and prejudice (and no, not the racism or prejudice that the author thinks that occurred against the young privileged white men who were wrongly accused).
There were even more issues, but I honestly just gave up on noting all of them, but here are some:
- Describing women by including how many children they have, but never once is a man who is mentioned described as a father of 'x' amount of children. Subtle, but sexist.
- "....three young men who have been drinking and have lost their senses to the point where they rape a woman..." Or, hear me out, just rapists. I know they were innocent in this case, but the sentence is in the context of if it had occurred, and it's pretty disgusting to try to describe a rape in language that is downplaying the rape and their actions, blaming it on alcohol making them lose their senses, rather than, you know, rapists raping women with no "excuse" as to why.
- I'll just leave this quote here, no commentary necessary:
"The biggest mistake that these kids made, in my opinion, was putting themselves in the position where something like this could happen to them... it should come as no surprise that women who are willing to do that for money at a party full of strangers might not be individuals of the highest moral character, and that they just might cause bad things to happen at the party."
- These are super upstanding athletes, nice young men, all the lovely adjectives you could come up to describe them, that he thinks could not possibly have even said anything problematic or racist or anything like that on the night in question, whose only mistake was in hiring strippers (who he has already insinuated are obviously super shitty people simply because they take their clothes off for money). Those super upstanding young men include this gem of a guy, who said this in an email sent out to his lacrosse pals, which we can kind of assume was normal behaviour amongst them that was not in no way concerning to any of them, shortly after the party: "I plan on killing the bitches as soon as they walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex". Now, I'm not trying to insinuate he was serious in his description, but nevertheless, the fact that you think saying that is in any way humorous or okay is fucking concerning. Yes, again, these guys were innocent, but let's not gloss over the social and cultural climate in which this case happened, and ignore it as though it did not contribute to the problem that led to them being accused and assumed guilty. Hint: it was not racism and prejudice against privileged young, white men that led to it. It was stuff like this. And like Brock Turner. And like Ethan Couch. And the gross culture of American sports worship. And real racism and prejudice (and no, I don't believe that people can't be racist against white people, they absolutely can, but the problem in this case was not that, it was the enduring legacy of systematic racism against black people that resulted in this situation).
- In reference to the above email, which he refers to as a "joke", he brings up another email sent to Coach Pressler, which read: "What if Janet Lynn were next???", referring to the coach's daughter. He finds it wrong that the "joke" email caused the student who sent it to be suspended, but that email, which he calls "an implied threat", did not cause any disciplinary action. Dude, are you caught up in your own bias that you can't be objective about anything? The email to the Coach was fairly clearly not an implied threat, no one was threatening to go rape the Coach's daughter, it was clearly a comment about how the Coach might feel differently if it was his daughter who was violated. While I think it's obvious the student who sent the other email was not serious about committing a murder, it also was just obviously wildly inappropriate, unseemly, disturbing, and not funny. Jokes are supposed to be funny. Discussing murdering and skinning women while cumming in your pants is a fine example of the cultural problem permeating men's sports.
- "I believe that a gang rape did occur at Duke University, and it did begin on the night of March 13, 2006..." can you see where he is going with this? I'm sorry for what the wrongly accused went through, but it's fucking disgusting for you, without any apparently irony, to compare it to a gang rape. He also goes on to basically paint the response of anyone in connection to the university who supported the woman who made the accusation of brainwashing students against white men, as he says of "trying to install in the young minds of their students... that racism and sexism are still alive and thriving". Yes? I mean, they are. Here we go with the accusations that higher education is actually liberal brainwashing against white men. *Eye roll* Bonus points for him referring to the public response against the accused as "verbal lynching". Could he be any less self aware? Did he really think he was going to successfully hide his sexism and racism, and then go ahead and use phrases like that without even realizing? But yes, according to him, the reaction of taking the side of the assumed victim in response to the accusations was "about a deep-seated hatred for white people". Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?
- Oh wait, not done with the racism claims yet! "...the boys were the ones who were terrorized, and not just by a black exotic dancer who made false allegations against them (*note from me: better put her in place with your pointed description! You could not just have called her the accuser)..."the multitude of racial slurs that Evans, Finnerty, and Seligmann have received merely because they were white". I'm sure being called cracker really hurt their feelings. I mean, it in no way compares to the verbal abuse Black people have endured, but yes, I'm sure that was awful. I mean, being called a rapist is probably worse, but you need to make sure everyone knows that racism against privileged white people happens. It was when I got to the chapter entitled "The Silence of White Rape" that I realized that he really just decided to go for go the gold with his claims, no holds barred. Hey, maybe, just maybe, you completely missed the point, when the other rape occurred, it was not treated differently simply because it was a white girl was who was raped by a Black offender, that the situation with the other rape was completely different for other reasons, including because the student in this situation was the victim, the accused was not a student and it did not involved multiple offenders and toxic sports culture, and that you completely missed the way in which they were similar: the school didn't stand behind their students, regardless of whether they were the accuser or the accused.
- "Her unbridled disdain for them made me wonder what might have happened in her own life to make her so bitter." (Oh fuck you!) and after he goes on to describe himself as a "compassionate man" (as long as the compassion is for the right kind of people, I don't think I need to tell you a description of who that might be) "I did some research..." yeah, you say that a few times, like you are real proud of it. So I did some research too! Guess what I found out about you? That you've done some sneaky shit during your legal career that you got in trouble for breaking the law yourself, for trying to hide money for a client from his wife (hmmm), and illegally skirting around the bank's reporting laws for deposits. I also see you were accused of being ineffective counsel a few times. Interesting what some research will do.
The author demonstrates his own bias right in the beginning when he sees one of the accused speaking and states, "Wow, this is amazing. That kid is absolutely telling the truth." Yes, it turns out he was, so maybe you don't realize how biased you sound that all you need to do is hear a well-spoken white privileged young man say he is innocent and you just believe it, without at that point knowing of the evidence that will prove that. Hypocrisy at it's finest, since his major issue seems to be with people taking the accuser's side before knowing all the evidence. Also, for a lawyer, he should understand that "innocent until proven guilty" is a LEGAL concept, and does not apply to general society. Society is not obligated to learn all the facts first, and considering the history of justice for rape and sexual assault, and the fact that it's often difficult or impossible to prove and never even gets as far as the accused being charged, it's pretty easy to understand why people tend to side with the potential victim in these cases, because most allegations are true, whether they are provable and chargeable or not.
He states that his "only agenda is seeking out the truth"... are you sure of that Mr. Baydoun? I think it's pretty clear what your agenda is.
He ends it by stating that "...this whole sordid affair should have, among other things, sent a clear message to women that there are situations that they should avoid, especially where they may be putting themselves at risk."
Thanks for the victim blaming, it's never the men's fault when they attack women, it's always somehow the woman's fault, right? Poor men drink and "lose control of themselves", rather than make a decision to actively rape, and why did the woman put herself in that situation to begin with? They should learn not to put themselves in the situation where they might get raped. You know, the situation where women exist, and men view their bodies as something they violate for their own pleasure whenever they feel like it - drunk, sober, conscious or unconscious, babies or the elderly, stripper, teacher, or nun, dressed in a burka or in a mini skirt, in a dark alley, in a nightclub, in a church, at school, it doesn't matter, men always feel entitled to women's bodies, and it's always somehow our fault when they take what we don't give them willingly.
By the way, it's called a speculum, not a "spectrum".
This book is garbage.
Yes, it does tell the story of the Duke Lacrosse rape case, but unfortunately in an extremely slanted and problematic view.
I will start by saying: what happened to the players was disgusting, an absolute tragedy, it should never have happened. The DA was a corrupt jackass who was clearly only concerned with trying to win an election, even if the cost of his win was that innocent people would get put in prison for a crime that never even occurred. I agree with him there, completely. It's just the rest of what he wrote that is garbage.
I was honestly surprised, because while I read the sub-title, I saw the 'Power, Prejudice, and Racism' part and went "yep yep yep", and somehow that caused me to miss the red flag: "Political Correctness", which changes the interpretation of the previous words. So, I was not expecting the backwards direction the book went, including all the thinly veiled sexism, racism, and prejudice (and no, not the racism or prejudice that the author thinks that occurred against the young privileged white men who were wrongly accused).
There were even more issues, but I honestly just gave up on noting all of them, but here are some:
- Describing women by including how many children they have, but never once is a man who is mentioned described as a father of 'x' amount of children. Subtle, but sexist.
- "....three young men who have been drinking and have lost their senses to the point where they rape a woman..." Or, hear me out, just rapists. I know they were innocent in this case, but the sentence is in the context of if it had occurred, and it's pretty disgusting to try to describe a rape in language that is downplaying the rape and their actions, blaming it on alcohol making them lose their senses, rather than, you know, rapists raping women with no "excuse" as to why.
- I'll just leave this quote here, no commentary necessary:
"The biggest mistake that these kids made, in my opinion, was putting themselves in the position where something like this could happen to them... it should come as no surprise that women who are willing to do that for money at a party full of strangers might not be individuals of the highest moral character, and that they just might cause bad things to happen at the party."
- These are super upstanding athletes, nice young men, all the lovely adjectives you could come up to describe them, that he thinks could not possibly have even said anything problematic or racist or anything like that on the night in question, whose only mistake was in hiring strippers (who he has already insinuated are obviously super shitty people simply because they take their clothes off for money). Those super upstanding young men include this gem of a guy, who said this in an email sent out to his lacrosse pals, which we can kind of assume was normal behaviour amongst them that was not in no way concerning to any of them, shortly after the party: "I plan on killing the bitches as soon as they walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex". Now, I'm not trying to insinuate he was serious in his description, but nevertheless, the fact that you think saying that is in any way humorous or okay is fucking concerning. Yes, again, these guys were innocent, but let's not gloss over the social and cultural climate in which this case happened, and ignore it as though it did not contribute to the problem that led to them being accused and assumed guilty. Hint: it was not racism and prejudice against privileged young, white men that led to it. It was stuff like this. And like Brock Turner. And like Ethan Couch. And the gross culture of American sports worship. And real racism and prejudice (and no, I don't believe that people can't be racist against white people, they absolutely can, but the problem in this case was not that, it was the enduring legacy of systematic racism against black people that resulted in this situation).
- In reference to the above email, which he refers to as a "joke", he brings up another email sent to Coach Pressler, which read: "What if Janet Lynn were next???", referring to the coach's daughter. He finds it wrong that the "joke" email caused the student who sent it to be suspended, but that email, which he calls "an implied threat", did not cause any disciplinary action. Dude, are you caught up in your own bias that you can't be objective about anything? The email to the Coach was fairly clearly not an implied threat, no one was threatening to go rape the Coach's daughter, it was clearly a comment about how the Coach might feel differently if it was his daughter who was violated. While I think it's obvious the student who sent the other email was not serious about committing a murder, it also was just obviously wildly inappropriate, unseemly, disturbing, and not funny. Jokes are supposed to be funny. Discussing murdering and skinning women while cumming in your pants is a fine example of the cultural problem permeating men's sports.
- "I believe that a gang rape did occur at Duke University, and it did begin on the night of March 13, 2006..." can you see where he is going with this? I'm sorry for what the wrongly accused went through, but it's fucking disgusting for you, without any apparently irony, to compare it to a gang rape. He also goes on to basically paint the response of anyone in connection to the university who supported the woman who made the accusation of brainwashing students against white men, as he says of "trying to install in the young minds of their students... that racism and sexism are still alive and thriving". Yes? I mean, they are. Here we go with the accusations that higher education is actually liberal brainwashing against white men. *Eye roll* Bonus points for him referring to the public response against the accused as "verbal lynching". Could he be any less self aware? Did he really think he was going to successfully hide his sexism and racism, and then go ahead and use phrases like that without even realizing? But yes, according to him, the reaction of taking the side of the assumed victim in response to the accusations was "about a deep-seated hatred for white people". Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?
- Oh wait, not done with the racism claims yet! "...the boys were the ones who were terrorized, and not just by a black exotic dancer who made false allegations against them (*note from me: better put her in place with your pointed description! You could not just have called her the accuser)..."the multitude of racial slurs that Evans, Finnerty, and Seligmann have received merely because they were white". I'm sure being called cracker really hurt their feelings. I mean, it in no way compares to the verbal abuse Black people have endured, but yes, I'm sure that was awful. I mean, being called a rapist is probably worse, but you need to make sure everyone knows that racism against privileged white people happens. It was when I got to the chapter entitled "The Silence of White Rape" that I realized that he really just decided to go for go the gold with his claims, no holds barred. Hey, maybe, just maybe, you completely missed the point, when the other rape occurred, it was not treated differently simply because it was a white girl was who was raped by a Black offender, that the situation with the other rape was completely different for other reasons, including because the student in this situation was the victim, the accused was not a student and it did not involved multiple offenders and toxic sports culture, and that you completely missed the way in which they were similar: the school didn't stand behind their students, regardless of whether they were the accuser or the accused.
- "Her unbridled disdain for them made me wonder what might have happened in her own life to make her so bitter." (Oh fuck you!) and after he goes on to describe himself as a "compassionate man" (as long as the compassion is for the right kind of people, I don't think I need to tell you a description of who that might be) "I did some research..." yeah, you say that a few times, like you are real proud of it. So I did some research too! Guess what I found out about you? That you've done some sneaky shit during your legal career that you got in trouble for breaking the law yourself, for trying to hide money for a client from his wife (hmmm), and illegally skirting around the bank's reporting laws for deposits. I also see you were accused of being ineffective counsel a few times. Interesting what some research will do.
The author demonstrates his own bias right in the beginning when he sees one of the accused speaking and states, "Wow, this is amazing. That kid is absolutely telling the truth." Yes, it turns out he was, so maybe you don't realize how biased you sound that all you need to do is hear a well-spoken white privileged young man say he is innocent and you just believe it, without at that point knowing of the evidence that will prove that. Hypocrisy at it's finest, since his major issue seems to be with people taking the accuser's side before knowing all the evidence. Also, for a lawyer, he should understand that "innocent until proven guilty" is a LEGAL concept, and does not apply to general society. Society is not obligated to learn all the facts first, and considering the history of justice for rape and sexual assault, and the fact that it's often difficult or impossible to prove and never even gets as far as the accused being charged, it's pretty easy to understand why people tend to side with the potential victim in these cases, because most allegations are true, whether they are provable and chargeable or not.
He states that his "only agenda is seeking out the truth"... are you sure of that Mr. Baydoun? I think it's pretty clear what your agenda is.
He ends it by stating that "...this whole sordid affair should have, among other things, sent a clear message to women that there are situations that they should avoid, especially where they may be putting themselves at risk."
Thanks for the victim blaming, it's never the men's fault when they attack women, it's always somehow the woman's fault, right? Poor men drink and "lose control of themselves", rather than make a decision to actively rape, and why did the woman put herself in that situation to begin with? They should learn not to put themselves in the situation where they might get raped. You know, the situation where women exist, and men view their bodies as something they violate for their own pleasure whenever they feel like it - drunk, sober, conscious or unconscious, babies or the elderly, stripper, teacher, or nun, dressed in a burka or in a mini skirt, in a dark alley, in a nightclub, in a church, at school, it doesn't matter, men always feel entitled to women's bodies, and it's always somehow our fault when they take what we don't give them willingly.
By the way, it's called a speculum, not a "spectrum".
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