Part 3 - Inside the Duke Republican Club. The Chronicle discovers the story

✔ Fact Checker here. Moving away from my usual focus on our President, Trustees, administrators, governance, policies and procedures.

The thrust of this lawsuit is not a request to the student judiciary to revisit its decision from last spring.

That decision was unanimous on one point: Robinette did indeed suffer discrimination at the hands of his fellow Republicans after they found out he is gay.

That decision was 2-1 on another point: the Republicans did not act in concert under the banner of their campus club, and thus the club escaped responsibility and could retain student funding.

The new complaint builds, offering very substantial evidence of discrimination and harassment based upon sexual orientation AFTER the judicial decision.

It brings eight new plaintiffs to the table who have never been heard.

And it gives the justices new information that was unavailable before they voted.

Consider the allegations developed by the executive committee in a night-time meeting where they alone changed the bylaws to usurp all power from the general membership and then immediately ousted Robinette.

Robinette was charged with using club money for his own benefit. Or put more directly, stealing. With only 24 hours to prepare his judicial case as the semester ended, he could not offer what he now has in hand: an audit showing he performed his duties honestly. No money used nor missing.

The papers now before the judiciary -- the rather lengthy complaint that Fact Checker has gone thru word for word, and the sheaf of supporting e-mails and picture that FC has also studied -- establish that counts in the impeachment were pretextual as well. That is, an effort to hide true motive.

Loyal Readers, I hear you, you want another example.

There were allegations that Robinette failed to show leadership, to involve Duke with UNC. Perhaps the defendant who is the writer of at least two e-mails supporting his candidacy for state chair of college Republicans -- and who offered to put his name in nomination -- can explain how she changed her mind two weeks later and concluded he was a weak leader, just as the furor of Robinette's being gay reached a new crescendo within the GOP club.

It is unfortunate that the Chronicle did not quote at all from the supporting e-mails before the judiciary, and Fact Checker invites you to check out my blog if you have the stomach to start the day with vulgarity and hate.

Not only directed against gay people, the big tent of Duke Republicans brings together equal venom against blacks and Jews.

http://dukefactchecker.blogspot.com/2010/08/inside-duke-republican-club-...

I could tell you some of the things in my blog, but the Chronicle for sure would take it down. It's nasty. Homophobic. Racist. Anti-Semitic.

And while Jews are slurred and a derivative of the N-word used, the depth of animosity and antagonism, its continuing nature in e-mail after e-mail, are most apparent in the focus on Robinette's sexual orientation.

Every Dukie should be alarmed.

FC posted on the blog without identifying any of the people who sent the e-mails.

Carter Boyle and Rachel Provost are mentioned today in the Chronicle; please check out their e-mails and conversations on my blog, vile. Small wonder that Boyle wants the complaint dismissed. Small wonder he told the Daily Tar Heel that Robinette's case is murky at best.

As for the e-mail that Boyle/Rachel gave the Chronicle today, quite honestly I see nothing objectionable. In fact if read in the context of Robinette's just having been ousted, and undoubtedly upset, it is inconsequential to this case.

The student judiciary is important. But so is action by administrators, who, FC is pleased to report, have apparently now shown their first interest in this matter. The University has a big stake,for its "zero tolerance policy" has been breached by discriminatory intent, harassment and hostile environment.

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