Cathy N. Davidson, one of the 88 Duke professors who signed the infamous “Listening Statement” ad last April, is trying to spin her way out of her egregious rush to PC judgment. In an op-ed piece in today’s News & Observer, Davidson claims that the ad never said the lacrosse players did anything, and she accused “right-wing blog hooligans” of misrepresenting the intentions of the Duke 88.

She claims that the Duke 88 were motivated not by left-wing, PC-driven, anti-white, anti-privilege anger toward the lacrosse players, but by concern for the minorities and women who were being abused on campus in the wake of the lacrosse allegations. She says today:

The ad said that we faculty were listening to the anguish of students who felt demeaned by racist and sexist remarks swirling around in the media and on the campus quad in the aftermath of what happened on March 13 in the lacrosse house.

The insults, at that time, were rampant. It was as if defending David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann necessitated reverting to pernicious stereotypes about African-Americans, especially poor black women. Many black students at Duke disappeared into humiliation and rage as the lacrosse players were being elevated to the status of martyrs, innocent victims of reverse racism.

Huh? As I recall, the only abusing going on was to anyone who was white, prosperous and had ever held a lacrosse stick in his hand. This is from the ad (my emphasis):

These students are shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman and to themselves.

It is clear the Duke 88 wanted to use the lacrosse allegations to push their various left-wing agendas on race, gender and class. The statement reeks of it. It is also clear that they assumed that the woman had been raped, though they include enough disclaimers to prevent legal action.

Davidson’s PC bllnders won’t let her let go of what the Duke 88 felt was the perfect ideological cudgel. Even today she holds to a romantic fiction about the alleged victim:

Who is that exotic dancer? A single mother who takes off her clothes for hire partly to pay for tuition at a distinguished historically black college.

That she can still write that after all that has been revealed about this “single mother” calls into question her abilities as a professor, whose job it is to accurately interpret the real world and relay that knowledge to students.

UPDATE (12:03 p.m.): A commenter on the LieStoppers forum found an interesting art review in The Herald-Sun from 2002. It seems Davidson’s taste in art is, well, esoteric:

“I did not know Carland, personally,” Davidson said, “but I thought her work was important.” After visiting the artist’s studio, Davidson chose photographs from two series, “Lesbian Beds” and “Keeping House.” … The beds, which belong to her and to lesbian friends, were photographed as they were found. From across the gallery, formal artistic elements such as curves, straight lines, color and shadow assert themselves as abstract forms within a large frame. Close inspection, however, reveals the abstractions are really mussed and rumpled sheets and comforters with clues to the missing occupants: books, nightclothes, pets and deliberate patterns that suggest the genders of the recent sleepers. In her gallery guide essay, Davidson makes much out of the fact that the bed linen is not fashionably coordinated, but looks more like the odds and ends of a starter household.

Each photograph has some element or touch that makes it hard to believe the photographer didn’t change a thing. For example, in “Untitled #10,” a turquoise sheet has been bunched in such a way that it looks like the ribbon loop that honors breast cancer victims. In “Untitled #8,” a sock lies in a corner like a needless phallic symbol, and in “Untitled #13,” a slit in a pillow suggests the vaginal opening.