On Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 12:30 am, an international student attending Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina was jumped, mutilated, and is now near death after being beaten by a group of non-students and football players. The international student is in critical condition at a local hospital, and the football players walk free. There were charges filed against the attackers on Sunday, and they were put in jail on Monday. However, they were released on bond shortly after.
The college hasn't released much information about the incident. All that they've been willing to put forth is this.
If these attackers were a group of people other than football players, they would still be in custody facing severe charges both from the college and others involved. As of right now, the college hasn't changed their status as students at the college. Basically, what the college is going to do is protect their beloved football players and their beloved reputation. They don't want any of their football players having damaged reputations because that'll make the whole school look bad.
Quite possibly the most bogus, heinous part about all of this is the reason why the international student was beat. He was beat because he shares his name with one of the world's most renowned terrorists, and the stupid football players that did this don't have enough insight to see that having the same name as someone doesn't mean that you're like them in any way. The student isn't even of the same heritage as the terrorist he shares the name with.
Does this mean that me and all of my football buddies can go around mutilating everyone named "Jeffery" because they share the same name as Jeffery Dahmer?
ConfuciusSays posted on Jan 23, 2007
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Comments
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Cyphonik said on Jan 23, 2007....
You know the worse part about this. All of it is overlooked because of them being football players. It makes you wonder if everything was overlooked in some of the other things in life also like music people, actors, or even people who are cops. -
secretlife said on Jan 23, 2007....
I did not see in this article that you sited anything about the person attacked being mutilated or hurt critically.
was there a newspaper article about this? because it appears that there was a fight that was broken up, and some people were 'urged' to go for medical treatment, but there was no emergency.
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silverwhisper said on Jan 23, 2007....
this incident is revolting.
ed -
ConfuciusSays said on Jan 23, 2007....
To answer secretlife:
I have some inside information on this situation because I know someone who attends this college.
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Zayda said on Jan 23, 2007....
While I agree that it is problematic that anyone get special treatment in such incidents because of their status as an athlete, I think it's important to look at the issue of the fact that the students status remains unchanged with the College.
The statement released by the college says this:"unchanged pending a College judicial process"
The College cannot legally change the status of the students--suspend them or expell them without the due process of the College judicial process. Judicial processes on college campuses vary from campus to campus, but any act by a student that breaks the colleges honor code--and those acts can range from violence to cheating/plagiarism to drinking underage on campus--must be reviewed through the specific college's judical process. (It typically involves bringing students before a judiciary review committee that may include other students (members of the student governement--and depending on the way the student government is structured, these students may be called "Student Judiciaries") as well as representatives from the College Administration--typically the Dean of Student Affairs or Student Services.
[You can go here, for instance, to read about the University Judicial System at Virginia Tech. This is not the university I teach at, but my university has a very similar Judicial System/Process as does the one my husband works at.]
Not following the Judicial process set up on the campus opens the college up to all kinds of lawsuits.
So, yes, the college may very well be protecting themselves by not changing the status of the students, but not for reasons of giving athletes special treatment. Technically, even though arrests were made and there now has to be due process within a court of law, there also has to be due process on the campus according to the college's judicial process as well.
Having said that, please understand that I am in no way condoning what happened to the international student. Since you have inside information about the incident and it appears that the injuries are more serious than what were reported by the college, I would say that the violence and the acts of the perpetrators is reprehensible.
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ConfuciusSays said on Jan 23, 2007....
I wasn't only mad at the message that the college gave. I was also mad at what the content of the message was and wasn't. One of my friends also read the college statement, and he said that it sounds like "a commercial for the college." To me, when I read the message, it seems that there is very little aobut the incident itself and more about the college's "core values" and how the college is going to reaffirm them. While I understand that they need to protect themselves from lawsuit, they seem to go a little over board with it.
Also, there are some inaccuracies in the information they gave, and some of that information is actually quite important. They said that a dozen students were involved. Wrong. Fifteen people jumped one kid. Their statement was both vague and inaccurate. Also, they make it sound like the kid who was beaten refused medical treatment because he was unintelligent. This was not the case. He refused medical treatment because he was afraid of having anything more to do with Americans or their hospitals and cops.
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Zayda said on Jan 23, 2007....
Actually, if you read the statement, they said "approximately" a dozen students were involved. Fifteen is 3 more than a dozen, so they aren't being inaccurate as much as they are being vague. It could very well be that there were 16 people involved or 14, which is why hard numbers are never given in statements such as these. Also, they say "Individuals refused medical treatment immediately after the incident, but at the urging of college staff, received medical attention the following afternoon". They don't point out only one individual as not seeking medical attention until they college staff urged them to do so.
Where exactly does it make the individuals who didn't seek medical treatment seem unintelligent? I'm not getting that from reading that statement by the college.
Finally, yes, the statement does focus on the college's core values.
I can tell you that when any traumatic incident such as this one occurs on a college campus, or when any type of student death occurs on a college campus, whether it's the death of an athlete who dropped dead at practice, or whether it's a student who died while being struck by a car while crossing the street, or a student who died of natural causes in his dorm room (I've experienced all of these things on the college campuses that I have taught on over the last 10 years), colleges will draw on their core values as part of their statements. It's a way to remind students and faculty that they are indeed a community that those values are what guides the community.
It may seem like PR and selling of the University to you or me or even others, but those Core Values are probably also part of the Judicial system on the campus, so they are being referred to for that reason as well.
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curmudgeon said on Jan 23, 2007....
I suppose in some other country the students would be locked up and/or expelled by now, without even knowing what the full story is?I don't see why all of America is to blame for this one incident.Yes many colleges do allow their athletes to get away with stuff. But in light of the (now) false accusations and very possible prosecutorial misconduct leveled at those lacrosse players, I'd want a full investigation before the football players are tarred and feathered. -
ConfuciusSays said on Jan 23, 2007....
curmudgeon:
All I'm saying is that this is an experience that these students from foreign countries are having in America, and they may completely judge America based off of this occurence. I'm not saying that all of America is to blame for this one incident.
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kelly said on Jan 23, 2007....
Funny how when a black person or other minority is picked up by the cops for something it's assumed he's pretty much guilty, and even if it's not for that incident he must have been doing something bad, right? But when it's a bunch of white guys it's like, whoa, let's not be too hasty. After all, innocent until proven guilty, right?