By Richard Nicolazzo
The way it went down, Moses himself probably couldn't have
spared Duke University the misery it's gone through since
a 27-year-old black woman was allegedly raped by members of
the lacrosse team.
A new, independent report has concluded that Duke officials
from the campus police to the president þ did
not understand the magnitude of the situation and did not
respond fast enough.
The report, written by a former Princeton University president
and past director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational
Fund, talked about "a gap in communications that is extraordinary."
No doubt, everyone involved at Duke could have been more
aggressive in seeking out the facts and formulating an appropriate
response. In a crisis, that is typically what outside investigators
find when looking backwards.
The Duke crisis was a Molotov cocktail of race, class,
alcohol, sports, elitism and town-gown relations.
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In this case, however, the relentless pounding that Duke
has taken for the past seven weeks was inevitable. Why? It's
simple. The crisis was a Molotov cocktail of race, class,
alcohol, sports, elitism and town-gown relations. Call it
a freight train without brakes.
Does anyone really believe that communicating "earlier"
would have altered the coverage? To entertain the thought
defies what the worldwide media has evolved into: a gigantic
mass of worldwide newspapers, TV, radio, the Internet, blogs,
cell phones, Blackberries, Treos, etc. This was an alleged
rape, not some campus prank.
Suffice to say, the first, second and third waves of coverage
would simply crash over any major institution trying desperately
to defend itself and its actions.
Now, with a new wave of coverage on the horizon, it will
be interesting to see how Duke and its new public relations
counsel, Burson-Marsteller, manage communications.
On May 15, a new grand jury is scheduled to meet and possibly
hear fresh evidence in the case. This follows the April 17
grand jury indictment of two white Duke lacrosse players who
were charged with first-degree forcible rape, first-degree
sexual offenses and kidnapping.
Michael Nifong, the Durham, N.C., district attorney who
has led the prosecution, narrowly won re-election in a primary
on May 2, thus suggesting both the case and the tension surrounding
it will continue. It's likely that evidence regarding a third
student will be presented to the grand jury.
Duke got a bad break with Nifong. In the middle of a campaign
(he had never won an election prior to May), he took on a
highly publicized role in prosecuting the case.
He granted numerous interviews to reporters, calling the
Duke players hooligans and suggesting that the students had
avoided punishment for illegal behavior in the past.
With Nifong on the prowl, Duke found itself cornered by
an angry media mob. On top of everything, the victim's father
was granting interviews on MSNBC and parents of the alleged
rapists were retaining high-powered lawyers to put into question
the DA's case.
With all due respect to the authors of the report, no amount
of communication from Duke was going to stop the media bombardment.
That's just not the way the media works. Media feeding frenzies
are not a new phenomenon.
Many crisis experts, some who have posted on this website,
say Duke handled the crisis poorly. No one offers any specifics,
other than to say hire outside crisis experts. Maybe they
were slow at the start, but how can anyone say they haven't
communicated?
The university has created a separate section on its web
site just for the lacrosse case. As of this writing, there
are 12 postings with all sorts of statements and letters from
the president.
Duke stepped up, commissioned an outside report, and released
the findings as soon as possible. Much of what they did is
right from the crisis management handbook.
Now, with a new grand jury probe in the offing, Duke needs
to "cool it."
In my view, it's time for the university to let the judicial
system take its course. Indictments have been handed down.
Lawyers have been hired. Discovery will ensue. Pre-trial motions
will be filed. Eventually a trial date will be set. Duke must
let the legal chips fall where they may.
This means the university should only respond to further
media inquiries with a brief statement. Something like: "Duke
University has done everything in its power to be candid with
the public about how it views the alleged incident. In addition,
we have initiated a number of steps to assure that an incident
like this never happens again. We will have no further comment
on what happens in the judicial system."
Strategy Going
Forward
The challenge now for Duke is to develop a comprehensive
remedial communications program that steadily begins to mitigate
and at some point change perceptions that have
been formed from nasty headlines plastered across the media.
I propose six steps:
First, Duke needs to hold a summit with administrators and
students from North Carolina Central University, the mostly
black university three miles from Duke where the accuser is
an honor student. If it's about race, these institutions need
to reach out to one another and develop opportunities to "bridge"
their differences.
Second, the university needs to strengthen its academic
code of conduct. Separating truth from fiction is difficult,
but one can certainly conclude that some students are acting
in ways that are damaging to Duke's reputation. As part of
orientation, the administration should address this issue
and make it clear that current and incoming students must
comply with the code. If students act up, they're out.
Third, the university will need to develop a specific communications
program that talks about the changes Duke has initiated on
campus to ensure that this never happens again. This means
a series of letters and e-mails to students, parents, alumni,
local elected officials, community activists, legislators,
and even other college administrators in the region. Beginning
in August, these communications initiatives should occur monthly.
Fourth, once these changes begin to take hold, the president
himself should seek national opportunities to re-tell the
Duke story. He could kick off the campaign with an op-ed in
the New York Times. This time, instead of an emotional
interview with the father of the accuser, Duke should offer
MSNBC a chance to engage the president in a thoughtful discussion
about "change." A national press tour should be
considered to articulate and reinforce the message of change.
If it hasn't done so already, Duke needs to hire an outside
consultant to evaluate the policies and procedures of its
campus security force. It's obvious that details of an alleged
rape cannot wait a week to reach the president's desk. As
the report indicated, this is a clear communications failure.
And finally, Duke should try to make it clear that ugly
incidents of this sort are not unique to its campus. The president
should form a "Blue Ribbon" commission to focus
the higher education community nationally on how it can and
should deal with these and related issues. It's time for Duke
to lead the national dialogue and create a forum for discussion
and debate of campus life.
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Richard E. Nicolazzo
is president and CEO of Nicolazzo & Associates, a strategic
communications and crisis management firm headquartered in
Boston, Mass.
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