Listening statement

The listening statement was a full-page ad placed in The Chronicle in April 2006 by a group of 88 Duke faculty members. The ad was entitled "What Does A Social Disaster Sound Like?"

The advertisement has been widely read as directly addressing the Duke lacrosse case. Some have claimed, especially after the exoneration of the defendants, that this is a misreading of the ad. A group calling itself Concerned Duke Faculty acknowledges that the ad "has been read as a comment on the alleged rape, the team party, or the specific students accused" but claims that "We understand the ad instead as a call to action on important, longstanding issues on and around our campus, an attempt to channel the attention generated by the incident to addressing these." However, Wahneema Lubiano described the listening statement, in the e-mail she sent requesting faculty members to sign it, as "an ad in The Chronicle about the lacrosse team incident." From beginning to end, phrases are used such as "Regardless of the results of the police investigation", "what happened to this young woman", "the disaster didn't begin on March 13 and won't end with what the police say or the court decides". In the anonymous quotes printed in the ad, phrases appear such as "If it turns out that these students are guilty", "no one is really talking about how to keep the young woman herself central to this conversation", "if the guys had been not just black but participating in a different sport, like football". These phrases are all clear allusions to the lacrosse case. The listening statement was cited in the defense's December 2006 change of venue motion.