"I was aiming to follow in the footsteps of one of my role-models, Muhammad Atta."

--Mohammad Taheri-azar

Do you remember Taheri-azar? The 25-year-old Iranian graduate of the University of North Carolina rented an SUV in March and drove it into The Pit, a campus gathering place for UNC students. He accelerated into the standard college crowd of preachers, smokers, gawkers, and cause-hawkers. He hit nine people and injured six. None died, much to Taheri-azar’s chagrin.

He told the press and the judge and anyone who would listen that he was seeking vengeance for the deaths of Muslims at the hands of bigoted Westerners in a post-9/11 world. He told everyone that he had intended to kill, had premeditated the killing. He even told the 911 dispatcher, just minutes after he had used a group of UNC co-eds as jack stands.

He was immediately arrested and charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder and nine counts of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury with intent to kill.

A couple weeks later, just eight miles down the road in the city of Durham, three Duke lacrosse players were accused of brutally assaulting and raping an exotic dancer at a party on March 13.

There were not dozens of witnesses to the crime; there was not an overabundance of physical evidence; the boys did not confess and turn themselves in; they did not announce to 911 dispatchers that the rape was premeditated and that they felt like their "white privilege" entitled them to certain liberties with those of other races and socio-economic classes. 

It was weeks before any lacrosse player was charged with a crime, by which time, the results of DNA tests administered to the entire team had come back revealing no matches at all.

Now, let’s compare the treatment of the accused in each case by local officials, the press, and the local community. I think the results are reflective of a bit of a priority problem in the moral clarity department.

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Local Officials

The president of each university made a statement on the occasion of his school’s respective controversy.

Chancellor James Moeser of UNC:

I agree, this could feel like terrorism, especially if you're standing in front of a Jeep that's heading toward you trying to kill you. As we have investigated this, we've come more and more to the conclusion that this was one individual acting alone in a criminal act.

Well, no. Why would we call him a terrorist? I’m told that "will of Allah" talk is routine in a traffic violation such as this. Moeser also urged more understanding of Muslim groups on campus and stressed the need for religious tolerance.

Meantime, when the rape scandal hit at Duke, President David Brodhead started a letter to the Duke community like this:

Allegations against members of the Duke lacrosse team stemming from the party on the evening of March 13 have deeply troubled me and everyone else at this university and our surrounding city. We can’t be surprised at the outpouring of outrage. Rape is the substitution of raw power for love, brutality for tenderness, and dehumanization for intimacy. It is also the crudest assertion of inequality, a way to show that the strong are superior to the weak and can rightfully use them as the objects of their pleasure. When reports of racial abuse are added to the mix, the evil is compounded, reviving memories of the systematic racial oppression we had hoped to have left behind us. If the allegations are verified…

Thank goodness for the "if," which comes after a couple paragraphs about the alleged attack and its allegedly racial motivations, conspicuously omitting the word "alleged." Brodhead did not urge more understanding of athletic teams on campus and stress the need for athletic tolerance.

Press Coverage

Here’s a sampling from coverage of Taheri-azar:

"Former high school honor student."

"He was one of those students who was very assertive in asking questions," Pitz explained. "He obviously cared a lot about his performance. Even in the very large class I taught, he was very willing to ask questions and get involved in discussions."

Friends describe him as unfailingly polite, yet he enjoyed provoking his teachers… He was reserved -- "He didn't even cuss," said Sean Cordova, another high school friend.

They are nice to him, no? The lacrosse team got different treatment. Strangely, their high-school extracurriculars and good grades were not often mentioned:

"An alarming record of misconduct in recent years." Continued...