Nursery school scandal redux

Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal has been a strong supporter of the Amiraults, operators of a nursery in the Boston area who were convicted of child molestation in the early 1980s. They were convicted on trumped-up 'evidence' by aggressive prosecutors. Rabinovitz was very active in trying to secure the Amirault's release.

In a recent article she compares the Duke lacrosse team case to that of the many unjust prosecutions of supposed child molesters. Beyond hearing of the prosecutor's claims every so often, I have not followed this Duke case very much so was surprised to learn of the following:

• a march of protest against the players
• 88 faculty members signed an ad praising this ad
• the lacrosse team was suspended for a season and now operates under different rules than other Duke teams.

In some cases we - including our legal staff - seem to have a penchant for wanting not to need proof in order to punish people who are accused of violating our norms.