Taylor, Stuart, Jr. 1948–

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Taylor, Stuart, Jr. 1948–

PERSONAL:

Born May 4, 1948.

CAREER:

Journalist.

WRITINGS:

(With K.C. Johnson) Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributing editor to Newsweek. Columnist for the National Journal.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stuart Taylor, Jr., is a journalist and a contributing editor to Newsweek. He also serves as a columnist for the National Journal.

Taylor published his first book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, in 2007 with K.C. Johnson. The book chronicles a group of lacrosse players from Duke University who were wrongfully indicted for raping an African American stripper. The book also criticizes the way the prosecution, university administrators, university professors, and the national media dealt with the case, starting before it even went to court.

Jeffrey Rosen, writing in the New York Times Book Review, commented that "if the authors are at times carried away by righteous indignation, they can surely be forgiven in light of the consequences of the abuses they describe. Taylor and Johnson have made a gripping contribution to the literature of the wrongly accused. They remind us of the importance of constitu- tional checks on prosecutorial abuse. And they emphasize the lesson that Duke callously advised its own students to ignore: if you're unjustly suspected of any crime, immediately call the best lawyer you can afford." Evan Thomas, reviewing the book in Newsweek, remarked that "the authors make the Duke faculty look at once ridiculous and craven. For months, not one of the university's nearly 500-member faculty of arts and sciences stood up to question the rush to judgment against the lacrosse team." Thomas pointed out that "the only group that shows any common sense in Until Proven Innocent is the student body. Aside from a few noisy activists who assumed the players were guilty, Duke undergrads mostly overlooked the political correctness of their professors."

A contributor to Kirkus Reviews observed that the authors "have done their investigative homework" in presenting this "solid analysis." The same contributor described the book as "a cautionary tale for all readers." A contributor to Publishers Weekly mentioned that after the authors scrutinize the academic credentials of the African American faculty members at Duke University who publicly criticized the lacrosse team and journalists who reported on the story, "the closing chapters offer balanced, tautly argued discussions of, and remedies for, the central problems." Mary C. Curtis, writing in the Nieman Reports, summarized that "their view of this case tilts conservative, and their targets also include what they see as political correctness run amok on college campuses across the country." In an article in Commentary, Dan Seligman described the book as "a reportorial tour de force." Seligman concluded that Until Proven Innocent "may be the only thing of lasting value to emerge from this dreadful spectacle."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Commentary, February 1, 2008, Dan Seligman, review of Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, p. 58.

IRE Journal, November 1, 2007, Steve Weinberg, review of Until Proven Innocent.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2007, review of Until Proven Innocent.

Newsweek, September 10, 2007, Evan Thomas, review of Until Proven Innocent, p. 34.

New York Times Book Review, September 16, 2007, Jeffrey Rosen, review of Until Proven Innocent.

Nieman Reports, December 22, 2007, Mary C. Curtis, review of Until Proven Innocent, p. 86.

Publishers Weekly, August 27, 2007, review of Until Proven Innocent, p. 75.