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On the Seeberg Tragedy and Notre Dame: A Rebuttal
John F. Gaski, Ph.D. (N.D. ’71, ’73)
Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
John F. Gaski, Ph.D. (N.D. ’71, ’73)
Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
The University of Notre Dame is much too temperate and indulgent to say this, but I’m not—and it needs to be said: The Elizabeth Seeberg matter (i.e., recent suicide at St. Mary’s College after an allegation of misbehavior against a Notre Dame student) truly is a case of rape. Notre Dame is getting raped by the Chicago Tribune’s smear campaign, embodied by a couple of reporters on the make (three, if sportswriter David Haugh is considered a reporter) who cynically capitalize on an opportunity to enhance their rep at the school’s expense and by exploiting the Seeberg family’s grief. How far the “world’s greatest newspaper” has fallen. It would be difficult to sort out cause and effect but maybe this unhealthy tendency has something to do with the Trib’s circulation problems.
Although a Notre Dame alumnus and employee, I represent only myself here as a Notre Dame admirer. In view of the Tribune’s recent reportorial provocations, I am compelled to comment. First, this “news” paper should have printed a page-one retraction and public apology for its initial false reporting to the effect that Notre Dame campus security personnel withheld the official alleged incident report from local police. The Trib’s false claim was based on an uncorroborated source which proved erroneous. In other words, the Trib sensationalized the story from the beginning by falsely creating the appearance of a cover-up. (Yellow journalists salivate over that concept, don’t they?) For the Trib not to confess and address this lapse merely confirms the existence of an intentional calumny against Notre Dame.
Moreover, what do we now know for sure about the original incident? (A reader may wish to keep score of how the following jibes with existing perception as cultivated in the media.) Entirely lifted from publicly available, if unpleasant, information, and expressed as delicately as possible: (1) The Seeberg girl was consensually alone in a football player’s dorm room at night, on a campus not her own. (1a) According to the Tribune’s latest of December 16, she remained there in the room, again volitionally, for some time after the alleged incident occurred! (2) Even if Elizabeth Seeberg had lived, there likely would be no criminal case because the issue would then be only one person’s word against another’s, literally a he-said, she-said conundrum. (3) Bolstering the preceding point, significantly, is that the accuser in this instance had a history of psychiatric problems, actually among the most serious possible as confirmed by her subsequent demise. (4) Now we find that her testimony’s credibility is undermined further, according to information from the St. Joe County prosecutor, by some sworn statements inconsistent with phone records. It is very telling that the local prosecutor dropped this case in short order. (If you don’t like this recitation, then blame the Chicago Tribune, my primary source.)
In contrast, the Trib’s reporting has consistently created an overall impression contrary to this factual litany, which strongly suggests non-journalistic motives. Yes, the Tribune does seem to try to spin these things a bit differently. To those worked up by the Trib’s self-consciously charged imagery of “sex crimes,” “sexual assault,” “sexual attack,” and “sexual battery,” if and when you become aware of exactly what the literal accusation was, you may be disappointed. Recall that sexual battery is essentially defined legally as “unwanted touching.”
So if you really think the University of Notre Dame did something wrong in this matter, what is it? Insufficiently strict student discipline—at Notre Dame? Get serious. The prevailing external criticism, and praise from some quarters, is just the opposite. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
More fundamentally, other than the circumstantial aspects such as reviewed here, you do not have the slightest idea what really happened in that dorm room. None of us do. It is simply impossible to know if a crime occurred. Keep in mind that the target university is constrained by law from publicly defending itself against the ongoing smear, or even providing information, and that the Tribune has reported falsely on this tragic story already. I submit that we have now succeeded in identifying one real victim, and the Chicago Tribune is the assailant.
Another way, a completely accurate way, of looking at it: St. Mary’s College enrolled a student who was extremely mentally disturbed—and Notre Dame gets slimed. All it takes is one accusation of totally unknown validity. Compounding the irony and hypocrisy, why no Tribune muckraking investigation of St. Mary’s admissions practices? Let me guess. Not the same high-profile cachet or payoff for the Jimmy Olsens and their bosses?
One more example of the Tribune’s tendentiousness is this (from its December 16 article): “Saint Mary’s—unlike Notre Dame—did not hesitate to provide documents and answer questions.” Now, really, do you suppose the difference might derive from the fact that the deceased was a St. Mary’s student, not a Notre Dame student? St. Mary’s is required by law to share information with parents; Notre Dame is prohibited from doing so with those who are not affiliated with the University, such as the Seebergs. Was this distinction lost on the Trib reporters? Of course not. They knew what they were doing and, whatever it was, it was not professional.
Finally, with its phony cover-up gambit collapsing, the Tribune is now trying to stoke the impression of inordinate delay between the deceased girl’s September 1 police report and ND Security’s follow-up—insinuating that the sluggishness contributed to the suicide. However, the timeline the Trib is downplaying is that Miss Seeberg’s written report was not filed until September 6, while campus police began the effort to interview the accused on September 9. Not exactly crack police work to our amateur eyes maybe, or maybe it is, but not quite the same as the impression the Trib manufactured either, is it?
Only with much reluctance do I bring all this up anywhere near the attention of the suffering Seebergs, but they made a decision to enter the crucible of public discourse by launching a very public attack on a revered institution of higher learning. Just because that school turns the other cheek does not mean its dedicated disciples have to do the same. “Betrayal,” the Tribune postures grandiloquently on behalf of the Seebergs. Look who’s talking.
For the Seeberg family’s sake, we can hope they have not opened a Pandora’s Box about their poor child. Also for the same reason, the Seebergs should be reminded that abetting a campaign of vilification against a widely beloved institution can rightfully provoke backlash. Folks, when you publicly revile our school without confirmed substantive basis, you also defame everyone associated with it. At some point, hopefully from a safer emotional distance, the Seebergs will need to consider that. Likewise, the Tribune is served notice that some are not willing to acquiesce as its public punching bag indefinitely.
No matter how much sympathy and good will Notre Dame partisans have for the Seebergs at their time of supreme grief, everyone has a limit and the Seeberg-Tribune alliance may be pushing a large mass of people up against it. Evidently, the paper and its reporters care little about such prospective consequences, but perhaps the Seeberg family should find time to reflect on what the Trib reporters’ true motives may be, and who their own truer friends are. Many of those friends will be found in the Notre Dame community.
We surely, in fact eagerly, can give the Seebergs a pass for now, but it is past time for the Tribune to acknowledge its misconduct, ultimately built upon the original counterfeit report. Regardless, it is also timely for the Notre Dame world, collectively if not institutionally, to react against the Chicago Tribune in some appropriate way. (The price per copy has become rather high, hasn’t it?) Anti-journalistic assault upon a fine and honorable university, even if artificially cloaked in humane concern for a bereaved family, is a serious offense—a virtual depredation or rape. Without any unwarranted animosity toward the Seebergs, perhaps our side should show the Trib how seriously we take it. This note is but a necessary start. We can all regret that the Chicago Tribune’s behavior has made it necessary.
The author’s recent books are Frugal Cool: How to Get Rich—Without Making Very Much Money (Corby 2009) and The Language of Branding (Nova Science 2010).
