The Duke Lacrosse team scandal was front-page news across the country in 2006, and its reverberations have been felt ever since. But the full story of the scandal and its aftermath had not been told. On September 22, at Roosevelt House William D. Cohan discussed his book The Price of Silence: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal, the Power of the Elite, and the Corruption of Our Great Universities, an account of the case that combines investigative reporting with trenchant analysis of the larger issues of sexual misconduct, underage drinking, and bad-boy behavior on campuses across the country. 

The Wall Street Journal called The Price of Silence “meticulous” and “evenhanded” and wrote that “Mr. Cohan captures brilliantly the theater of the absurd that is played out on campuses every year over one controversy or another.” The New York Times Book Review praised The Price of Silence as “At once a masterwork of reporting and a devastating critique of a university that has lost its way.”

William D. Cohan, author of Wall Street: Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World; and The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co., was interviewed by Laura Miller, staff writer and co-founder of Salon, and author of The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia.

We hope you enjoyed attending this remarkable conversation exploring some of the most pressing issues facing colleges and universities across the country.