Category Archives: Dickinson Murder

“Va. Tech’s federal appeal could set precedent”

Posted on December 5, 2011 by | Leave a comment

A couple of alert EMUTalk.org readers sent me versions of this article, “Va. Tech’s federal appeal could set precendent (sic),” this particular one from the spelling impaired Hampton Roads PilotOnline web site.  Here’s an interesting quote:

The university, with help from the Virginia attorney general’s office, is appealing $55,000 in fines levied against it by the U.S. Department of Education in March 2011. The three-day hearing is part of that appeal, which will be handled by Chief Judge Ernest Canellos of the department’s Office of Higher Education Appeals.

The hearing itself is precedent setting, said Daniel Carter of Security on Campus, a nonprofit that advocates for Clery compliance.

“There has never been a Clery Act hearing,” Carter said.

But it may not be the last. Investigators have been on the Penn State campus for a Clery Act investigation into whether the university failed to report incidents of sexual abuse in connection to allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

EMU is mentioned in the article as being the infamous “winner” of the largest fine under the Clery Act to date, though I have a feeling we’ll soon be in third place.

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Posted in Dickinson Murder, In the media..., Security and Safety

“Penn State could learn lessons from EMU’s failure to report crime”

Posted on November 19, 2011 by | 1 Comment

annarbor.com ran an article called “Penn State could learn lessons from EMU’s failure to report crime,” which is really about this article on the ABC News web site, “Lessons for Penn State:  Cover-Ups Cost Money, Student Lives.”  By the way, annarbor.com seems to do this a lot, running stories as if they came up with them from other web sites.  Kind of like this blog, only a) I’m always pretty clear on giving credit, and b) I don’t claim to be a news source– more a rumor source, frankly.  But I digress.

Anyway, I think the ABC story is actually kind of a mish-mosh mess and I don’t really see the connections to the Dickinson murder.  Oh, don’t get me wrong– Dickinson’s rape and murder were obviously horrible, and the EMU administration’s cover-up of it was also obviously horrible.  But the botched handling of Dickinson’s murder happened in a short period of time and among a relatively small group of administrators, whereas the child abuse scandal at Penn State seems to have gone on for years and it involved a lot of people.

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Posted in Dickinson Murder, In the media..., Sports

Ferris State student death investigated

Posted on November 15, 2011 by | Leave a comment

I heard this on local TV news last night, but here’s a link to a different TV station news outlet, “Ferris State student death investigated.”  Right now, it is very very early in the story– basically, an 18-year old girl was found dead in her room.  They haven’t released any other details pending various notifications.  But it has that creepily familiar (from the Dickinson murder) line of “no foul play suspected.”  Let’s hope that turns out to be true.

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Posted in Dickinson Murder, In the media...

“Administration, Congress Take Steps to Address Sexual Assaults on Campus”

Posted on December 8, 2010 by | 2 Comments

On NPR’s “Morning Edition” this morning, I heard this story, “Administration, Congress Take Steps to Address Sexual Assaults on Campus.” As the title suggests, the story is mostly about sexual assault in general at colleges and universities (and the legislation that’s pending to help reduce these problems and punish people who commit assaults on campuses), but there is mention of Laura Dickinson in the article, too, and, more significantly in my view, the story that made it onto the air.  Follow the link and you’ll year Dickinson’s father recalling how EMU officials lied to them about the nature of Laura’s death.  You’ll also hear how it cost EMU millions and millions of dollars– in the form of a settlement with the Dickinson family, in fines to the Feds, and Lord only knows how much in other various lawyer fees.

That was a sad time, back in 2006.

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Posted in Dickinson Murder, In the media...

“Fufilling the dream of a murdered young woman”

Posted on July 20, 2010 by | Leave a comment

From WWMT’s web site (I think this is the CBS affiliate in Grand Rapids) comes “Fulfilling the dream of a murdered young woman.” It’s a story about how the Dickinson’s west Michigan church is going on a mission to South Africa, more or less in Laura’s name.  Here’s the video of the story:

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Posted in Dickinson Murder, In the media...

“Murder verdict upheld in EMU student dorm killing”

Posted on April 28, 2010 by | 3 Comments

From the Washington Post online comes “Murder verdict upheld in EMU student dorm killing.” Basically, Orange Taylor appealed the guilty verdict in the murder of Laura Dickinson, claiming he had an ineffective lawyer.  Maybe I missed it in the local media, but I didn’t even know there was an appeal in the works.

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Posted in Dickinson Murder, In the media...

Adjunct lecturers organizing committee rally, Tuesday 1 pm at the Student Center

Posted on March 15, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This was passed along by EMU-AAUP president Susan Moeller and I thought I’d give the group some publicity here too:

The EMU-AAUP supports the organizing of the adjunct lecturers and I am sending you the following information about their organizing efforts and a rally they will have this Tuesday, March 16th starting at 1 p.m at the Student Center.

More details after the “continued” part, but it looks like this is kind of an all-day sort of event– that is, if you can’t make it at 1, stop by later.  I’ll be on the road, so if anyone goes and has anything interesting to say about the event, let me know.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Administrator Life, Dickinson Murder, EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life, Staff Life, Student Life

“Campus Rape Victims: A Struggle for Justice”

Posted on February 24, 2010 by | Leave a comment

I’m listening to a good and important story on NPR’s “Morning Edition” just now, “Campus Rape Victims: A Struggle for Justice.” The audio part of the story won’t be available until later today, but the text is there now. I think it illustrates the problem of rape on college campuses, and it also mentions EMU in and the Dickinson murder:

The federal Department of Education regulates schools under the Clery Act. But it has fined offending schools just six times. Most fines have been small. The biggest — for $350,000 — came against Eastern Michigan University. Administrators there covered up the 2006 rape and murder of a student, 22-year-old Laura Dickinson, letting her parents think she’d died suddenly of natural causes.

Though that mention of EMU didn’t make the audio portion of the story….

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Posted in Buildings and Grounds, Dickinson Murder, In the media..., Security and Safety

Online crime map is cool, but it is also a case of “garbage in, garbage out”

Posted on June 12, 2009 by | 4 Comments

The new crime mapping tool being sponsored by/run by EMU and the EMU’s Institute for Geospatial Research (who news we had such a thing?) is pretty cool and has been getting a lot of press in the local and regional media. Here’s a link to the EMU press release, and here’s a link to the mapping tool itself.

It is a pretty cool and handy/easy to use tool. I do wish it would also include crime states for the townships and Ann Arbor too, especially since the city of Ypsilanti is itself is pretty small and completely surrounded by these places, and also because so many EMU stake-holders live in Ann Arbor. But I also agree with this from the Freep.com editorial “Online crime stats may benefit cities:”

Eastern Michigan University and the city of Ypsilanti are starting an online crime mapping system that Detroit and other cities should consider — but any such system would be only as good as the statistics police provide.

Users can view crimes committed, or at least reported, in the last 60 days, broken down into categories like arson, assault, auto theft, murder and robbery. The problem, as recent stories in the Free Press show, is that police statistics are often unreliable. In Detroit, for example, many crimes don’t get reported or investigated. There’s even a big dispute over how many homicides were committed in the city last year.

In other words, prior to the various fines against EMU that came from the investigations of the way DPS and others handled the Dickenson murder, there would have been a lot of data missing from these maps. On the other hand, as the Freep editorial also says, this is the kind of tool that helps the public easily see crime statistics, which might encourage those folks to do a better job of reporting crime.

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Posted in Dickinson Murder, EMU Events, EMU Technology, In the media..., Security and Safety

In the “where are they now?” category of things….

Posted on May 8, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Apparently, John Fallon has finally landed a job at NPower Indiana, which the AA News describes as an “Indianapolis-based nonprofit group that provides technological assistance to other nonprofits.” Here’s the link from the NPower website.

Honestly, what does Fallon know about any of this? It makes me think that there is some kind of not so secret “deal” amongst professionals who rise to a certain rank– CEO, president, etc.– that they will be able to get back in at that rank no matter what.

BTW, I’ve heard rumors that Jim Vick is taking a job in Chicago. I know his house is on the market since I walk by it on the way to school.

Anyway, at this point, I only wish the best for these folks– honestly. I’m not sure if they have suffered enough or not, but I feel like EMU has moved well past them, so best of luck.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Dickinson Murder, EMU President, In the media...