I know you're running up on your deadline, but a good way to get academics to talk, I think, is to contact their acquaintances, particularly people who don't know about the unpleasant business they were a part of. For example, I got a conciliatory response from former Vanderbilt undergraduate David Barzelay by writing one of his former law school professors, Susan Scafidi. In the case of McCarty, I wrote someone named David Goldstein. I didn't get a response, but that was because Vanderbilt has, as I said, decided to ignore me, and probably even Goldstein put me in the loony category, after speaking with McCarty. Still, after being contacted by yet another party, Goldstein will start wondering if his friend has been on the level with him.
You could also write the editors of the Vanderbilt student newspaper, The Hustler, about McCarty, and have the irresponsibility of student journalists work to our advantage for a change.
