This just in...
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/528213.html
Published: Jan 03, 2007 01:37 PM
Modified: Jan 03, 2007 01:37 PM
Two lacrosse players allowed back at Duke
By Jane Stancill
Duke University will allow two former lacrosse players accused of sexual assault to return to campus as students in good standing.
The university informed Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty in letters dated Jan. 2 that they were welcome to come back to Duke for the coming semester. They they had been placed on interim suspension and then administrative leave of absence. The third accused player, David Evans, graduated from Duke last year.
It's unclear whether Seligmann and Finnerty will accept Duke's offer to return this semester. The next court hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 5.
The gesture reflects the university's new stance toward the three former players. After rape charges were dropped in December, Duke President Richard Brodhead issued a statement calling into question Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong's handling of the case and the fact that kidnapping and sexual assault charges remain against the three men.
In a letter to Seligmann, Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, wrote: "As circumstances have evolved in this extraordinary case, we have attempted to balance recognition of the gravity of legal charges with the presumption of your innocence. Now with the approach of a new term, we believe that circumstances warrant that we strike this balance differently."
The letter was released by Seligmann's lawyers.
Duke officials offered the former players academic advising and help with making arrangements for housing, either on or off campus. "Reade, it is my sincere hope that you will choose to return for the spring semester," Moneta wrote. "Please let me know how I may support you during this time."
The Seligmann family issued a statement thanking Brodhead for his recent comments about the case. "We are also glad that Duke University has now made it clear that Reade is welcome to return to the University and look forward to the day that he can return to living a normal life and continuing his education as a full-time student," the statement said.
"By now it should be plain to any person who has any objectivity that the charges against Reade are transparently false," the statement continued. "Reade is absolutely innocent and we will continue to fight this injustice. We are not going to rest until Reade's good name has been cleared and those who have been responsible for this injustice have been held fully accountable."
Staff writer Joseph Neff contributed to this report.
Staff writer Jane Stancill can be reached at 919-956-2464 or janes@newsobserver.com
Well said!
I wouldn't value anything coming out of these vicious weasel Duke bureaucrats - any good they try to do now is merely to try to save their own rancid butts.
fwiw, years ago, long before this case, I knew a former Duke dean (working as a dean at another supposedly "elite" university)..... who was the most untrustworthy, vicious, PC-idiot, vile piece-of-human-excrement I have known anywhere in my lifetime. That nasty clown was also involved in setting up false accusations (though not on the scale of this case) and frying students who were not sufficiently PC. I tried hard to get that other university do do something about it, but of course they protected the scumbag (and themselves). There is something about Duke and some similar PC universities that breeds some of the most mendacious PC-bureaucrats anywhere.
"We are not going to rest until Reade's good name has been cleared and those who have been responsible for this injustice have been held fully accountable."
Good.
and those who have been responsible for this injustice have been held fully accountable.
Oh, yes, and you can bet that there is No WAY one of these stuck-up University administrators would have backed down like this unless a blowtorch was applied to their @ss.
I question the handling of the case by the President of Duke, Mr. Richard Brodhead. He suspended those boys without any evidence. Nifong is a simply a man after political power and does not care if he ruins men and lies to keep his power. President Richard Brodhead is much worse. Craven to political correctness describes Brodhead. When this is all over and the civil suits start, it will be very amusing to see Brodhead defending his actions in court. He is going to lose his butt.
""We are also glad that Duke University has now made it clear that Reade is welcome to return to the University and look forward to the day that he can return to living a normal life and continuing his education as a full-time student," the statement said."
That doesn't mean he's going to return to Duke. "....look forward to the day....." sounds like a more distant point in the future than the start of the next semester, which is pretty quick. Maybe, now that he's in good standing, he can apply elsewhere and that's the day he's looking forward to.
Duke "will allow them to return". Gee, isn't that big of them?! When this is over, Duke will be paying their tuition to a college of their choice plus expenses.