Yet another "ok, so it wasn't rape/hate crime/assault, but we'll still act like it was."
Put simply, for the rest of my life, if I see the words "professor at Duke University", "lecturer at Duke", "Duke faculty", etc., I will immediately consider the person tainted, unclean, and unworthy of the stature bestowed upon a person otherwise with university credentials, until such time as I can cross reference the original letter and the economic's dept. letter and ascertain the person's signatory status.
How slow will this incredible destruction of the Duke brand name fade from the public conscious, I'd say it'll take between as long as "Kent State", and as long as it will take for people to first think of juice instead of a murderer freed by a racist jury when they here the letters "O.J."