[Rennes Templar]

Why would the university be sued?

[Alberta's Child]

The university may have exposed itself to a defamation suit when it suspended those students over what has turned out to be a completely fabricated criminal case.

The public statements against the accused by the school's president and various faculty members sure didn't help, either.

If I were one of those students I would sue the school for defamation, and list the total dollar value of the school's endowment (which is about $5 billion, if my memory serves me correctly) as the civil damages. I'd then offer to settle out of court to recover just my legal expenses -- but only if the university agrees to sell off its facilities and move the school more than 100 miles away from Durham, North Carolina.

That ought to throw the whole thing into political, economic, and social chaos for at least a decade or so.

[ArmyTeach]

Why would the university be sued? Because the school, which should have been a bastion of deliberation and reason, was part and parcel of the rush to judgment. The administration never counseled that the accused must be considered innocent until proven guilty. They pulled all their support, fired the coach, while the evidence was still in question. The ad placed in the school paper by the faculty, as well as the loud and virulent demonstrations on campus,indirectly or directly assumed the accused to be guilty. Hopefully this case will be closed, but that won't end the damage to these young men's lives.

[Safetgiver]

I think 68 professors taking a stand against the students in a publication answers your query.

[mathluv]

The coach was fired. Some students were suspended. Faculty wrote letters supporting the 'victim'. -- Those was the first things that come to mind.