Posted on 06/18/2007 12:33:46 PM PDT by BradtotheBone
DURHAM - Duke University has reached a settlement with each of the three former lacrosse players and their families. The university made the announcement this afternoon.
According to a press release issued by Duke, the terms of the settlement will not be disclosed.
In a statement, Duke officials said the board of trustees and Duke President Richard Brodhead had determined that it was in the best interests of the Duke community to eliminate the possibility of future litigation and move forward
"This past year has been hard for many people who care about Duke -- for students, faculty, staff, alumni, families and friends -- and for the three students and their families most of all," the Duke statement said. "We resolve to bring the Duke family together again, and to work to protect others from similar injustices in the criminal justice system in the future. "
The players, Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, also provided a statement.
"Years ago, each of us made a decision to attend Duke because it is one of the greatest universities in the nation," the players stated. "We were drawn to Duke because of its sense of community. The events of the last year tore the Duke community apart, and forcibly separated us from the university we love.
"It is impossible to fully describe what we, our families and team endured. As we said from day one, we are innocent. But it took three-hundred and ninety-four days, and the intervention of the North Carolina Attorney General, before our innocence was formally declared. ...We hope that today's resolution will begin to bring the Duke family back together again, and we look forward to working with the University to develop and implement initiatives that will prevent similar injustices and ensure that the lessons of the last year are never forgotten."
It is a travesty that Crystal Mangum is still out walking the streets.
Being crazy is no excuse. If she were crazy they would take custody of her children. But they haven’t. So there must be some other reason they don’t touch her.
What are they afraid of? Has she been sleeping with every elected official in Durham? The DNA says yes. Maybe just the police chief. He’s been awol but still on the payroll for over a year.
What a sink hole Durham is.
According to a Duke representative, the settlement covers the actions of faculty up to that date. So the 88, if they keep their mouths shut, are cleared from being sued by the three.
I think the settlement was in the best interests of the three, but, unless Duke does an internal investigation of how its faculty and staff behaved during this “fiasco”, the 88 are free to go on their merry way spewing their poison to “minds full of mush”.
As far as getting more money out of Duke, at this point the 3 have the most bargaining power. If they continue and start depositions, then Duke lawyers would just put their heels in and fight (meaning the 3 may never see any money). It would be very difficult to prove damages (especially against the 88 who were only exercising their freedom of speech rights). The last thing Duke wants is to have the curtain further exposed as to what is going on in various disciplines outside of business, engineering, and hard sciences.
The people to go after would be the Duke governing board (ala the attempts made with Dartmouth). Also the strategy of bringing up questions that are unrelated to the settlement with the Duke president at recruiting functions may also be effective.
Some questions could be asked are as follows:
*Who paid for the original 88 ad?
*Why did the ad mention several departments which supported the ad even though no evidence exists of a departmental vote, and, in some cases the departments have later denied support for the ad. This appears to be a serious breach of academic truthfulness that should be investigated and punished if proved.
*Why did you, the President, say that whatever they did it was bad enough?
They only take kids away for violations of PC codes, donchaknow.
Never. You can bet the university paid extra to keep it quiet.
We have a winner! You can’t imagine how painful it is to litigate. It’s a sign of failure for it to proceed to trial. If you don’t settle, you have failed.
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