The Chronicle

Issue date: 1/15/08 Section: Columns
Last update: 1/15/08 at 7:34 AM EST

Kristin Butler

It would be great if the lacrosse case were "D-E-A-D, dead," as one particularly excited Towerview columnist put it. After all, I certainly never thought we'd still be talking about it nearly two years after the fact.

But the case is not dead, not at Duke and certainly not in Durham, where the wrongly indicted players are seeking tens of millions in compensation for their grief.

Here on campus, three unindicted players have filed suit against just about every top administrator at this University-including President Richard Brodhead-and if officials cannot reach a settlement or have the case dismissed, we could all be facing a years-long deposition and discovery phase followed by a trial.

Which brings us to the question at hand: Why won't this case just die?

The answer is the Brodhead administration's heavy reliance on out-of-court settlements to placate defendant after defendant, including former men's lacrosse coach Mike Pressler, the three indicted players and Kyle Dowd, the former lacrosse player who was (allegedly) the victim of grade retaliation.

Unsurprisingly, the University has steadfastly refused to disclose how much money Duke paid to make these suits go away along with any other terms of the settlements, so it's hard to say how much cash we've spent.

What's worse, even though this legal strategy has kept Brodhead and Board of Trustees Chair Bob Steel out of the witness chair thus far, it has been accompanied by few meaningful policy and personnel changes. That mix of wealth, arrogance and stubbornness practically guaranteed that others connected with the case would file new lawsuits, and Ryan McFadyen, Matt Wilson and Breck Archer could be just the first of many litigants to come.

At this juncture, there are increasingly legitimate questions about how much longer Duke can continue paying would-be defendants off, along with whether we should be doing this at all. What is clear, however, is that the most recent lawsuit filed on behalf of three unindicted players demonstrates how spectacularly Duke's attempts to gain "closure" while avoiding additional exposure have failed.

Indeed, attorney Bob Ekstrand's 379-page complaint details an elaborate conspiracy allegedly perpetrated by defendants associated with Duke, the city of Durham and DNA Security (the lab that omitted key information about male DNA found on Crystal Mangum during her rape exam) "to violate the statutory and constitutional rights of Duke University students." Ekstrand's charges have not been proven in court, but his detailed and highly credible accounts should demolish the idea that Duke officials can achieve "closure" without accountability.

Continued...

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