Ball 5

Author: Justin Golenbock

Everyone saw it coming. Next year, business as usual.

In the latest "twist" in the Duke lacrosse team scandal, a Duke University panel convened to investigate the criminal culture among their own student-athletes and recommended that the suspended lacrosse team be allowed to resume play next season. "Although the pattern of misconduct in recent years by the lacrosse team is alarming, the evidence reviewed ... does not warrant suspension of the sport," the seven-person committee wrote up in their report.

The aftermath from a rape allegation made by a 27-year-old black student from cross-town North Carolina Central University, a predominantly black school in Durham, against three white lacrosse players from the wealthy and prestigious Duke University, continues to be colossal. Sophomores Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty have been indicted by a grand jury and are set to stand trial on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual assault. Meanwhile, tensions between the two school bodies have continued to grow through on-campus demonstrations at Duke and throughout Durham.

I do not mean to turn this into a trial by media. The facts of the case are for a jury to decide, though it is disturbing that the defense's case seems to be built upon attempts to circumvent the rape shield law and attack the victim's purported sexual history through hearsay allegations in the media.

But what message does it send that Duke has so neatly solved its problem with the behavior of its student-athletes through merely "strict monitoring…of problems related to alcohol?" And I'm not talking about just Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty.

Fifteen of the current 47 members on the lacrosse team have been charged with misdemeanor crimes in Durham and Orange Counties, 41 lacrosse players since 1999; only Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty have been suspended. Finnerty was just recently ordered by a grand jury to stand trial in Washington, D.C. for an assault charge from last year, yet he was allowed to keep playing until the sick and disgustingly racist and violent e-mail he wrote to teammates, relating his desire to "murder…and skin" both dancers, was found by prosecutors.

It is obvious that this type of sustained and significant criminal record is not the norm for groups of college students who like to party hard. The fact that 41 of the 47 current team members were at this party when the rape allegedly occurred, where racist invective was spewed and broomsticks were threatened to be used in disturbingly abusive ways, that all of these players have stayed silent and loyally refused to give testimony in any way related to that evening…well…they can't go to jail for any of that. But to lose only a single season of play? Take with a cup a salt the ubiquitous advertising from the great and prestigious Duke University that lays a claim to churning out superior people.