For Duke, a painful affair

Early on, Duke was subjected to lacerating criticism, but the university appears to be weathering the damage

DURHAM -- There are days when Duke University President Richard Brodhead can barely bring himself to utter the word "lacrosse."

In a February address to a national higher education audience, he referred to "our difficulties this past year." At a recent gathering of Duke faculty, he called it "the event of a year ago."

On Wednesday, Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges against the three former Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting an escort service dancer. The case may be over, but the pain will linger for the university.

In recent years, Duke's status has risen from that of a solid Southern school endowed with tobacco money to that of a top-tier university. Duke regularly appears in the top 10 of many national rankings.

But damage has been done, almost everyone agrees.

Public drama

For months, the university was caught up in an ugly story that played over and over on cable television talk shows, on the cover of national magazines and in The New York Times. While satellite trucks lined up behind Duke Chapel and the nation watched, the university contended with issues that remain unresolved.

Privileged athletes who hired strippers. A hard-drinking tradition harmful to students and town-gown relations. A campus sometimes divided by racial and sexual politics.

"Their image and reputation have been tarnished, but I don't know how badly," said Christopher Simpson, CEO of higher education marketing firm SimpsonScarborough. "I don't think it's fatal by any stretch."

Simpson uses Duke as an example in his book "Weathering the Storm: Protecting Your Brand in the Worst of Times." He said university leaders could have done more to control the situation early, particularly asking the blunt question about whether Duke had created an environment inhospitable to women and people of color. But, he concedes, "it was a lose-lose to begin with."

A hopeful view

Paul Haagen, a law professor and chairman of Duke's Academic Council, said Wednesday the damage done by the lacrosse saga is "largely ephemeral."

"It's the loss of energy for a year, it's the distraction; it has taken up people's time," he said. "But Duke is an institution with enormous momentum. Will the effects be long-lasting? I would think not at all."

Just two years into his first college presidency, Brodhead oversaw a campus besieged by rumor, protest and nonstop news coverage. At first, he was criticized for not acting quickly enough to halt the lacrosse team's season. Then, as the case fell apart, Brodhead was demonized by others for not standing behind the players.

The faculty took heat, too. As the crisis reached a peak early last April, a group of 88 professors signed onto an ad placed in the student newspaper, The Chronicle. The headline said "What Does a Social Disaster Sound Like?" and the ad featured anonymous quotes from students who described a campus culture of racism and sexism, decrying "what happened to this young woman."

The ad did not mention the lacrosse team, but it was viewed by some as a condemnation of the players. It became a popular target of bloggers, a symbol of political correctness run amok. The professors who endorsed it received hate-filled e-mail for months.

A slight dip

There were early signs that the lacrosse case was hurting prospective students' attitudes about Duke, too. Applications for early decision dropped by nearly 20 percent. By the regular deadline in January, however, the total decline was 4.6 percent. Once all the applications trickled in, the dip was slight -- just 1 percent.