The Duke women's basketball team cruised to a victory over Louisiana State University in the Final Four semifinals on Saturday night to advance to Tuesday's NCAA title game.
But on a campus where almost nothing can overshadow basketball, the celebration has been limited this year as the attention of the campus, the town, and much of college sports is focused on the unfolding controversy surrounding the Duke men's lacrosse team.
"Last week, to be completely honest, the fact that the women's team was in the Final Four was quite unnoticed," said Mike Van Pelt, the sports editor of Duke's student newspaper, The Chronicle. "No one was talking about it because the lacrosse team was dominating conversation."
Ranked No. 9 in the nation, the team was considered to be a strong contender for the lacrosse national championship this year. But the Blue Devils are now facing a rape accusation that has resulted in the indefinite suspension of the entire season on Mar. 28 and has turned a national media spotlight on Duke University.
The controversy stems from a Mar. 13 party where two dancers were hired to perform at an off-campus house rented by several members of the lacrosse team. The alleged victim is one of the dancers, a single black mother and a student at North Central Carolina University in nearby Raleigh. The woman, whose name has not been released, has accused three members of the team of raping, sodomizing and strangling her.
According to her account, the dancers arrived at the party and began to perform but became frightened and left after the men became verbally aggressive and derided the women with racial slurs.
According to the account, a member of the team then coaxed the women into returning to the house, where the alleged victim was separated from her companion, who did not reenter the house. The account states that once back inside the house, she was cornered, gang-raped, and choked by three men for approximately half an hour. She has also accused the men of robbing her of a cell phone and $400 cash.
The account of the alleged victim was enough to warrant a search of the house, during which the police discovered the missing cell phone and cash, as well as four red acrylic nails in the bathroom that the woman claims came off during the encounter.
The lacrosse team admits to hiring the dancers and serving alcohol to underage players, but denies that any sex, consensual or otherwise, took place with either dancer.
"Any allegation that a sexual assault or rape occurred is totally and transparently false," a statement from the team's captains read.
But Durham County District Attorney Michael B. Nifong says that he is convinced that rape occurred, citing evidence of rape trauma observed at the hospital and vague statements given by players to police.
Nifong said that charges will be filed in April.
On a non-testimonial court order, DNA was collected from 46 out of 47 team members, including three players who claim to have not attended the party.
The only player who was not required to give DNA was the sole black team member, since the alleged victim identified all three of her assailants as white.
Other than claiming that the DNA tests will clear their names, the lacrosse team has remained silent. The players have secured legal counsel together and have put up their own "blue wall of silence," refusing to talk to the press and exhibiting acts of solidarity such as wearing their uniforms around campus.
Set in a small town where the average annual income is less than one-year of tuition at Duke, the University has a history of strained relations with surrounding Durham. After several years of slow progress in town-gown relations, tensions have now risen to new levels due to the racial and socioeconomic elements of the incident.
"At Duke there would have been a strong response in any situation that involved race and class," Van Pelt said. "But because it's the lacrosse team, there's been a different response just because people have some preconceived notions."
The lacrosse team, according to Van Pelt, had already earned a socially elitist and rowdy reputation on campus.
Naomi Barrowclough, a Duke junior and co-director of a race relations dialogue program at Duke's Center for Race Relations, adds that members of the black Duke community report past issues with some members of the lacrosse team.
"Most people that you talk to will say [these allegations] do not surprise them, coming from the lacrosse team," Barrowclough said. "People have supposedly had other encounters with the lacrosse team in which they made a racist remark. A lot of the women weren't surprised.
"People have had distinct experiences with the lacrosse players and have a distinct impression of the lacrosse team," Barrowclough continued. "They are white, there's only one black guy on [the team], and the majority of people I've talked to have said they weren't surprised, although they were shocked that something [this extreme] happened."
The allegations have polarized the campus. Many students are worried that the legal standard of innocent until proven guilty is being discarded in the flurry of condemnation and accusations. Others believe that the players' affluence will guarantee acquittal regardless of what actually happened at the party.
Duke students aren't the only ones disturbed by the allegations. The Durham community and students at N.C. Central University have come together in support of the alleged victim, speaking out against the lacrosse team and conducting candlelight vigils.
But vigils have not been enough for some community members who have begun to lash out aggressively at Duke students who venture off-campus. Duke senior Basil Camu was beaten unconscious outside a local off-campus restaurant by men who attacked him at 3 a.m. on the morning of Apr. 1. Senior Morgan Gieseke, who was with Camu, said that the attackers made comments like "Duke men raped their women" and should stay away from the community.
"[The team's] silence is protecting the lacrosse team," Barrowclough said. "But it's putting everyone else at risk. Until it's resolved, there is going to be a lot of animosity from outside."
The author transferred from Duke after the 2003-2004 academmic year.
