Duke University’s president, Richard H. Brodhead, apologized in a speech Saturday for the university’s failure to offer more support to the four lacrosse-team members accused last year of rape. The accusations turned out to be unsubstantiated.
According to The News & Observer, a newspaper in Raleigh N.C., Mr. Brodhead said that by “not repeating the need for the presumption of innocence equally vigorously at all the key moments,” the univerisity may have “helped create the impression that we did not care about our students.”
“If there’s one lesson the world should take from the Duke lacrosse case,” he said, “it’s the danger of prejudgment and our need to defend against it at every turn.”
It was the first time Mr. Brodhead had apologized in public for the university’s handling of the accusations. —Lawrence Biemiller
