The district attorney in Guilford County, N.C., has dropped charges against the football players who had been accused of assaulting Palestinian students at Guilford College. According to the News & Record, a newspaper in Greensboro, N.C., the district attorney, Howard Neumann, decided not to prosecute for several reasons, including conflicting statements from witnesses to the incident.

A lawyer for the Palestinian students, two of whom attend Guilford, had said his clients would drop their charges if the players apologized. The Palestinian students had accused the football players of beating and kicking them, and using ethnic slurs, during the fight, which broke out on January 20.

For a time, it seemed that the Palestinian students’ explosive accusations would send the college into the same media maelstrom that has beset Duke University, just up the road from Guilford, since rape accusations were leveled against its men’s lacrosse team a year ago. In part because many people were willing to withhold judgment at Guilford, it hasn’t turned out that way.