[1] On April 11, 2007, the N.C. Attorney General's Office dropped all charges against the players, declaring them innocent, and called them victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse".
At an African & African-American Studies forum on March 29 at Duke, organizers invited students "to voice their frustration with the current situation and, it became apparent, with the university as a whole".
"[6] In Howard Wasserman's book Institutional Failures (2010), he cites a university investigation at the time into the lacrosse players' personal behavior by Duke Law School professor James Earl Coleman.
He found that the players charged with alleged rape were "good students who caused no problems in the class, treated Duke staffers with respect...and had no record of sexist, racist, or other forms of anti-social behavior.
[8][9][10] Michael Gustafson, a Duke engineering professor cited in Johnson and Taylor's 2010 book,[9] expressed concerns that restrictions on stereotyping had not been observed and after the scandal broke, the student athletes were assumed to be guilty.
She published an Opinion piece in the Raleigh News & Observer in January 2007, saying that the ad "expressed the anguish of students who felt demeaned by racist and sexist remarks swirling around in the media and on the campus quad in the aftermath of what happened on March 13 in the lacrosse house.
Their January letter said that Duke fosters an "atmosphere that allows sexism, racism, and sexual violence to be so prevalent on campus.
"[4] Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was convicted of criminal contempt of court for lying to a judge in his pursuit of charges against the three lacrosse players.
[16] In December 2024 she gave a podcast interview from prison in which she admitted to fabricating the entire rape story and asked the students that she implicated for forgiveness.