Lebo: School Response Slow

If you're scoring at home, you've noted some similarities between the Mt. Lebanon "top 25" list uproar and the investigation of the Duke lacrosse team.

From today's New York Times: "Report: Duke Response to Rape Charges Slow."

Duke's response to rape allegations involving members of the men's lacrosse team was too slow and relied too heavily on secondhand information, a report commissioned by the university has found.

That included assertions by Durham police that the accuser "kept changing her story and was not credible," the report released Monday said. Relying on such opinion, the report said, was a mistake.

The day after the March 13 team party where a 27-year-old black woman claimed she was raped, Durham police told campus officers that "this will blow over," the report said. . . .

The report -- commissioned by Duke's president and prepared by two former heads of universities -- does not say who at the Durham Police Department cast doubt on the accuser's complaint, but said taking those comments at face value and allowing them to shape Duke's thinking "was a major mistake."