By AARON BEARD
The Associated Press
Friday, April 21, 2006; 9:48 PM
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke alumni began converging on campus Friday for a reunion weekend, reluctant to jump to conclusions about their alma mater's rape scandal but offering approval for how school officials have addressed it.
Like many others, Justin Swift said he has questions about what happened last month at an off-campus party hosted by the men's lacrosse team at which a stripper has said she was raped, beaten and strangled.
"I think the general consensus is that the university is doing the right thing," said Swift, a Las Vegas architect who graduated from Duke in 1986. "I'm the kind of guy who likes people to say the right thing."
The reunion weekend comes just days after a grand jury indicted Reade Seligmann, of Essex Fells, N.J., and fellow sophomore lacrosse player Collin Finnerty, of Garden City, N.Y. Authorities believe they were two of the three white men who the 27-year-old black single mother says raped her in a bathroom of a house March 13.
Prosecutor Mike Nifong has said he hopes to charge a third suspect. Defense attorneys have strongly proclaimed the players' innocence.
On Friday, Robert Ekstrand, an attorney for dozens of the uncharged lacrosse players, said authorities have given the defense team a copy of the police report on the photo identifications made by the accuser. Ekstrand said according to the report, the accuser was shown photos of 46 lacrosse players and was told by police that all were believed to be at the party.
Ekstrand said the police should have included photos of people not linked to the case.
"There weren't any dummies in there," Ekstrand said. "There weren't elements to test her, like someone known not to be near the party or involved."
Nifong's office said Friday the prosecutor, as he has for several weeks, would not comment on the case.
Since the allegations arose, the university has canceled the team's season, its coach resigned, and it started investigations that include an examination of the behavior of the highly ranked lacrosse team. A third of the team's players have been cited for public intoxication and public urination, and Finnerty was charged last year with simple assault in Washington, D.C.
There was little chance that any alumni hadn't heard about the scandal.
"You can't avoid it. You just can't avoid it," said Jean Hoppe Hurston, a real estate broker from Virginia Beach, Va., who graduated in 1966. "It's very disheartening. I hope a resolution comes quickly so everybody can get back to their lives."
Hurston and others decried the media attention on Duke, with some saying they wanted to spend part of their reunion weekend finding out for themselves what is going on.
"One of the reasons I wanted to come was, I was anxious to get a view of the situation firsthand instead of filtered through the media," said Lynn Dalton Young, a 1976 graduate who has twin sons at Duke.
Hurston, who was attending the reunion weekend with her husband, Jim, said she takes rape seriously but isn't in a place to judge the guilt or innocence of the players.
Swift echoed that sentiment, saying he is unable to criticize the team because he can't reconcile the allegations of the past month with his memories of college life.
"You're always going to have somebody who doesn't know how to behave," he said. "I managed to get out of college without having a record."
He had an added challenge on his visit: explaining the scandal to his two daughters, ages 7 and 9, who tagged along.
"My daughter asked, 'What happened?'" Swift said. "How do I explain this? I can't even begin to describe this to my daughter."
Duke is a wonderful school, Hurston said _ a place where parents shouldn't be afraid to send their kids to college.
"I knew they were serious when I was sitting at my computer one night and I get an e-mail from the president," Hurston said. "I thought, 'They're taking it seriously.' Which is good, because it should be taken seriously."
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Duke University: http://www.duke.edu