JOHN LEO'S BLOG

He should have just shut up. Attorneys for the lacrosse players say they have time-stamped photos of the dancer arriving at the party on March 13 with some injuries visible on her body. Nifong is not totally responsible for the assumptions of guilt that dominated campus opinion, but his assurances surely played a role. The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP chapter, said the players are "suffering from a deep sickness in their souls." Maybe they are. Neighbors say their heard racist shouts from the party site as the dancer left. Like Nifong, Barber would have been better off simply saying that the alleged crime was a horrible one and that if the young men are guilty, they should go to prison for a long time.

Radical feminists and their allies have wheeled out the customary antimale mantra, proclaiming that Duke is in the grip of a "culture of rape." (Campus police reported four rapes total for the years 2002, 2003, and 2004.) After the surprising DNA results reported yesterday, some on campus were talking about a 2002 campus rape allegation, believed at the time but discredited after the same woman made a similar charge in 2004.

Photos of 43 of the 46 white players on the lacrosse team are appearing on campus posters. The message is that they should speak up, but the poster looks like a conventional "wanted" handbill that assumes guilt. A Duke student wrote to the Web site Real Clear Politics, "I have sensed a real mob mentality among the demonstrators, and I doubt many of them care about the truth or the victim. The fact is there are many people who desperately want this to be true, because it reinforces their preconceived notions."

Two Duke seniors, a male and a female, were harassed at a Durham fast-food restaurant, and the male was briefly knocked unconscious. According to the seniors, the attackers said Duke students weren't welcome "because they're all rapists" and "they're going to rape our women." Unconfirmed reports say threats of drive-by shootings have been made against the lacrosse team house. (Lacrosse players need their own house?)

Several blacks, on and off campus, have complained that if the alleged rapists had been black, they would be in jail now. Maybe so, but it is unusual to imprison anyone before any charges have been filed. It's also unusual to tell everyone a suspect is guilty of rape while awaiting the DNA results.