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Sports

Diplomatic immunity exists among athletes

Silent Assassin

Ronnie Turner 

This week will be a busy week for college athletics as men's basketball plans to wrap up its season with the Final Four in Indianapolis, ending an exciting NCAA Tournament. However, when it's all said and done, that will be the least important topic in college sports because another event has come to the forefront. 

Accusations have arisen at Duke University that members of its men's lacrosse team assaulted an exotic dancer hired to perform at an off-campus party. The alleged victim, a student at North Carolina Central University, claimed that she was pulled into a restroom, beaten, choked and raped by three men. So far, the players aren't talking, but Duke president Richard Brodhead decided that he would suspend the highly ranked Blue Devils indefinitely pending the results of a rape investigation, saying the suspension is not a punishment. I would have to agree; it's not punishment enough. 

Police collected DNA samples from 46 lacrosse players last week, excluding the 47th player, an African-American, because the victim said her attackers were white. Not surprisingly, the lacrosse team has been known for past scrapes with the law; 15 of its members have previously been charged with offenses ranging from underage alcohol possession to public urination. Many times, the players escaped criminal convictions through deals made with prosecutors.

It's a shame that more wasn't done by the university. There's a high probability that someone on that team had something to do with the alleged rape or they know someone else who did. If these lacrosse players truly want to proclaim their innocence, then they need to cooperate with the authorities. Likewise, if universities truly wanted to make its athletes better citizens, it would stop making concessions for them and let them answer to the law when they commit crimes. 

We've all heard the same stories before. We know about the athletes who get arrested for drunk driving, speeding, theft, drug possession and sexual assault. What we're not hearing enough about are the athletes who receive adequate punishment for their crimes. Instead, they're getting brokered deals to accompany suspensions from their teams. 

One well known cases stems from the University of Colorado, which, in 2004, was sued in federal district court for allegedly contributing to a situation in which the plaintiff was gang-raped by CU football players and recruits. The case alledged that the CU Athletic Department marketed its program to recruits through alcohol use and sex with female CU students, while overlooking criminal activities, such as rape. The judge dismissed the suit in the spring of 2005, but some top CU heads had resigned over the embarrassment.

It's about time universities' officials stopped coddling their athletes. Because if they don't deal with them properly now, they may have to deal with them later when it's their daughters who are being sexually assaulted.

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