<p>The Duke student were actually suspended and weren’t allowed to attend classes. There’s no proof that they did anything illegal.</p>
<p>Tim – there are approximately 11000 posts on this subject on the never-ending thread. </p>
<p>Unfortunately they have vanished.</p>
<p>For the record…</p>
<p>In a criminal court, you’re innocent until proven guilty. Duke is a private university and can discipline its students pretty much however it wants to.</p>
<p>The school has a rule. If you are indicted for a felony crime you are suspended, until the charges are resolved. Seems like a reasonable rule. I believe Congress has a similar rule regarding felony indictments. </p>
<p>Maybe the rule should be rewritten to exclude indictments that are brought by a rogue unethical prosecutor, but that would probably create more problems than it would solve.</p>
<p>In court of public opinion, after witnessing people like O.J. get off, you are now guilty until proven innocent.</p>
<p>In the court of public or private opinion, people are free to believe whatever they want. The principle of “Innocent until proven guilty” is how a someone must be treated by the law. It does not require any individual to actually believe in their hearts that any given defendant is innocent. Likewise, if someone gets convicted we are not required to actually believe he did it. We are free to think that he was unfairly convicted if for some reason that’s what we are convinced of.</p>
<p>In law, the ONLY place that one is “innocent until guility” is in the court decision itself. It is NOT true for arrests, arraignment, detention, or bail. In fact, with all of these, the opposite is true, and bail is often set according to the heinousness of the crime (the presumption of guilt) and the chance of the accused fleeing (why would they flee if they were innocent?)</p>
<p>Except for the trial by judge or jury, one is presumed guilty until adjudged not to be so. And let me tell you - you wouldn’t want it any other way.</p>
<p>Getting suspended from school while under indictment, but innocent, is not fair, but what else is the university to do - absent evidence.</p>
<p>One would hope, however, that once the innocence is established, that the university does what it can to make it up to the students.</p>