By Anna Waugh

Antioch College”Out of time.” That’s what the Board of Trustees said this week to alumni groups after its failed campaign to raise funds to keep this struggling Yellow Springs, Ohio, college open. After 155 years, the college will close due to lack of funding, despite almost $20 million received in pledges and gifts from alums.

“We would’ve liked to have reached the agreement by now. We had everything in place that’s necessary to keep the college operating,” said Eric Bates, co-chairman of the Antioch College Continuation Corporation to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

But the trustees see it differently.

“We just didn’t have enough time to get through the complexities,” said Arthur Zucker, the Board’s chairman. “We have reached a point that we cannot guarantee an open college” after this semester. He said that they felt the need to make a decision early enough so that the 200 students, 41 tenured professors, and 85 staff members could make decisions about what they would do next year.

So long, comrade.

Duke University

The game’s not over yet. Two years after three members of the Duke lacrosse team were charged with the rape and assault of a stripper at a lacrosse team party, the tables have turned and it’s the University’s turn in the hot seat.

Thirty-eight current and former men’s lacrosse players are suing Duke and the City of Durham, N.C., arguing that the players suffered from harassment, harm to their reputations and a rogue criminal investigation. “The condemnations were everywhere,” said Steven Hinkelman, the father of a former player. “Duke, rather than providing that so needed support, coldly turned away and abandoned these young men and their families.”

The players want “full accountability” said Charles Cooper, the players’ lawyer, at a press conference. University officials “possessed convincing evidence of the players’ innocence and. had a responsibility to their students to speak out,” Cooper said.

According to Stuart Taylor Jr., a legal journalist and coauthor of Until Proven Innocent, a book about the lacrosse case, “[The University] owed it to the students at least as a moral matter to make public the data they had. to come forth with their information that contradicted what law enforcement was saying.”

Duke’s general counsel, Pamela Bernard, argued against these claims saying that the University offered to cover the players’ legal fees and other expenses. Something the players refused.

Only three members of 2006 men’s lacrosse team have not sued or reached a settlement with Duke, and one of them is Matt Danowski, the son of the team’s current coach. Though all charges were dropped against the three players, emotions are still running high. Whatever the outcome of this trial, the smearing continues.