Today a committee appointed by Duke President Richard Brodhead released a report (PDF) on the administration’s response to the alleged lacrosse team rape. The conclusion, not surprisingly, is that the administration failed to move quickly enough to address the situation — in part because it took a shocking ten days for the administration that the accuser was black and two weeks to learn of the alleged racial slurs made by team members.

The report also confirms one rumor I had heard, stating definitively that the Durham police regarded the accuser as non-credible. It states the following on pages 4-5:

There are reports from several sources that members of the Durham police force initially (March 14) made comments to Duke police officers and others to the effect that the complainant “kept changing her story and was not credible;” that “if any charges were brought, they would be no more than misdemeanors;” and that “this will all blow over.” When Dean Wasiolek called her colleagues to inform them of the incident, she also conveyed the police’s assessment that the alleged victim was not credible. The discounting by police and others of the importance of the seriousness of the allegations may have reflected a belief that the matter would not be pressed because the charging party was not that important or reliable. When President Brodhead first learned of the allegations on March 20, he called Vice President Moneta, who told him that “the accusations were not credible and were unlikely to amount to anything.”

Clearly, the administration miscalculated. Still, this raises a serious question: how did Mike Nifong, the district attorney, reach such a different judgment about the credibility of the accuser than the Durham police?