On Duke's campus, the tide is starting to turn

	The Walk-On Melissa Moriarty is a junior at Duke and a dedicated fan of Blue Devils basketball.
	Duke lacrosse player Collin Finnerty is sworn in before a judge in a courtroom at the Durham County Judicial Building in Durham, N.C. Photo by AP

By Melissa Moriarty

If you had asked me a few months ago why Duke would be all over the news in April, I would have told you it was because the men's basketball team had won its fourth national championship. You can file that one under "Things I Couldn't Have Been More Wrong About."

Here we are, more than a month after the initial rape allegations against members of the men's lacrosse team. At first, the general student body was absolutely outraged. Lacrosse was the subject of every conversation, not to mention the target of daily protests. Students demanded that the university and the athletic department react swiftly and severely.

The most vocal students would have been happy to see the entire team expelled and prosecuted. Then the media descended on the campus. Satellite trucks from every major news outlet parked on the grass of our main quad and took up the entire parking lot of our student union. Students were ready and willing to express their opinions on camera.

The abundant media coverage portrayed the lacrosse team as a bunch of rowdy, wealthy and disrespectful meatheads. There has also been a lot of talk about athletes getting special treatment in this case. As great as it is for TV ratings to have the perfect personification of "the man" be accused of a crime against a young, black, struggling, single mother, these polarizing characterizations are simply not accurate. Cooler heads have prevailed.

The initial willingness to assume guilt is now overshadowed by skepticism. It seems that every morning we are met with another piece of evidence that questions the story of the alleged victim. Leaving the student center today, I overheard a reporter asked two students to talk to her on camera. A few weeks ago, students were camera-hungry, but this pair wasn't interested.

After two arrests were made on Tuesday morning, the campus has remained relatively calm. Students now have names and faces on two of the alleged attackers. But the pendulum has certainly swung the other way. Friends and classmates of the accused are rushing to their defense and vocally opposing the arrests and actions of the Durham police and District Attorney.