At that point, the hoaxers were defended in much the same way the professors are defending themselves. An editorial in the Duke Chronicle stated, "The idea behind the act is being overlooked (as is usually the case). The University has not changed. Blacks are allowed to be enrolled here, but the idea is the equivalent of the transition from field slave to house slave."

In Spring 2002, a freshman had terrified the campus community two years prior by alleging that she had been "beaten and sexually assaulted after being sprayed in the eyes with a liquid as she exited a stall in a Randolph Dormitory bathroom." Having been "blinded," she could not identify her attacker; it could have been any man. Women wrote to the Chronicle of their fear of being "on campus". Duke even offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of the assailant before he attacked again.

In Fall 2004, there was another terrifying sexual assault. A woman said she had been attacked from behind while jogging near Duke Forest by a man who placed a cord around her neck. The campus was once again wracked by a "culture of fear" and "hysteria."

Then the truth came out. The victim in 2004 was the same victim in 2002, and as her tale of the forest assault was revealed to be a hoax, investigators realized that the infamous assault of ‘02 had been a hoax, too.

By 2004, it seemed that the Duke community had learned a valuable lesson. The Chronicle reported, "When students learned last week that one of the instigating events for the move was likely fabricated, they criticized anew the way the University handled the situation."

“We went from too little to too much,” one student told the paper. “One event should not have led to a bunch of reactions. It should have been an analysis of the whole situation."

Another student noticed, "Whenever one thing bad happens, the campus will sort of freak out. This just shows that that isn't always the best thing."

But the campus that had been subject to numerous hoaxed incidents of racial and sexual violence had yet to witness the level of "freaking out" it would reach in 2006. Sure, there have been numerous rapes in Durham before and since (there were 91 rapes reported in 2004, and the first half of 2006 there were 39 other rapes reported), but not one of them has received any attention from the freakers, the pot-bangers, the placard-waivers, the student-flunkers and statement-writers. Nor did the recent murder of a graduate student and academic stand-out from N.C. Central University (where the stripper attended). Those crimes didn't offer a "perfect storm" of racial, sexual and class-related issues; they presented no opportunity to hijack. So freaking out was reserved for what turned out to be the biggest hoax at Duke so far.

No, the lesson of past hoaxes hadn't been learned after all at one of the nation's most prestigious institutions of higher learning. It seems Duke hasn't changed.