I wouldn’t have taken that deal.
Money in the bank today is worth more than what they might have gotten, if anything, in the future.
What if your parents had mortgaged their homes to pay the lawyers, and this winds up taking them off the hook and giving you a nice piece of change?
The faculty is practically "judgment proof", it'd cost more to sue them than you'd ever be likely to collect. Basically, they're like illegal aliens driving without insurance. No problemo, you wipe out of family of four, take the deportation and come back in a coupla weeks under a new false ID.
Don’t worry. It cost Duke every penny they had saved in their legal fund. Tens of millions at the very least. By taking the money now, the three victims get to keep more of the money which would otherwise go to their, and Dukes, lawyers if the case went to trial.
Another good point in taking the money now, is that it establishes their case against Durham County and Nifong. Duke, by paying, has strengthened that case and they can now use that money to go after the big bucks. You shouldn’t worry that Duke university is somehow getting off easy either.
This is going to hurt everyone associated with the university for a long time to come. There are going to be layoffs, shrinking enrollments, fewer endowments. Duke will end up a shadow of it’s former self, if it doesn’t go bankrupt entirely.
If the trustees were smart they would clean house and fire the president and all 88 signers of the ad slandering the lacrosse team. However, they aren’t smart or they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place. Stupid university deserves to go down the drain. Good riddance.
PS. you know it cost Duke big bucks to settle. It's standard to keep settlements secret if they are large. Thats so scammers won't see to the payer as a soft target that can be intimidated into paying large settlements. If the settlement were small, Duke wouldn't have any reason to keep it secret.