Quick Takes: Howard U. President Will Retire, Cheating Scandal at Duke B-School, Evidence Flaws in Lacrosse Case, Judge Rejects Political Bias Suit, Texas Loses Patent Suit, Loan Forgiveness in Missouri, Christian College Allowed to Post Ads

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H. Patrick Swygert, president of Howard University since 1995, announced Friday that he would retire next year, The Washington Post reported. While Swygert has overseen numerous building projects and a $250 million fund raising campaign, faculty leaders have been pushing for him to leave, criticizing his management style and unmet financial and facility needs.
In the biggest cheating scandal ever at Duke University's business school, 34 students are facing penalties for collaborating on exam answers, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported. Nine students face expulsion, while others face a range of penalties, including one-year suspensions from the MBA program.
A report released Friday by North Carolina's attorney general detailed the problems with the evidence used last year to indict three Duke University lacrosse players for assaulting a woman hired as a dancer for a party. The attorney general dropped all charges this month -- and the report provides a detailed analysis of the rationale for doing so. Among the problems with the case cited in the report: the statement by the woman who brought the complaint was contradicted by other evidence and she gave inconsistent versions of her story, her credibility would have been suspect because of her "previous encounters with law enforcement," no testimony or physical evidence backed her story, and "credible and verifiable evidence" that the accused could not have participated in the attack at the time it was alleged to have taken place.
A federal judge last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by a former graduate student at Temple who alleged that his master's thesis was rejected for political reasons, the Associated Press reported. While the judge had earlier ruled against Temple on the validity of a harassment policy that has since been revised, he didn't find sufficient evidence for the political bias claim to go forward.
A federal judge has rejected a patent-infringement suit by the University of Texas System against Motorola over text-messaging technology, Bloomberg reported.
The Higher Education Authority of Missouri, known as Mohela, announced last week that it was forgiving $500 in the students loan debts of each of more than 9,300 freshmen in the state who are Pell Grant recipients.
Geneva College, a Christian college in Pennsylvania, has won a settlement allowing it to use a state job site to post positions that state the college's religious requirements of employees, the Associated Press reported. The job postings had been rejected on religious discrimination grounds, but the college noted that religious colleges have the right under federal law to consider the faith of employees.