The Group of 88 is the term for the professors at Duke University who were signatories to a controversial advertisement in The Chronicle, the university's student newspaper, on April 6, 2006. The advertisement addressed the Duke lacrosse case, in which an African-American woman claimed to have been raped by three white members of Duke's lacrosse team several weeks earlier. The incident was under police investigation at the time of the advertisement, and all charges were dropped and the students declared innocent by the North Carolina Attorney General a year after its publication. The signatories stated they were attempting to start a dialogue regarding issues of race and sexual assault, but they and the advertisement attracted widespread criticism. Background Duke lacrosse case Crystal Mangum, an African-American student at North Carolina Central University who worked as a stripper, was hired to perform at a party held at the house of two of the team's captains in Durham, North Carolina, on March 13, 2006. Several hours after the party, after becoming involved in an altercation with her fellow stripper that necessitated police assistance, Mangum made accusations that three white Duke University lacrosse team members had raped her, which were later shown to be false. Inspiration for the Chronicle advertisement At a March 29 African & African-American Studies forum, students "were invited to voice their frustration with the current situation and, it became apparent, with the university as a whole". The students' remarks formed the basis for the advertisement. The ad described the circumstances surrounding the allegations as a "social disaster" and cited anonymous claims of sexism and harassment at the Duke campus. The ad specifically called for students to be vocal on the issues. Commentary and criticism National media John Podhoretz wrote in the New York Post that: "The school has perhaps 700 professors who teach undergrads. So, at a moment when Duke students were being shadowed by a rape accusation, one-ninth of their professoriate had effectively declared that those students did not deserve the presumption of innocence – primarily because so many of their fellow students were supposedly being victimized by the atmosphere of 'racism and sexism. Podhoretz quoted Stephen Baldwin, a professor of chemistry: "There was a collision between political correctness and due process, and political correctness won." In Howard Wasserman's Institutional Failures, he cites an investigation into the lacrosse players' personal behavior by Duke Law School professor James Earl Coleman,