Racial tensions are running high, angry students and townspeople have marched in protest over the past week and now a violent e-mail has surfaced in the ongoing rape scandal that has gripped Duke University.

The campus has been rocked in recent weeks by allegations that three members of its lacrosse team were involved in the rape and beating of a stripper from a nearby college at an off-campus party last month. The incident led to the resignation of the highly ranked team's longstanding coach on Wednesday, a week after the cancellation of the rest of the squad's season.

Coach Mike Pressler, who led the team for 15 seasons, tendered his resignation on Wednesday as the scandal spread due to the revelation of a disturbing message sent from one of the player's e-mail accounts.

The Durham Herald-Sun reported that half an hour after the 911 call that launched an investigation into the alleged March 13 rape, a team member wrote an e-mail saying he planned to kill strippers the following night in his dorm building, according to court documents. The documents also show that on March 27, Durham police added a conspiracy to commit murder charge to the list of possible crimes they were investigating in the case.

The e-mail was from an account owned by team member Ryan McFadyen, and it read [typographical errors are from original document], "tommrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over to edens 2c. all are welcome.. however there will be no nudity. I plan on killing the b----es as soon as the walk in and proceding to cut their skin off ... " The e-mail, signed with 19-year-old McFadyen's jersey number, 41, also invited unnamed others to join in the attack. The university reported Wednesday that McFadyen had been suspended pending a campus judicial review.

An attorney who reportedly represents 30 of the team's members called the e-mail "vile," but said it is "perfectly consistent" with the assertion by the players that no sexual assault took place that night. He said that the timestamp on the note, shortly after the alleged incident, "is further evidence of a lack of a guilty mind."

The alleged victim is a black female from nearby N.C. Central University, while the team members accused of the crime are white, which has inflamed racial tensions in the city and put a spotlight on the long-simmering divide between the privileged students at the elite university and Durham townspeople, according to an Associated Press report. The victim has said that her attackers taunted her with racial slurs and insults. Students and Durham residents have marched on and off campus over the past week, protesting the school's handling of the allegations and the refusal by team members to cooperate with police.

DNA samples have been taken from 46 of the 47 players and test results are expected later this week. The only player not tested is black and the alleged victim has said her attackers were all white. No one has been charged yet in the incident and the team's co-captains have denied that anyone was sexually assaulted at the party.

The allegations led Duke University president Richard Brodhead to announce the formation of five new committees on Wednesday to examine the culture of sport and student conduct at the school, according to the Herald-Sun. One committee will look into the lacrosse team's conduct before the March 13 party, two will look at Duke's response to the allegations, another will examine how Duke deals with student behavior through its student judicial system and the fifth will suggest ways the school educates its students in the "values of personal responsibility ... and mutual respect."

"One of the sorrows of this episode is that it has brought the name of Durham into the national limelight in a way that none of us enjoy, on terms that are very unfair. And I deeply regret that," Brodhead said in a statement.

Brodhead had allowed the team to continue practicing and had left the door open to the possibility of resuming the season, but those options were taken away with the revelation of the e-mail.