Why is Melody a Dirty Word?

I was sitting in a composition seminar one day when a fellow composer presented a piece that was fairly atonal (meaning there was no tonal center, or key- see Natalie's previous post on tonality for a brief explanation). The discussion after the piece was presented focused largely on whether or not there was a melody at one point, which clearly outraged several of my colleagues. Part of the problem was that they felt a melody didn't fit in the piece based on the rest of its contents, which may have been a perfectly valid point. But a few disparaging comments about melody were made, and that bothered me. What's wrong with a good melody? And what have melodies done to deserve our wrath?