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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,393 Views)
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https://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2017/11/10/rolling-stone-sacred-text-of-the-left-n2407464

Rolling Stone: Sacred Text of the Left?
Brent Bozell
Posted: Nov 10, 2017 12:01 AM

On Nov. 9, Rolling Stone magazine celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first issue, published in the hippie Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco. True to form, liberal journalists -- who claim to care so deeply about the menace of fake reporting -- honored founder Jann Wenner and dismissed as insignificant the magazine's 2015 "A Rape on Campus" story scandal.

On Nov. 5, CBS "Sunday Morning" host Jane Pauley gushed over Wenner as "the rock star of publishing." Minutes later, she upgraded the flattery by calling him "perhaps the most influential rock star on the planet."

Out of nearly nine minutes, CBS correspondent Anthony Mason spent less than a minute on the fake story about gang rape at the University of Virginia. He asked, "How much did UVA hurt the magazine?" Wenner replied, "a little." Mason pushed back, and Wenner complained that it was "one incident" in 50 years, saying: "I think that the people who were in charge of this at the time, you know, let certain standards slide. Were it not for this one woman who fabricated, that was golden; that was a great story." Had both the interviewer and interviewee yawned at this point, it would have done justice to the mood.

"This one woman" was the center of the story, which became a national outrage about gang-raping fraternity boys. It turns out Rolling Stone didn't even get to square one and attempt to verify that there was a party at the Phi Kappa Psi frat house on the night in question. There wasn't. That's why it had to fork over $1.65 million in damages.

Put yourself in the shoes of those innocent young men who were accused of such a heinous crime, found guilty by such a powerful magazine and soundly condemned by a nation. The $1.65 million in damages does not begin to erase the humiliation.

NBC's "Today" show interviewed Wenner and didn't even bring up the subject. Host Matt Lauer was more interested in asking, "what are you most proud of in terms of a social issue that you got ahead of?" How about rape on campus? At least Lauer asked about the Rolling Stone cover that glamorized Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and then asked: "Was that your biggest do-over? Or are there some others?" Wenner volunteered the UVA story, saying, "we got, you know, really duped." So it just wasn't the magazine's fault. How's that for taking responsibility?

ABC's "Good Morning America" aired a story on Rolling Stone and a new Wenner biography on Oct. 20, which didn't include a word about the fake rape story as the host gushed over a 1972 nude cover photo of "Partridge Family" star David Cassidy.

Despite being exposed as an unreliable source of lies and character assassination, almost every liberal-media notice started with comparing Rolling Stone to the Holy Bible. This suggests that they're all eager lackeys of the hippie magazine's public relations staff. CBS began, saying, "It's been the cultural bible of baby boomers for half a century." NBC also called it "the cultural bible for baby boomers." The New York Times described it as the "shiny entertainment-industry bible." A few weeks ago, a Times headline read, "Rolling Stone, Once a Counterculture Bible, Will Be Put Up for Sale."

If Rolling Stone represents the "sacred text" of the 60s-mythologizing left, then that's a sad indictment. But it's obvious that the magazine was part of transforming the "counterculture" into the "culture." Its revered status as a cultural "agent of change" seems to be a major reason why the media elites grant the magazine a pass on smearing entire universities.

And with that, let's return to those media lectures about the need for honest and competent journalism.
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http://www.richmond.com/ap/national/rolling-stone-slams-defamation-claim-in-university-of-virginia-rape/article_4d76e32c-e389-589a-b597-db1cf98471e9.html

Rolling Stone slams defamation claim in University of Virginia rape story

By DENISE LAVOIE AP Legal Affairs Writer
11/17/17


RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Rolling Stone is defending itself against a defamation lawsuit over a discredited article about a University of Virginia gang rape by arguing that members of a school fraternity knew about discrepancies in the woman's claims weeks before the article was published and should have warned the magazine.

Lawyers for Rolling Stone argue in court documents that the fraternity and its members withheld that information from the magazine and its reporter, "at a time when disclosing such information would have prevented publication" of the woman's allegations.

A judge had dismissed the lawsuit filed in New York by three Phi Kappa Psi members. But a federal appeals court reinstated the lawsuit in September, finding that the 2014 article, "A Rape on Campus," could enable a reader to conclude that many or all members of the fraternity participated in gang rapes as an initiation ritual and that all members knowingly ignored the rapes.

A woman identified as "Jackie" in the article told the magazine she was raped by seven men at a fraternity house in September 2012. But an investigation by police in Charlottesville, the home of UVA's campus, found no evidence to back up the claims.

Rolling Stone later retracted the article and apologized.

The lawsuit by the three former fraternity members was one of three defamation cases filed against the magazine over the article.

After a 2016 trial, a Virginia jury awarded $3 million in damages to an associate dean. Rolling Stone appealed, but later settled with the dean. In June, Rolling Stone settled a case filed by the Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi for $1.65 million.

The three former fraternity members were not named in the article, but in their lawsuit they say the article included certain details that could lead readers familiar with Phi Kappa Psi to identify them.

The men's lawyers declined to comment on Rolling Stone's defense, outlined in a Nov. 10 written court filing.

In a statement, Rolling Stone said it is "confident the case has no merit."

"Rolling Stone has taken full responsibility for our actions in reporting Jackie's allegations, and we wish that the fraternity and Plaintiffs would do the same," the statement said.

The magazine also argues that the former fraternity members' claims fail because the men did not suffer any actual harm or damages as a result of the article.

Rolling Stone, a magazine that chronicled the music and politics of the counterculture movement, is now on the market, with founder Jann Wenner planning to sell his company's controlling stake.
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https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2017/11/27/trials-and-triumphs-university-virginia-essay

In Defense of UVA

Despite its recent trials, the university embodies the dream of public higher education, Mark Edmundson writes.
By Mark Edmundson
November 27, 2017

The University of Virginia has had a rough year. Actually, we’ve had a rough five years.

In the summer of 2012, members of the University Board of Visitors decided to dismiss President Teresa Sullivan. Reasons were vague. There was talk about how she had failed to be sufficiently “dynamic” in leading the university. She was scolded for failing to rush to the forefront of online education, which she was told by Helen Dragas, the rector of the Board of Visitors, was the next big thing. (It was not.)

The board got Sullivan to sign a letter of resignation and accept a settlement. The students and faculty and alumni of Virginia rallied, and after demonstrations and protests, the board buckled and reinstated Sullivan. One could think that was the end of UVA’s troubles, at least for a while.

Next came the disappearance and horrible murder of a second-year student, Hannah Graham. Graham was seen walking unsteadily and alone through our downtown mall. She got into a car with Jesse Matthew, who took her to a secluded spot and murdered her. Her body was found in a field not far from where I live.

Then came the Rolling Stone debacle in which a young woman, under the pseudonym Jackie, told a reporter from the magazine, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, that she had been gang-raped at a university frat house. There was then and is now no evidence that this occurred. But for a while, UVA was Rape University. In some quarters, it may still be -- retractions and corrections being far less often attended to in everyday American journalism than provocative untruths.

The school year was almost over when alcohol enforcement police elected to throw Martese Johnson, an African-American student, to the ground after he committed the high crime of trying to get into a local pub while under the age of 21. “I go to UVA, you f*ckers. You f*ckin’ racists,” Johnson reportedly said to the representatives of the law. It had no salutary effect.

After 2014-15, one might have thought that the university had absorbed its share of misfortunes and that the cosmos and the powers that direct it (should they exist) might back off. They did, for a while. Then came August 2017, when neo-fascists held a torchlight march through the university’s grounds. Striding in rows of twos and threes, they made their way through Mr. Jefferson’s grounds, chanting “Blood and soil,” “you will not replace us,” “Jews will not replace us” and other uplifting slogans. Anyone wondering what the early hours of Kristallnacht might have looked like could have found out by wandering across our grounds that evening.

The night ended with a small band of UVA students grouped around a statue of Jefferson, being taunted and, in a few cases, assaulted by the visiting neo-fascists. Then followed the aborted Unite the Right rally Saturday. There was a death; there were injuries. Next came President Trump’s injudicious comments about violence “on many sides.” Again, the university was in the news, dismally so. One commentator observed that Trump was in deep trouble that week: “There’s North Korea,” she said. “There’s Charlottesville.” It did not help that two of the neo-fascist organizers, Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer, were UVA graduates.

Did the University of Virginia have it coming? Was it something more than chance that the neo-fascists had chosen our grounds for their display? Our founder is notorious for having been a slaveholder. We are, we are told, an elitist school. Our students’ families are far too rich. We have not done enough for the city of Charlottesville. Our institution was built by slaves. We did not integrate racially for an ungodly long time. And we were slow enough to take in women students as well. In the days after the Unite the Right rally, indictments of the university rolled in.

Is there anything to be said for the University of Virginia? Is there any defense to be made?

I think there is and will try to offer a brief one. What follows are the observations of one person -- albeit someone who has been a professor at the university for nearly 35 years. Others will see matters differently. I speak only for myself.

Inspiration, Quality and Commitment

Our critics tell us that our students are “entitled.” They are awash in their sense of privilege. They must not know the same students I do. The most common word I hear students use about being at UVA is “lucky.” The second most is “fortunate.” The most common sentence goes this way: “I am lucky to be here.” This is, I believe, the pervasive attitude of our students. “Ever since I was six [or eight or 10] I’ve wanted to come to UVA, and I can’t believe that I’m here.” They are also grateful to their parents. I have heard many tributes to what mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers have sacrificed to send their child to school.

The students’ gratitude is sometimes based on finances. They are getting one of the world’s best educations for a reasonable price -- in-staters pay $16,000 a year in tuition and fees. If it is not the best educational deal in America, it is close.

But students are talking about more than money. They love this university. At Yale University, where I was a grad student, my undergrads respected and admired the institution, but they were in awe of it, too. They were intimidated. It felt like it belonged to someone else -- someone who lived 200 years ago.

Our students love UVA for many reasons, but a chief one is that they feel it is theirs. Tradition is everywhere here, but it is Jeffersonian tradition, which means that there is an injunction to make it new and to make it yours. This the students do. They govern themselves, they enforce their own code of honor, they participate in major decisions. As much probably as at any other institution, they influence the course of events.

The University of Virginia has the vast range of classes one associates with the largest universities -- you can study almost anything here. But we have the intimacy of connection between students and faculty that usually can only be found at small colleges. It is a great research institution and a great teaching institution. Granted, I wish our students read more and pursued their activities a little less; I wish they saw themselves more as aspiring thinkers than aspiring leaders; I wish they could dial their party culture back. But they are a pleasure to know and to teach.

Our grounds are an inspiration for learning. Jefferson’s ideas about the best form of education are inscribed in his design of the Lawn. Faculty members live in close proximity to students. That gives us the sense that we are all in this enterprise together and that personal contact between teachers and students is at the heart of the endeavor. The great expanse of the Lawn is a pastoral gesture. It encourages leisure and conversation. It suggests that learning is not only gleaned from books but also from exchange with others.

The Rotunda, the heart of the Lawn, is modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, and it was the library in the university’s first manifestation. Jefferson placed books where the statues of the Greek divinities are in the Pantheon. Rightly so: books were Jefferson’s gods, entities with the power to transform individuals and the world. The Rotunda looks back to the classical age, the pre-Christian world. It affirms an independent form of learning not based on subservience to the existing religious doctrines of early-19th-century America, but free. This was a revolutionary gesture. The university at its best looks back in order to look ahead.

We have a good faculty, too, though I hope I do not seem boastful in saying so. Professors care about their scholarly and scientific work -- and they’re good at it. They also care about teaching -- and they’re very good at that, too. You may find a few institutions where the faculty does more and better writing and research. But I think you’ll have a hard time finding any universities where the faculty teaches as well as ours does and does its own work as effectively and to as much legitimate recognition.

The scholarship and public writings of my colleagues are first-rate. They work hard, produce copiously and get considerable applause for their efforts. They have national and international reputations. I think that one quality holds our work together, at least in the humanities and social sciences: you can read it. Some of what we write is demanding, but there is rarely obfuscation or fancy dancing. People take the state university business seriously -- they write so that an interested citizen can understand what they say. We have a commitment to our disciplines -- but we have a commitment to being a public university, too.

The administration may have one of the most difficult tasks in the country. Our freedom to raise tuition has long been limited by the state Legislature, so the administration is compelled to raise vast sums to keep the university going and help it to develop. This they do with ongoing success. In the past few years, our president has had to struggle to raise money and fight off some of the most onerous challenges that any executive in American education has contended with. Difficulties arise from all sides. Our Board of Visitors is made up of political appointees, many of whom have no experience in the running of educational institutions. Needless to say, that does not stop them from having strong opinions as to how it should be done. The administration must also contend with a Legislature that contains its complement of those who are not always friendly to liberal education.

We are not a new university -- we were founded 200 years ago. As such, we are implanted in the history of the nation, and in particular our nation’s southern history. Our founder is the chief promulgator of the simple, profound truth that all men and women are created equal and have the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This truth has rung out across the world, and it has done immeasurable good. Every rebellion against tyranny that has come after ours is indebted to Thomas Jefferson. Repeatedly, he has helped people to liberate themselves. Has any individual thinker and statesman done more for the cause of freedom than he?

Obligations to the Past

Jefferson was also a holder of slaves and a believer in the intellectual superiority of white people over black. The great liberator was a slave driver. The apostle of freedom kept men and women in chains. Some of those chained were his own descendants. What are we to make of this? Jefferson is, to say the least, an enigmatic figure: the best book I have read about him is revealingly titled American Sphinx.

After the events of Aug. 11 and 12, the world, or rather, that part of the world that devotes itself to the moral instruction of others, has told us that we must face our racist past, purge ourselves of vestiges of white supremacy and otherwise cleanse our souls. I wish that the moralists would look to themselves and begin some of their hoped-for reform at home. As the rabbi says, “You see a mote in your neighbor’s eye but miss the log in your own.”

That does not mean that the issues the moralists raise are easily cast aside. Determining one’s obligations to the past is one of the most difficult spiritual and intellectual tasks known to us.

As a scholarly institution, one of our obligations is inarguable: we must get at the truth. We must keep studying Jefferson and his life and times and come up with a clear, accurate view of his massive contributions and his dismal flaws. We need to learn even more about his staggering faults, as well as his astonishing achievements.

The university should probably get to work on a collective statement about who we take Jefferson to be. In this statement, understanding should take radical precedence over judgment. I have for some time been an advocate of assembling a one-credit course -- online if need be, and taken by all students -- on the subject of the founder and the founding of our university. We all should know where we come from.

What then? Different people will have different views. I endorse focus on the present and the future. We should locate brilliant and hardworking poor students, particularly in the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, and give them a chance to flourish at the university. If they are the descendants of the slaves who built the university, so much the better.

We are now building a monument to the enslaved laborers who helped to construct the university, which I applaud. But as someone committed to the present and the future, I would also like to see us invest resources in the members of our cleaning and grounds crews and our support staff, many of whom do not now really make a living wage. A significant moiety of them are probably descendants of the slaves being memorialized. Let’s offer them a chance to flourish here and now. Otherwise, 100 years down the line, right-thinking individuals will be building monuments to our cafeteria workers and grounds crew and impugning us for our blindness to their plight. We need to try to spread our light and truth in the present and not be overwhelmed with worry about our obligation to the deceased.

Yet I realize that the subject of our obligation to the past is one on which honorable people can differ. We have a second patron figure at UVA: Edgar Allan Poe. In Poe’s writing, the past always looms up ahead (and not too far ahead), waiting to devour the present. As soon as you see the crack down the middle of the House of Usher, you know that by story’s end the house will split apart. Ours is the university that offered hospitality to William Faulkner, who told us that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

These writers and the visions they offer are not to be dismissed lightly. I am not for burying the past -- we should bring it into the light of day. But I am not for being haunted to the point of possession by old crimes. How much import to give to the past, and to what measure the past will usurp the present if we refuse to give it its due -- these issues are not easily resolved. I’m not sure we need to roll ourselves into a penitential ball because the Ku Klux Klan gave us $1,000 close to 100 years ago. We need to do right, and right on racial issues in particular, now and in the future.

Americans thrive on disjunction. We leap away from the past. Where did the civil rights movement come from? How did the cultural revolution called the ’60s arise? Think about the women’s movement or the movement for gay liberation. Think about the sudden emergence of Barack Obama and his election as the first black president of the United States. Historians often presume to tell us the origins and genealogy of this or that striking phenomenon, but our best moments seem to me often to come with an inspired stroke. We don’t look back: we look at the present, see where it’s flawed, then jump forward to fresh possibilities. Only one major university in the nation was founded by a true revolutionary, and that is ours. His presence makes us capable of being revolutionary ourselves.

The University of Virginia embodies a dream. It’s the dream of not just adequate or good but great education offered at a fair price, sponsored by the public and open to all. We are a public university that strives to be on par with the best private institutions in the country. Our students and faculty understand that we have responsibilities not only to ourselves but also to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the nation. The students and professors and trustees at other public universities should be able to point to Virginia and tell their legislators and their electorate that they want something that’s as good or better.

Don’t the sons and daughters of all the states deserve a crack at the very best public education at a decent price? And shouldn’t private institutions look in our direction and toward Michigan and Berkeley and say, “There they educate people not to go out in pursuit of personal gain, but to serve the best interests of the state, the nation and world”? As a public university, guided by the best of Jefferson’s legacy, we cannot help but think in large terms. We’re not without flaws, to be sure. There’s much here that’s still to be done. But we carry the dream of great public education for all forward into the future. And that is something to celebrate and defend.
Bio

Mark Edmundson teaches English at the University of Virginia. His most recent books are Why Write? and Self and Soul: A Defense of Ideals.
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Nov 18 2017, 04:29 AM
http://www.richmond.com/ap/national/rolling-stone-slams-defamation-claim-in-university-of-virginia-rape/article_4d76e32c-e389-589a-b597-db1cf98471e9.html

Rolling Stone slams defamation claim in University of Virginia rape story

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Rolling Stone is defending itself against a defamation lawsuit over a discredited article about a University of Virginia gang rape by arguing that members of a school fraternity knew about discrepancies in the woman's claims weeks before the article was published and should have warned the magazine.

Lawyers for Rolling Stone argue in court documents that the fraternity and its members withheld that information from the magazine and its reporter, "at a time when disclosing such information would have prevented publication" of the woman's allegations.

[...]

The lawsuit by the three former fraternity members was one of three defamation cases filed against the magazine over the article.

After a 2016 trial, a Virginia jury awarded $3 million in damages to an associate dean. Rolling Stone appealed, but later settled with the dean. In June, Rolling Stone settled a case filed by the Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi for $1.65 million.

[...]
...one of three defamation cases filed against the magazine over the article.

...awarded $3 million in damages to an associate dean.

...settled a case ... for $1.65 million


Payout for defamation to date is $4.65 million.

Going with the Rolling Stone's strategy of defense, should we soon anticipate a counter claim against the "three former fraternity members" claiming defamation?

Afterall, there would have been no harm if those boys had just "prevented publication," so the Rolling Stone would not have been liable for it to any they have now settled with.
.
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KC Johnson
‏Verified account @kcjohnson9
58m58 minutes ago

After defeat at 2nd Circuit, Rolling Stone settles lawsuit filed by ex-UVA fraternity members. No terms announced.
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/rolling-stone-settles-last-remaining-lawsuit-uva-rape-story-1069880

December 21, 2017 7:05am PT by Eriq Gardner

Rolling Stone Settles Last Remaining Lawsuit Over UVA Rape Story

A third settlement over "A Rape on Campus" means Jay Penske can acquire the publication free and clear of liability over that infamous article.

Rolling Stone, the storied magazine covering youth culture, had two significant developments on Wednesday. The first was news that Jann Wenner was selling his stake to Variety owner Jay Penske in a deal that reportedly values the publication at $100 million. But there's more. In New York federal court, Rolling Stone also wrapped up the last remaining piece of litigation emanating from its controversial and since retracted 2014 article about the gang rape of a freshman identified as "Jackie" at a University of Virginia campus fraternity.

The defamation lawsuit was brought by three members of the Virginia Alpha chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, where "Jackie" was allegedly raped. The claims were initially dismissed by a federal judge before being revived in September by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Now the parties have stipulated to dismissal in a court filing that quietly came as word was spreading about Penske's purchase.

The settlement is the third for Rolling Stone over that Sabrina Rubin Erdely-written article, titled "A Rape on Campus," which prompted a commissioned investigation by the Columbia School of Journalism over its faults.

The first settlement came after Rolling Stone lost a trial with Nicole Eramo, the university's former associate dean, who sued for being cast as the "chief villain" who "silenced" Jackie and "discouraged" her from reporting her alleged gang rape to the police. Eramo scored a $3 million verdict at trial, and the settlement announced last April headed off an appeal.

Then, Rolling Stone came to a $1.65 million deal in June with the fraternity itself. This settlement avoided a trial where $25 million in damages was being sought.

Now some of the fraternity members become beneficiaries of a settlement whose terms were not provided in court. According to the attorney representing the plaintiffs, the agreement included a confidentiality requirement that precludes comment.

Originally, a judge granted the publication's motion to dismiss claims, finding "the article's details about the attackers are too vague and remote from the plaintiffs' circumstances to be 'of and concerning' them."

The 2nd Circuit reversed this conclusion, at least with respect to George Elias and Ross Fowler. The federal appellate circuit did so with a nod to group defamation theory and how the fraternity was "sufficiently small" and how "a reader could plausibly conclude that many or all fraternity members participated in alleged gang rape as an initiation ritual and all members knowingly turned a blind eye to the brutal crimes."

The dismissal of this action obviously allows Rolling Stone to move into its next chapter under new ownership without the legal baggage caused by its most infamous error.
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The 2nd Circuit reversed this conclusion, at least with respect to George Elias and Ross Fowler. The federal appellate circuit did so with a nod to group defamation theory and how the fraternity was "sufficiently small" and how "a reader could plausibly conclude that many or all fraternity members participated in alleged gang rape as an initiation ritual and all members knowingly turned a blind eye to the brutal crimes."


Where was Judge Beaty when the Rolling Stone needed him?



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https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/40384/

Rolling Stone settles final lawsuit with UVA fraternity
Daniel Payne - Assistant Editor •December 26, 2017


Over three years after Rolling Stone published an article accusing numerous fraternity brothers of vicious gang rape, the magazine has settled the final lawsuit stemming from that controversial report.

The lawsuit, brought against Rolling Stone by three members of the University of Virginia’s Alpha chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, was “initially dismissed by a federal judge before being revived in September by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals,” according to Hollywood Reporter. The parties subsequently “stipulated to dismissal.”

According to the Reporter, per the agreement, “some of the fraternity members become beneficiaries of a settlement whose terms were not provided in court.” The stipulations of the settlement included a confidentiality clause.

From the report:

Originally, a judge granted the publication’s motion to dismiss claims, finding “the article’s details about the attackers are too vague and remote from the plaintiffs’ circumstances to be ‘of and concerning’ them.”

The 2nd Circuit reversed this conclusion, at least with respect to George Elias and Ross Fowler. The federal appellate circuit did so with a nod to group defamation theory and how the fraternity was “sufficiently small” and how “a reader could plausibly conclude that many or all fraternity members participated in alleged gang rape as an initiation ritual and all members knowingly turned a blind eye to the brutal crimes.”

The dismissal of this action obviously allows Rolling Stone to move into its next chapter under new ownership without the legal baggage caused by its most infamous error.

The article in question depicted a brutal gang rape of a woman by several fraternity brothers. Its publication prompted a worldwide outcry, as well as swift sanctions from the University of Virginia. Shortly after it was published, various journalists and commentators began questioning the article’s veracity; after numerous reports exposed gaping holes in the story itself, Rolling Stone eventually retracted the article.

Rolling Stone eventually paid nearly $2 million in damages to the fraternity in question, out of $25 million in damages being sought.
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http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/13/settlement-fraternity-rolling-stonerape-hoax-saga-officially/

After Settlement With Fraternity, The <em>Rolling Stone</em> Rape Hoax Saga Is Officially Over
Rolling Stone is only now able to put this travesty behind them, at least legally.

By Ashe Schow
February 13, 2018

More than three years after Rolling Stone published the most significant false accusation of rape since the Duke Lacrosse hoax, the saga is officially over for the magazine.

That’s right, Rolling Stone is only now able to put this travesty behind them — at least legally. The magazine reached a final settlement in late December with the members of the fraternity that were falsely maligned in the story. The details have not been disclosed, but at least two members of the fraternity will be the beneficiary of the settlement. Three fraternity members – George Elias IV, Ross Fowler and Stephen Hadford alleged there was enough information in the article to identify them as some of the potential rapists in the story.

The original story was told by a young woman named Jackie Coakley — identified only as “Jackie” in the article — who said she was taken on a date by a handsome member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia, and then led back to the fraternity house where several other members of the fraternity violently gang-raped her on top of a broken glass table.

The three named brothers filed their lawsuit in July 2015, seven months after the article was published. They each claimed they were harassed by family, friends, and coworkers as potential rapists in the months following publication. A year later, a judge dismissed their lawsuit, claiming “the article’s details about the attackers are too vague and remote from the plaintiffs’ circumstances to be ‘of and concerning’ them.”

Bizarrely, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in Manhattan, who dismissed the lawsuit, also wrote: “Their defamation claims are directed toward a report about events that simply did not happen.” Yes, Castel, that is how defamation works.

The 2nd Circuit reversed Castel’s decision in September 2017, after Rolling Stone had reached settlements on two other lawsuits brought in the wake of the infamous article. The federal appellate circuit stated readers “could plausibly conclude that many or all fraternity members participated in alleged gang rape as an initiation ritual and all members knowingly turned a blind eye to the brutal crimes.” Rolling Stone and the fraternity members reached a settlement three months later.

The first settlement the magazine had to pay was to former UVA dean Nicole Eramo, who was portrayed as the “chief villain” in the story and as someone who was callous and indifferent to rape accusations from students. She filed a lawsuit in May 2015, and the suit eventually went to trial. During the trial, it was revealed that Rolling Stone removed information that cast Eramo in a favorable light.

Rolling Stone, its publisher Jann Wenner, and the article’s author Sabrina Rubin Erdely, were all found liable for defamation in November 2016. Eramo was awarded $3 million in damages. The two sides settled in April 2017 for an undisclosed amount.

Then in June 2017, the magazine settled with the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity for $1.65 million. The fraternity said it would give “a significant portion” to victims’ advocacy groups.

Those who were wronged by the article have received compensation for their suffering, but only Rolling Stone has been punished for its role in the fake story. Will Dana, who was the managing editor of the magazine at the time the false story was published, left the magazine in 2015, but was not fired. Publisher Jann Wenner agreed to sell his share of the magazine in 2017, meaning he would walk away with millions. Erdely has not written anything since and appears to still be underground. In a strange bit of irony, the last thing she ever tweeted was a reply to ProPublica reporter Pamela Colloff about correcting a tweet to label Erdely as a “journalist,” instead of simply a “woman.”

Shortly after this tweet, the article began to fall apart. She hadn’t even done the most basic journalism, like confirming that the man Coakley went on a date with actually existed (he did not). In fact, Jackie made him up in an elaborate attempt to win the affections of another student.

The magazine itself was punished with a blow to its credibility and the settlements. But, just as in the Duke Lacrosse case, many of the people who enabled the false accusation and unfairly deemed the fraternity as guilty from the start were unharmed by the article. UVA President Teresa Sullivan still has her job, even though she prematurely punished the entire Greek system at the university in the wake of the article.

Sullivan extended a voluntary ban on social activities for months after the article was punished, and required organizations to sign new agreements in order to resume such activities. She never apologized for her behavior and rush to judgement.

And Coakley, the woman who made up the story that led to tarnished reputations of her alma mater and an innocent fraternity, never saw any sort of punishment except for lies being debunked in the national media. UVA never punished her for lying, and she faced no legal consequences.

Clearly, Coakley was an emotionally disturbed individual, and many shy away from taking on someone like that even if they did hurt other people (even though we could claim that anyone who commits a heinous crime is also disturbed). At the same time, she was enabled by adults who should have known better, but instead enabled her, apparently because they couldn’t believe someone would lie about something so horrific.
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kbp

...Bizarrely, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in Manhattan, who dismissed the lawsuit, also wrote: “Their defamation claims are directed toward a report about events that simply did not happen.”

:think:
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