| UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,487 Views) | |
| abb | Dec 9 2014, 05:07 AM Post #241 |
|
http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/national/uva-acted-rashly-after-rolling-stone-rape-story-gr/njN8H/ Updated: 2:36 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014 | Posted: 2:36 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014 UVA acted rashly after Rolling Stone rape story, Greek organizations say By Matt Moreno CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Leaders in the Greek system are complaining that fraternities and sororities have been treated unfairly at the University of Virginia. Last month, all Greek functions at UVA were shut down in the wake of a Rolling Stone article detailing the alleged gang rape of a woman identified as Jackie at a campus fraternity house. But late last week, the outlet backtracked on the article. "The attorney for the fraternity here on campus tells CNN several details in that article are plain wrong. He says records show there was no party the night that Jackie claims she was attacked," CNN and HLN reported. Rolling Stone issued a now-updated apology to readers that says, in part: "There now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account. ... These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie. We apologize to anyone who was affected by the story and we will continue to investigate the events of that evening." >> Read more trending stories Rolling Stone apologized after its reporter didn't contact the men accused of rape. But an apology might not be enough. Greek systems leaders now want Rolling Stone and the school to do something about it. A joint statement from three Greek governing bodies called for the the University of Virginia to "reinstate operations for all fraternity and sorority organizations on campus, issue an apology ... publicly explain and release all records" related to the suspension and "outline what steps it will take to restore the reputation of our groups and students at UVA." The statement also calls on government leaders to "look seriously at the complex issue of how to handle sexual assault on campus." The University of Virginia is still reportedly investigating the claims in the Rolling Stone article and has not yet responded to the committees' statement. Still, UVA itself, along with 76 other universities, is under federal investigation for how it handles sexual assault reports. After Rolling Stone's apology, media outlets criticized the magazine, saying it failed rape survivors. Fox News also pointed out someone else it failed — the woman who told Rolling Stone her story. "They didn't get to the truth. Maybe she just simply couldn't tell it. Maybe she was bad at telling it. ... They let her down, too," host Harris Faulkner said. "The hope is that someone will get to the true story and it won't deter anyone who is suffering to go come forward," contributor Jedediah Bila said. Currently, all Greek activities on the UVA campus are suspended until Jan. 9. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 9 2014, 05:09 AM Post #242 |
|
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/12/08/brit_hume_actual_college_rape_statistics_should_give_pause_to_activists_claiming_an_epidemic.html The Latest Politics, News & Election Videos Posted on December 8, 2014 Brit Hume: Actual College Rape Statistics Should Give "Pause" To Activists Claiming An "Epidemic" BRIT HUME: A year ago last March, a Justice Department study found based on police data that between 1995 and 2010, the annual incident of sexual assaults on women in America a declined by 58% to a rate of 2.1 assaults per 1,000 women. You might think that such striking numbers would give pause to the activists including President Obama who have been claiming for years that one in five women will be sexually assaulted while at college. But no, activists continue to cite a study published seven years ago to support their claim. But that study was based on an online -- an online -- survey of two universities that included both attempted and actual assaults. Whose definition, by the way, included such things as forced kissing. Something similar is now happening at my alma mater, the University of Virginia, since the collapse last week of Rolling Stone's magazine's sensational tale of a fraternity house gangrape there two years ago. University President Teresa Sullivan has not lifted her suspension of all UVA fraternities nor indicated she's the least bit bothered that one of those fraternities and members of it have been wrongly accused. The student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, took forever to notice something was wrong with the Rolling Stone story and now editorializes it's sympathy for the woman who told the magazine her tall tale. Her story may have fallen apart, but at UVA, the stampede triggered like the claims of a national college rape epidemic continues anyway. BRET BAIER, SPECIAL REPORT: Brit, there will be people out there who say, listen, there are a lot of these attacks, assaults that are unreported. HUME: That's true. The data I cited, the police data that was data on reported rapes, and it compared the reported rapes of 1995 compared against the reported rapes in 2010 and found a big decline -- 58%. Now, that doesn't account for every assault that ever happened because as you say, a lot of them are unreported but it does show a trend. In order to believe that there's an epidemic, you have to believe that while reported rapes were declining sharply during that period, that under reported rapes were exploding. I think that's a dubious claim. And you'd have to believe in the last four years since that study was concluded, that it's gone crazy again but I doubt that as well. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 9 2014, 05:14 AM Post #243 |
|
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1209-goldberg-uva-rape-false-allegations-scottsboro-20141209-column.html Using allegations of rape in a grab for power Jonah Goldberg Los Angeles Timesjgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com Beyond the hysteria and legitimate concern about sexual assaults, this is a power grab Many feminist activists say, in effect, the truth shouldn't matter, not when there's a 'rape epidemic' Nine males were accused of being part of a heinous rape. The alleged injustice fomented a mob mentality. An enraged community wanted to skip any talk of a serious investigation, never mind a trial, and go straight to the punishment. I'm not talking about the now-discredited allegations against fraternity members at the University of Virginia, but of the legendary case of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African American teenagers falsely accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. Despite testimony from one of the women that she had made up the whole thing, the Scottsboro Boys were convicted in trial after trial. All served time either in jail or prison. Scottsboro is a landmark case in the history of the civil rights movement and the American justice system. Sadly, it was hardly an outlier. There's a long, tragic history of African American men being wrongly accused and convicted of rape. The most notorious recent example is the 1989 case of the Central Park Five in which four African American teens and one Latino were wrongly accused and convicted of brutally raping a white woman in New York. Clearly, the injustices involved in these cases are far greater than what transpired at UVA. No one at the Psi Kappa Phi fraternity faced the death penalty or went to jail. But the lessons learned and principles involved are timeless and universal; everyone deserves the presumption of innocence. Apparently, Zerlina Maxwell disagrees. She writes in the Washington Post: "We should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says. Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist." Interest groups foment outrage, then enlist sympathetic activist journalists...while partisan politicians exploit the allegedly systemic problem to advance an ideological agenda. - Let's cut to the chase. Maybe I live in a cocoon of some kind, but it seems to me that as terrible and unjust as it surely can be, the stigma of having been raped is hardly as deleterious to one's reputation as the stigma of being accused of being a rapist. I don't think I know anyone who would discriminate against a rape victim. I'd like to think I don't know anyone who wouldn't discriminate against a rapist. Back to Zerlina Maxwell. Amazingly and sadly, Maxwell, an African American, is a lawyer specializing in civil rights. More amazing and sad, she's not alone. In the wake of revelations that Rolling Stone reported as fact an unsubstantiated story of institutionalized gang rape, many feminist activists have dug in saying, in effect, the truth shouldn't matter, or at least it shouldn't matter very much — not when there's a “rape epidemic” engulfing college campuses. I put the term in quotation marks because I believe this alleged epidemic is largely a deliberate political fabrication. Obviously, rapes happen. But this “epidemic” would have to coincide with a decades-long decline in forcible rapes and a decades-long increase in public intolerance for sexual assault and harassment. Moreover, the primary evidence activists cite is a bogus statistic, based upon a Web survey of two universities. So what's going on here? Beyond the hysteria and legitimate concern, this is a power grab. It's no coincidence that the Rolling Stone article spent a great deal of time advocating for the expansion of federal involvement in higher education via Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. As chronicled by Jessica Gavora (my wife) in her book “Tilting the Playing Field,” feminist activists with the aid of sympathetic journalists and allies in the judiciary and the federal bureaucracy have used Title IX as a “far reaching remedial tool,” in the words of the New York Times, to reorganize higher education to their ideological agenda. They started with women's sports, but the model remains the same: Interest groups foment outrage, then enlist sympathetic activist journalists who rely on the testimony of deeply invested “experts” while partisan politicians exploit the allegedly systemic problem to advance an ideological agenda and demonize opponents as sexist bigots or rape apologists. The UVA story was given to Rolling Stone by activists at the moment the Obama administration was pushing new Title IX regulations that would erode the presumption of innocence in rape cases on campus. There's no reason to expect this fiasco will even slow that effort. So cheer up Ms. Maxwell, you're winning. jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 9 2014, 05:17 AM Post #244 |
|
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/on-the-record/2014/12/09/inside-unraveling-rolling-stone-uva-rape-story Inside the unraveling of the Rolling Stone-UVA rape story By On the Record Published December 9, 2014 | FoxNews.com advertisement Watch the latest video at FoxNews.com This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," December 8, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: OK, how could the "Rolling Stone" magazine be that bad, not giving a damn about facts? Yes, I'm talking about the "Rolling Stone" article about an alleged gang rape at UVA. The fraternity accused in the case claims they did not host a party on the night in question. How hard would it be to check that out? Fraternity officials say none of their members works as a lifeguard as the accuser claimed. Really? Another fraternity contested the "Rolling Stone's" claim that it was part of a pledging ritual. The fraternity said pledging activities do not occur in the fall semester. Did the "Rolling Stone" check that one? No. "Rolling Stone" didn't check up on that either. But our next guest did, "The Washington Post's" Taylor Rees Shapiro. Taylor, first of all, we're digging into this and seeing -- you're reporting a lot of inconsistencies, but overall, did this rape even occur? She could be grossly wrong about the facts or making it up or something in between. Have you been able to ascertain from your reporting whether she was assaulted? TAYLOR REES SHAPIRO, "WASHINGTON POST" REPORTER: That's difficult to tell, of course. Her friends believe something happened to her and they believe something awful and traumatic and horrific. And those -- based on the evidence that they have seen, that's what they believe. I've spoken to two people who saw her in the immediate aftermath of the incident and both of them say they absolutely believe something happened, just maybe not exactly what was reported in "Rolling Stone." VAN SUSTEREN: Looking at the facts, one of the things is whether an assault occurred of some sort, and the whole idea of putting it in the public domain, and how well you do your fact checking. The "Rolling Stone" is getting barbecued by everybody about its reporting. But tell me, what did you determine to be -- when doing your reporting, what did you learn differently from what "Rolling Stone" reported? SHAPIRO: First, it was the fact that the fraternity did not host a party on the night in question. VAN SUSTEREN: Could they just be mistaken? Or could it be a nonofficial party? SHAPIRO: The fraternity stands by its statement. We've obviously looked into everything we can. We're looking to confirm with fraternity members who were there at that time and we've spoken to several off the record and on the record. We're looking to do as best as we can to confirm that. VAN SUSTEREN: But so far, no proof that there was a party there, official or unofficial, that night? SHAPIRO: They said there was not a party. VAN SUSTEREN: One of her stories -- well, one of the things she says, according to "Rolling Stone," is one of her assaulters worked as a lifeguard, is that correct? SHAPIRO: That's what she said. VAN SUSTEREN: She worked as a lifeguard as well? SHAPIRO: That's what she said. VAN SUSTEREN: That's what she said. Now -- and that's what the "Rolling Stone" reported, right? SHAPIRO: Correct. VAN SUSTEREN: What did your real reporting show? SHAPIRO: We reported that no member of the fraternity was a lifeguard or worked at the aquatic fitness center that entire time of the night in question. VAN SUSTEREN: Did you -- have you had a chance to talk to the "Rolling Stone" and ask why they didn't go back and check these facts out? SHAPIRO: I spoke -- I asked to speak with them. I sent a message to the writer of the "Rolling Stone" piece indicating that I had not a lot of questions for her. I wanted to talk about her interactions with Jackie as well as my own reporting to double check what we learned. I have not had the opportunity to speak with her. VAN SUSTEREN: How hard was it to talk to the fraternity and find out whether or not they had an event that night or a party? SHAPIRO: They released a statement. I have been in touch with a person who was close to the fraternity that told me they were going to release details in particular to that party. It's been very difficult to talk to members of the fraternity. Obviously, they have been through, you know, the wringer themselves and they're coming to a point where maybe they may speak publicly, but I'm not sure. VAN SUSTEREN: Your dealings with the "Rolling Stone," were they embarrassed or chagrined that they had not done the reporting that you had done, trying to track down these issues in the story? SHAPIRO: I could only do my own reporting. I cannot speak for "Rolling Stone." VAN SUSTEREN: At no time did they speak to you and say, oh, look, we're sorry or we tried or anything like that? SHAPIRO: Not that I'm aware of. VAN SUSTEREN: What's been the reaction of your reporting? SHAPIRO: I think the news of this particular case is intriguing a lot of people. Everybody just wants to know the truth of what happened that night and, of course, we're looking to find out what it is. VAN SUSTEREN: And how many witnesses, alleged witnesses, or people, who talked to her shortly after the alleged event, did you talk to? SHAPIRO: I've spoken to three people. VAN SUSTEREN: And were the three people, in talking to them, were the events that they relayed similar to each other? SHAPIRO: I've spoken to three people who saw her immediately after that particular event of the alleged attack. They told me a similar story of what they believe happened that night or what they were told happened that night. It is different from what was reported in "Rolling Stone." VAN SUSTEREN: Different in what way? SHAPIRO: The number of people involved, for instance. VAN SUSTEREN: So I think that five versus seven? SHAPIRO: Sure. VAN SUSTEREN: But it could be an easy mistake, right? SHAPIRO: Absolutely. They all believe something happened to her that night, something traumatic and something awful. VAN SUSTEREN: And the three people, was there differences in what they told you, material or just incidental differences? SHAPIRO: I think any fact should be double checked and confirmed. Having spoken with these people, we're learning something different than what was already reported. VAN SUSTEREN: Taylor, thank you very much, and good reporting. Thank you. |
![]() |
|
| Joan Foster | Dec 9 2014, 06:24 AM Post #245 |
|
The picture from the Slut Shaming is apparently not her. So...are these like regular campus events now...these Slut Shamings? Have you looked at the images from these "protests?" |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 9 2014, 07:21 AM Post #246 |
|
http://gotnews.com/breaking-guess-politician-jackiecoakley-likes/ BREAKING: Guess Which Politician #JackieCoakley Likes… December 9, 2014 by Charles C. Johnson This is the graphic that Jackie Coakley had for her profile image on Facebook. Gotnews.com has obtained the deleted Facebook page of the University of Virginia student at the center of a rape hoax. Jackie Coakley is a fan of the TV shows–Criminal Minds and Law & Order–and Hillary Clinton. She was a member of the Young Democrats of Mountain View High School, the Northern Virginia school she attended. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 9 2014, 07:24 AM Post #247 |
|
http://gotnews.com/jackie-coakley-center-uvahoax-student-activist-high-school/ #JackieCoakley At Center of #UVAHoax Was Student Activist in High School December 9, 2014 by Charles C. Johnson 3 Comments The girl at the center of the University of Virginia rape hoax was a student activist in high school, according to local press (cached) The story, published in part below, confirms earlier reporting that identified Jackie Coakley as an activist. About 100 Mountain View High School students pretended to be ghosts and prisoners last week. Students leaving the school in cars and buses passed the group, whose participants displayed signs in the shape of tombstones in a grassy spot near the school’s entrance. Some of the signs stated: “Friends don’t let friends drink and drive” and “One time is too many.” Mountain View High’s newly formed chapter of Students Against Destructive Decisions staged what it called a “Ghost Out” two days before the school’s prom. “Prom is the biggest night for drinking and partying,” sophomore Jacqueline Coakley said. The student ghosts, with black T-shirts and white face paint, were victims of drunken drivers. The prisoners, dressed in orange, were the drivers responsible for their deaths. The students gathered near a totaled car provided by M & M Auto Parts Inc. in Stafford County. The students said the vehicle was involved in a drunken-driving incident on Mountain View Road. “It gives them a visual representation rather than just seeing numbers on a page,” said Christian Simmons, who helped organize the event. Throughout the day, a student dressed as the grim reaper pulled high-schoolers out of class. They returned as ghosts and didn’t talk for the rest of the day. A sheriff’s deputy and a school security officer also escorted students and teachers from class in handcuffs as part of the demonstration. They became the inmates. Some bus drivers honked and waved at the students during their afternoon demonstration. One student, however, made an obscene gesture as he sped by. “That’s why it happens people don’t take it seriously enough,” said senior Caitlyn Price, who founded the school’s SADD chapter and organized the event. Mountain View security officer Richard Davis said he walked in a class and told a student that he was being arrested for a felony hit-and-run drunk driving accident that killed two young children. Davis handcuffed the teen and read him his rights. The class applauded. “Some were a little intimidated and shocked,” Davis said of the student response in general. “Some just laughed.” Mountain View’s SADD chapter put up a banner in the school that read: “I pledge to never drink and drive or to let my friends drink and drive.” As of Thursday, more than 200 students had signed it. The event’s organizers hope students follow the advice Principal Jim Stemple gives during announcements every Friday afternoon. It goes something like this: “Life is full of choices and decisions. Make all your decisions this weekend good ones.” |
![]() |
|
| Walt-in-Durham | Dec 9 2014, 09:22 AM Post #248 |
|
Well, we do know some things, Emily. From your letter, we know Jackie's withdrawal became evident in December. Jackie alleges a rape in September. A violent gang rape by individuals in the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. While I appreciate your observations, and your supporting your roommate, I have to challenge your conclusions. First, the Washington Post tracked down "Drew" and discovered that he denies asking Jackie out on a date ever. That is important because she accuses "Drew" of orchestrating her gang rape. If true, he is a sexual predator of the worst sort. A sexual predator who belongs behind bars for a very long, long, long time. We have "Drew's" denial of the basic fact, on the record. Hard to tell if he is lying or not as we don't have the opportunity to see and hear him or subject him to cross examination, but the Rolling Stone didn't even try to get him to comment. I won't engage in any speculation about "Drew's" truthfulness. I simply don't know. Nor, do I know about "Jackie's" truthfulness. Your letter seems to support the notion that something happened, though much later than alleged. Second, we have the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity accused by "Jackie" of having some sort of gang rape ritual as a part of their pledging process. You know, better than I, that pledging takes place in the spring semester at the University of Virginia. Your own letter puts the events in the fall. Third, we have the fraternity outright denying that they had a party on the date "Jackie" alleges. That is a fact that can be verified or refuted with a few questions. But, the fraternity is in the best position to know if they had a party. Unfortunately, they have the most to gain from being untruthful about the date. I go with the old rule of rhetoric: he or in this case she, who alleges must prove. "Jackie" alleged a date in September without any supporting evidence. You contradict her. The fraternity denies. On balance, I think the evidence is in favor of this not happening in September, or at least not at the Phi Kappa Psi chapter house. Fourth, we have the allegation by "Jackie" that some of her friends, who have now been identified, discouraged her from seeking medical attention to preserve her social status. Those friends have now been identified and they do not back up that allegation. Those friends, say they did not see any physical injuries. Those friends also do not put her at the Phi Kappa Psi house on the night now very much in question. Fifth, we have the allegation that "Jackie" had to work with her rapist at the aquatic center. The fraternity denies any of its members worked at the aquatic center in the fall of 2012. Sixth, "Drew" denies he is a member of Phi Kappa Psi. The fraternity agrees on that point. Emily, I was a fraternity man in college, different fraternity, different campus for sure. But, I know our fraternity and all fraternities have membership rolls. That's how they figure out who to send bills to and whom to collect from. Also, membership gives the fraternity some shelter from legal liability. So the fraternity has every reason to be both truthful and forthcoming about membership issues. On the balance, and taking into account your "Fellow Wahoos" letter, I come to the conclusion that the story as told by the Rolling Stone magazine is not trustworthy. Your roommate may have been raped, sometime in the fall of 2012. But, it did not happen at the Phi Kappa Psi house and "Drew" did not orchestrate it. Rape alone is not sufficient reason to charge the Phi Kappa Psis with hosting a brutal crime, nor is it justification for charging "Drew" with orchestrating a brutal crime. The best evidence available is none of these people had anything to do with Jackie's rape. You owe them a profound apology. No matter how brutal, how heinous the crime, it is never acceptable to charge the innocent with it. Walt-in-Durham |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 9 2014, 09:29 AM Post #249 |
|
http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/09/lessons-of-rolling-stones-uva-catastroph Lessons of Rolling Stone's UVA Catastrophe: We Can't Prevent Rape If We're Deluded About It Robby Soave|Dec. 9, 2014 9:10 am UVAKaren Blaha / Wikimedia CommonsSuppose Jackie’s story was not so incredible. Suppose that premeditated, ritualistic gang rape was a plausible occurrence at the average college. Suppose that one in every five—or four, or three—female students found themselves in serious danger of assault the moment they set foot outside their dorm rooms. Suppose that America’s campuses really did rival Somalia in terms of the violence faced by young women. Would it be enough to merely place a moratorium on Greek activity, form a task force, and defend the actions of administrators who failed to report rape to the police, as University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan has done (arguably in violation of the Constitution)? Of course not. On the other hand, suppose the details of Jackie’s story were exaggerated, or in doubt. Suppose that premeditated, ritualistic gang rape was highly implausible. Suppose that cherry-picked statistics from a few unrepresentative studies were clearly masking an extraordinary decline in rape rates nationwide over the past few decades. Suppose the best available evidence suggested that campuses were, on the whole, safer for women than other environments. Suppose that campus sexual assaults were largely the work of a few sociopaths and nearly always the result of alcohol-induced incapacitation. Wouldn’t the supposed solution to the campus rape crisis look markedly different? In a major magazine story that succeeds on all the levels Rolling Stone’s failed, Slate’s Emily Yoffe argues persuasively that we live in the latter world. Confusion about the prevalence of rape and its proximate causes—confusion that Rolling Stone has only worsened—has driven governments and universities to greatly mishandle sexual assault by mandating solutions that wrongly evaluate the scope of the problem while needlessly violating civil liberties, from due process to freedom of association. Yoffe quickly cuts through the hyperbole about surging assault rates and discovers that college campuses aren’t nearly as dangerous as we have let ourselves believe: Being young does make people more vulnerable to serious violent crime, including sexual assault; according to government statistics those aged 18 to 24 have the highest rates of such victimization. But most studies don’t compare the victimization rates of students to nonstudents of the same age. One recent paper that does make that comparison, “Violence Against College Women” by Callie Marie Rennison and Lynn Addington, compares the crime experienced by college students and their peers who are not in college, using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. What the researchers found was the opposite of what Gillibrand says about the dangers of campuses: “Non-student females are victims of violence at rates 1.7 times greater than are college females,” the authors wrote, and this greater victimization holds true for sex crimes: “Even if the definition of violence were limited to sexual assaults, these crimes are more pervasive for young adult women who are not in college.” Rennison, an associate professor at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, recognized in an interview that her study goes against a lot of received wisdom. “Maybe that’s not a really popular thing to say,” she said, adding, “I hate the notion that people think sending kids off to college is sending them to be victimized.” We see this fear manifest itself all the time. After reading Yoffe's story, I instantly thought of Reason’s Lenore Skenazy, who warns that many parents—as well as the state—have become myopic about the relative dangers their kids face. Skenazy has covered cases where police arrested parents for letting their children play outside by themselves, or wait in the car while mom grabbed groceries. Unrealistic fears about predators waiting around every corner to snatch and abuse kids have prompted the enactment of paranoid laws; these are bad for society and minimize child and parental autonomy, but do little to make children safer. Consider Skenazy’s video for Reason TV. She discovered that concerns about sex offenders abusing kids on Halloween are entirely misplaced, and laws that force registered sex offenders to turn off their lights or report to a facility during Halloween hours are cruel and needless. In most respects, kids are no less safe on Halloween. In fact, the one great danger to trick-and-treaters is being hit by a car. Skenazy’s research suggests that taking the cops off sex offender patrol and putting them on crossing guard duty would be a far more effective use of police resources. It’s not that children face no danger; rather, certain dangers are exaggerated in people’s minds (predators) and others minimized (car accidents). And so the policy designed to make children safer ends up focusing on the wrong thing. It’s the same with rape. Culture does not cause rape. Tasteless jokes do not cause rape. Fraternities are not universal rape factories. Rape is not occurring more frequently. Whatever happened to Jackie, it wasn’t a Silence of the Lambs sort of ordeal as reported by Rolling Stone. Which is not to say that nothing happened to Jackie, or that rape never happens, or that it has no cause or cultural enablers, or that all frats behave perfectly all the time. Of course rape happens, and it’s a serious matter deserving of everyone’s attention. The police should vigorously investigate accusations and prosecute offenders. Policies can and should be changed to diminish it. But this can only be done if people have a good sense of the scope of the actual problem. And at the end of the day, obliterating that scope is perhaps the most costly consequence of Rolling Stone’s disastrous abandonment of journalistic principles. The article’s defenders cling—wrongly—to the notion that the world is brimming with Drews, and as such, all Jackies should automatically be believed without question. But some of the article’s critics, who are right about its significant flaws, will nevertheless draw the incorrect conclusion that all accusers are liars. Neither outcome is good for addressing actual sexual assault. The ubiquity of misleading statistics about rape and absurd policies designed to deter it—including, most notably, affirmative consent policies that make neo-Victorian requirements of students who want to have sex—betray a great deal of societal confusion on this issue. Rolling Stone has worsened the matter, and it’s going to take lot more articles like Yoffe’s to undo the damage. |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Dec 9 2014, 09:29 AM Post #250 |
|
Well said. |
![]() |
|
| Joan Foster | Dec 9 2014, 09:42 AM Post #251 |
|
Just want to add that fraternities are required to register with the school whenever they have a function at the house. This was a very large party, according to Jackie....no way it could go under the radar. The Fraternity has pointed out that records show no parties for them the whole weekend. |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Dec 9 2014, 10:32 AM Post #252 |
|
POSTER COMMENT in another forum:
|
![]() |
|
| Payback | Dec 9 2014, 11:24 AM Post #253 |
|
Isn't it too late? Every time Teresa Sullivan makes a statement she digs herself in deeper. |
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 9 2014, 11:25 AM Post #254 |
|
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-12-09/rolling-stone-lena-dunham-and-the-rape-culture-backlash Rolling Stone, Lena Dunham, and the "Rape Culture" Backlash Dec 9, 2014 9:36 AM CST Why sensitivity to rape victims might have led to flawed reporting. By David Weigel Where to begin with the Washington Post’s woeful “profile” of blogger/activist/doxxer Charles C. Johnson? You could start with the View from Nowhere, which posits that Johnson’s threat to release the name and address of the alleged University of Virginia rape victim at the center of Rolling Stone’s widely challenged story – he would defer, if she told “the truth about making it up” – was “pugnacious.” You could continue with how Johnson is described as a “one-time Daily Caller contributor,” without any mention of how his imploded stories alleging that then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker did not live in Newark, and that a New York Times reporter once posed for Playgirl, marked the end of his relationship with the site. (The Post only notes that Johnson contributed to the “hooker” stories about New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez that were “shredded” by other reporters.) You might wonder why the profile fails to mention Johnson’s “doxxing” of two New York Times reporters, and his subsequent reporting about how one of the reporters was calling police about the threats she was getting. Your eyebrow might levitate at how Johnson’s stories alleging criminal behavior from the victims of police shootings are described as “lampoons.” The gist, as Matt Lewis writes at the Daily Caller, is that the Post was “romanticizing the work of someone who is threatening to reveal personal details about an alleged rape victim.” And I think it missed the context. (That’s truly strange, because Post reporters have driven the skeptical, debunking coverage of the Rolling Stone story.) Johnson, like any good exploiter of the news cycle, is attempting to tap into a backlash against the way the media reporters on rape. The Rolling Stone story was initially embraced by the media, and especially by the ideological media that had recently explored the idea of “rape culture.” Holding back the identities of rape victims was a standard media practice, but Rolling Stone was seen to be pushing the envelope, allowing its subject, “Jackie,” to tell her story without rebuttal from the alleged rapists. “UVA has a rape culture problem,” wrote Bonnie Gordon, in a representative example of the genre, for Slate. “Rape culture normalizes rape as part of a larger system of attitudes and understandings of gender and sexuality. Rape culture can include victim blaming, and assuming that rapists are strangers. Rape culture accepts rape as a norm that women have to work to avoid. Rape culture reflects a community grounded in patriarchal privilege and gender inequity.” Only when reporters at Slate, the Post, and other traditional media poked holes in the story did Rolling Stone explain why the accusers were not represented. “Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie's story,” wrote editors, “we decided to honor her request not to contact the man who she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men who she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her. “ Those ad hoc standards crashed against the standards of typical journalism. Conservatives, who had been accused of “rape denialism,” were happy to point that out. “When a person is described as a ‘rapist’ or an ‘apologist’ or a ‘holocaust denier’ simply for asking good questions about a report that doesn’t ring true,” wrote National Review’s Charles C. Cooke, “you should expect that person to be vocal when his suspicions are confirmed and his detractors are proven wrong.” And conservative media was doing its own reporting. For the better part of a month, Breitbart News’s John Nolte has been raising questions about how Lena Dunham’s memoir names “Barry,” a “campus conservative,” as a man who may have raped her in college. The site’s reporters scoured Dunham’s campus and found the story flawed, especially as it concerned a real-life “Barry.” That Barry responded by starting a legal fund. Only then did Random House announce that it would alter Dunham’s book so that, in future editions, no one would mistake the real-life “Barry” for the person accused, by her, of rape. Breitbart News was pilloried for investigating this. The attacks were of the sort Cooke was arguing against; they seemed to imply that anyone questioning a rape story was endorsing the culprit over the victim. That wasn’t what Nolte was doing. As Eugene Volokh explained in the Washington Post, Dunham might have opened herself to a libel suit from “identifiable conservative Barry.” To many people, not just conservatives, the media's sensitivity to "rape culture" seemed to lead to lower standards that damaged peoples' reputations. Hence the backlash. [/s] Edited by abb, Dec 9 2014, 11:25 AM.
|
![]() |
|
| abb | Dec 9 2014, 11:35 AM Post #255 |
|
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/12/09/3601046/twitter-uva-rape-victim/ Twitter Under Pressure To Ban Blogger Who Posted Alleged UVA Rape Victim’s Name by Lauren C. Williams Posted on December 9, 2014 at 9:22 am Updated: December 9, 2014 at 10:56 am 11Share This 113Tweet This "Twitter Under Pressure To Ban Blogger Who Posted Alleged UVA Rape Victim’s Name" Share: facebook icon twitter icon Twitter San Fran headquarters CREDIT: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu Twitter users are calling on the social media company to jumpstart its new anti-harassment policies after a conservative blogger claims to have published the full name of the University of Virginia (UVA) student whose alleged gang rape has come under scrutiny in recent weeks. Charles Johnson, a reporter for GotNews, posted the full name of Jackie, whose account of her violent gang rape was featured in Rolling Stone, via Twitter and vowed to release more details if she didn’t confess to falsely reporting her rape. Johnson tweeted in response to a controversial Washington Post article that raised discrepancies in the victim’s story. Rolling Stone initially wrote in their apology that their trust in Jackie had been “misplaced,” but later changed the language to say the mistake was on the magazine, not Jackie. Johnson’s comments were met with an immediate backlash and calls for Twitter to block or permanently ban Johnson’s account for being abusive. But action isn’t coming soon enough for many Twitter users. As of publication, Johnson’s Twitter account was still active and Twitter has remained quiet on the issue. A Twitter spokesman told ThinkProgress the company doesn’t “comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons.” Johnson has also falsely reported that police shooting victim Michael Brown had a criminal record and was also a source for a Daily Caller story claiming Robert Menendez (D-NJ) frequented Dominican prostitutes. The story later turned out to be a hoax. Twitter suspended the blogger’s account after Johnson published the names and addresses of nurses in Dallas who contracted Ebola. And according to Twitter, posting the UVA victim’s name or other private details could warrant suspension. “Accounts that post another person’s private and confidential information will be suspended temporarily or permanently,” the spokesman said. Twitter’s current policy does forbid releasing someone’s private information, but suspending or banning a reported account is not always guaranteed. According to Twitter’s frequently asked questions: “When we receive a complete and valid report that private information has been posted on Twitter, we’ll investigate the account and Tweets reported. We will review where, if anywhere, the information has been made publicly available before taking action on the account or Tweets. If the information reported was previously posted elsewhere on the Internet, it is not a violation of our policy and we will not take action.” Twitter promised to revamp its online harassment policies after mounting criticism that it didn’t take online threats seriously. But Twitter’s promised changes haven’t yet been put in effect. “I don’t think [Twitter has] rolled out the changes yet,” said Jaclyn Friedman, executive director for Women, Action, and the Media (WAM), which is partnering with the site to improve its online harassment policies. “They changed the form. But they haven’t changed what counts as harassment.” Any changes, Friedman said, would be incremental and expected to come out in the coming weeks and beyond. So far, WAM is working on a comprehensive harassment report for Twitter to illustrate the pervasiveness of online harassment. For example, like Jackie, transgender women have been targeted by users who publish their legal or former legal names, Friedman said. “I hope this will inspire Twitter to respond to their users,” Friedman said. “Outing someone’s real name when they have taken great pains to keep it private should be against the rules.” |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers · Next Topic » |







9:16 AM Jul 11