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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,479 Views)
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http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/394545/violent-threat-near-uva-rolling-stone-downplayed-jim-geraghty

The Violent Threat Near UVA that Rolling Stone Downplayed
By Jim Geraghty
December 12, 2014 10:34 AM

There is one more bitter, tragic irony to Rolling Stone’s erroneous coverage of allegations of gang rape at the University of Virginia. Evidence is mounting that young women on the campus indeed faced a violent threat for a long time. It just didn’t come from fraternities or the student body.

On September 13, 18-year-old University of Virginia student Hannah Graham disappeared; authorities recovered her remains from a rural part of Albemarle County, Va., on October 18. Police arrested Jesse Matthew Jr. on September 25, and he was charged in the disappearance of Graham.

What’s astounding is how many young women disappeared in such a short period of time around the University of Virginia’s campus:

Hannah Graham is the fifth young woman in five years to vanish within a few miles of Route 29, the main highway which runs through Charlottesville.

Nineteen-year-old Samantha Ann Clarke, who vanished after leaving her Orange County town house in September 2010, 19-year-old DaShad Laquinn Smith, who disappeared in Charlottesville in November 2012, and 17-year-old Alexis Murphy, who was last seen near Lynchburg, Va. in August of 2013 and whose car was found in Charlottesville, remain missing. . . . Morgan Harrington, a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student, disappeared from the University of Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena while attending a rock concert in October 2009.

HelpSaveTheNextGirl.com collected 13 cases of women disappearing from central Virginia since 2009 — some young, some old, some white, some black. It is far from clear that they are all the crimes of the same perpetrator, but there are unnerving similarities in several of the cases.

Then there’s this chilling detail:

Sources confirm that at least two local cab employees informed federal and state investigators that Jesse Matthew Jr. — the man behind bars for the abduction of missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham — was working as a cab driver the night murdered Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington disappeared.

What is the one thing everyone says when a young woman has had too much to drink? “Call her a cab.”

In the Rolling Stone article, there’s a brief reference to Graham and Matthew, attempting to shoehorn the crime into the article’s established narrative about a “rape culture” on campus:

Suspect Jesse Matthew Jr., a 32-year-old UVA hospital worker, will be charged with Hannah Graham’s “abduction with intent to defile,” and a chilling portrait will emerge of an alleged predator who got his start, a decade ago, as a campus rapist. Back in 2002, and again in 2003, Matthew was accused of sexual assault at two different Virginia colleges where he was enrolled, but was never prosecuted. In 2005, according to the new police indictment, Matthew sexually assaulted a 26-year-old and tried to kill her. DNA has also reportedly linked Matthew to the 2009 death of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, who disappeared after a Metallica concert in Charlottesville. The grisly dossier of which Matthew has been accused underscores the premise that campus rape should be seen not through the schema of a dubious party foul, but as a violent crime — and that victims should be encouraged to come forward as an act of civic good that could potentially spare future victims.

Jesse Matthew Jr. does not “fit the narrative” of the article’s spoiled, entitled, privileged, out-of-control frat boys:

This is one more consequence of “narrative journalism”: When you set out to write the evil-fraternities story, you end up missing the serial-killer-stalks-campus story.
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http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/12/reporter-behind-uva-gang-rape-tale-was-once-disciplined-for-making-up-a-story-by-stephen-glass/

Reporter Behind UVA Gang-Rape Tale Was Once Disciplined For Making Up A Story… By STEPHEN GLASS

Posted By Jim Treacher On 11:58 AM 12/12/2014 In | No Comments

Here’s a great catch by our old pal Sean Davis at The Federalist. As Rolling Stone‘s UVA gang-rape story implodes, Davis has been looking into the Sabrina Erdely archive to try to find out what else she’s lied about.

And in the process, he found this doozy:

According to “Penn In Ink,” a 2006 book about journalism at the University of Pennsylvania by author Samuel Hughes, Sabrina Erdely (Sabrina Rubin at the time) got busted by her editor at the UPenn newspaper for submitting a story that she had completely made up. Who was the editor who disciplined her? Stephen Glass. Yes, that Stephen Glass…

In case that name doesn’t ring a bell, you might have heard about the movie they made about him about 10 years ago, starring Young Darth Vader:

Glass was the New Republic reporter in the mid-90s who made up a bunch of fake news stories, which is now known as “narrative journalism.” He invented people that didn’t exist, he created events that never happened… He made up whatever he felt like making up. And TNR published it all.

When people started to catch on that Glass’s too-good-to-check reporting really did need to be checked, he lied and lied and went to great lengths to cover up his journalistic fraud. But thanks to the diligent work of journalists who actually cared about the truth, it all came crashing down. It ended his career and gave the magazine a huge black eye.*

Keep that in mind as you read this excerpt from Penn In Ink:

Sabrina Rubin, who says she and the rest of the editorial board “adored” [Stephen Glass], puts it another way: “There are reporters who get ahead because they’re great schmoozers, and I think Steve was definitely one of them.” When he became the paper’s executive editor, the editorial board hailed him as a “man of principle,” and in her Philadelphia Magazine piece, Rubin describes how Glass threw a righteous fit when she and a colleague concocted a funny and obviously made-up travel story for [U. Penn magazine] 34th Street–going so far as to call an emergency session of the [Daily Pennsylvanian's] Alumni Association board to apprise them of the transgression.

This is a bit like… well, it’s a bit like being chastised for joining the Dark Side by Darth Vader.

Or maybe it’s the other way around? Did Glass get the idea from Erdely? Did he see how much fun she had, submitting lies as truth? Did he realize how much easier it was than gathering actual facts? Was that what led him down the path to his own destruction?

Note that I’m asking questions, not pretending I know the answers. I’ll leave that sort of thing to fabulists like Sabrina Erdely.

She certainly doesn’t adore Glass anymore, if we’re to judge by her reaction to his recent attempts to put his life back together:









That’s what Erdely said a year ago. Here’s what she’s saying now:

Good luck with your bar exam in 20 years, Sabrina. Let’s hope your friends are nicer to you than you were to Stephen Glass.

Of course, this doesn’t matter to feminists and their apologists. They’ll continue to dismiss the facts of the UVA case because it supposedly reveals a “greater truth.” They only care about what really happened if they can use it to advance their own agenda.

Lying is a great way to raise awareness of an important issue… until you get caught.

*Don’t worry, though. TNR is doing fine now.

Update: Just asking.
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http://www.timesheraldonline.com/opinion/20141212/gene-lyons-no-defense-for-mistakes-in-rolling-stone-rape-story

Gene Lyons: No defense for mistakes in Rolling Stone rape story

Posted: 12/12/14, 11:59 AM PST |

Like the best crime fiction, Rolling Stone’s infamous article about a purported gang rape at the University of Virginia was vividly written. I’m embarrassed to say that it almost convinced me.

My first reaction to the article’s premise was incredulity. Seven UVA students assault a total stranger at a fraternity party, knowing that if she goes to the cops or anybody gets a guilty conscience they all go to prison? The victim’s friends, after finding her covered in blood outside the Phi Kappa Psi house, urge her to keep quiet lest it wreck their chances of attending future frat parties?

“Animal House” meets “The Shining”? I wouldn’t go to a movie with such cartoon villains.

Then I saw author Sabrina Rubin Erdeley on TV, and found her persuasive. So I read the article with mounting dismay:

“She remembers how the spectators swigged beers, and how they called each other nicknames like Armpit and Blanket. She remembers the men’s heft and their sour reek of alcohol mixed with the pungency of marijuana. Most of all, Jackie remembers the pain and the pounding that went on and on.”

Without even finishing, I sent a link to my wife Diane, who read it in one horrified take. Having met and married at the University of Virginia, we have only good memories of the Charlottesville campus.

Even Thomas Jefferson’s architecture had a powerful impact: the visible expression of his optimistic 18th-century rationalism. He took more pride in founding UVA than being president. Jefferson’s public and private sins notwithstanding, walking up the Lawn to the Rotunda can still be an emotional experience.

We had long talks about the Rolling Stone piece. Had American culture really coarsened to where college boys could rape with impunity? Were campus administrators really more interested in protecting the university’s prestige than its women students? Put that way, it seemed possible.

As graduate students, we’d known several members of the fraternity where the alleged atrocity took place through my time playing rugby. The team captain and his brother both belonged to Phi Kappa Psi — terrific fellows.

Otherwise, we’d had little contact with UVA fraternities. But what we did know, we didn’t like: Arrogant, entitled fops and snobs, we agreed, although when I’d mention particular individuals, she’d demur.

“Well, no,” she’d say. “Not him.”

Preppy WASPs, of course, are America’s last acceptable criminal class. A journalist can “profile” them all she wants with no fear of chastisement. On a recent Slate podcast, Erdeley explained she’d decided to write about UVA’s heavy-drinking “elitist fraternity culture” even before she’d met “Jackie,” the alleged victim.

“Southern” was a big part of it, too.

The good news is that it was the feminist writers Hanna Rosin and Allison Benedikt of Slate’s “XX” blog who first expressed incredulity that Erdeley made no serious effort to contact Jackie’s supposed assailants — and that Rolling Stone editors apparently let her get away with it.

Does Rolling Stone employ no lawyers? No publication I’ve ever written for would let me accuse identifiable individuals of serious felonies without giving them a chance to speak.

Then Washington Post reporters went to work. What they found should shock every working journalist in the USA, and lead to everybody involved in the Rolling Stone piece being drummed out of the profession.

Erdeley’s turns out to be a one-source story, based entirely on Jackie’s say-so. What’s more, blow away the smoke from people blathering about “rape culture” and insisting that women (almost) never lie about such things, and there’s no firm evidence that anybody at Phi Kappa Psi (or anywhere else at UVA) ever laid a hand on her.

It’s simply impossible to know.

If Rolling Stone’s story reads like a Stephen King novel, that may be because it’s largely imaginary.

UVA pledge events take place during spring semester, not September; there was no fraternity party. The side door Jackie escaped from doesn’t exist. Her three friends say they encountered her about a mile from Phi Kappa Psi that night, telling a lurid, but very different story involving forced oral sex. Jackie had no visible wounds. It was she who insisted on keeping quiet.

They also say Erdeley never interviewed them.

Jackie’s alleged seducer “Drew” never belonged to the fraternity and denies ever dating Jackie — an easy alibi to break, unless true.

The scales having fallen from my eyes, I keep returning to the scene where guys outside an off-campus bar supposedly called Jackie a “feminazi bitch.”

“One flung a bottle at Jackie that broke on the side of her face,” we’re told, “leaving a blood-red bruise around her eye.”

Maybe an NFL quarterback could throw a beer bottle hard enough to break on somebody’s face, but I doubt it. The victim, however, would be more than bruised. She’d be lucky to survive.

And there would definitely be a police report.

— Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of “The Hunting of the President” (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). You can email Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com.
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http://www.ibtimes.com/life-after-rolling-stone-uva-students-see-jackie-opportunity-reform-sexist-greek-1749631

Life After Rolling Stone: UVA Students See 'Jackie' As Opportunity To Reform Sexist Greek System
By Marissa Daisy Aliotom.alioto@ibtimes.com on December 12 2014 2:07 PM

To read the headlines, the collapse of Sabrina Rubin Erdely's Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus” has become all about the media: the failure to do basic reporting to verify facts in an explosive, harrowing account.

But even as key details of the story have started to fall apart, the story of “Jackie” rang true enough to University of Virginia students to make the issue of sexual assault on campus a vibrant conversation at what Playboy, in 2012, ranked as the No. 1 party school in the U.S.

What’s happened since, campus leaders told International Business Times, is a long-overdue examination of the traditions and rules of the Greek system, where sexism is baked into arcane regulations, and women and men are treated differently, creating conditions that make “Jackie” plausible even if Rolling Stone’s version of her story turns out to be false.

“I haven’t really felt the same since I read [the article] the day that it came out,” says Nick Hine, a senior Phi Delta Theta fraternity brother and chairman of the UVA Honor Committee. “I feel like UVA is very much going into uncharted territory.”

Members of the school's Greek system are now debating reforms once unthinkable: banning hard alcohol at Greek events, mandating “sober brothers” to act as monitors during parties, and eliminating some disparities in the way fraternities and sororities are treated -- disparities not exclusive to UVA but embedded in national regulations for Greek chapters.

For example, fraternity houses can host parties with alcohol, but sororities must have theirs at a third-party venue. Sororities are also required to hire a bouncer, have the event approved, and provide a professional bartender to serve the alcohol -- none of which are required of frats.

“The fraternities control the alcohol, so everyone goes to the men’s territory,” said Alison Booth, professor of English at UVA, who introduced a motion to extend the suspension of the fraternities and sororities until reforms can be implemented.

“We could easily improve the current situation and still have a Greek system at UVA,” she said.

UVA was already one of 85 schools under federal investigation under the gender equity law Title IX for inadequate handling of sexual assault complaints, which is considered a form of sex discrimination and hence subject to fines or even the revocation of federal funding.

Some reforms were already underway. This year the university mandated that fraternities receive a presentation by the national sexual survivor support group One in Four, which takes its name from Department of Justice rape statistics for college women. There's also an all-female group on campus, One Less, which makes similar presentations to students.

Violence prevention organization Green Dot will also train students to teach "bystander intervention," a program that shows people how to overcome resistance to helping those they see in need.

True or not, the story of “Jackie” thrust a needed spotlight on the campus social system, and Hine is grateful for the opportunity for dialogue. “No one should be arguing at this point that there’s not still a problem,” he said.

Sophomore Alexa Liedke, co-founder of the group Alliance for Social Change, formed after Erdely's article was published, envisions a mandatory class for incoming UVA students that would look at issues of inequality, whether racial, sexual or class-based.

She has organized a "SlutWalk," in which participants are invited to march in clothes that could be seen as sexually provocative as a form of protesting the idea that a woman who is a victim of sexual assault "asked for it" by the way she dressed or behaved.

Overall, the widespread discussion about the issue is a positive result of what could turn out to be a false story. "Nobody ever had any hope that the way sexual assault on campus was handled would improve,” Liedke said. “But now that it's being talked about, there is hope."

Also under discussion is the best way to react when an assault is reported. One of the more disturbing aspects of the “Jackie” story was that she was allegedly encouraged by her peers not to report the rape. While that part of the story has been debunked, it resonated enough with some student leaders that it needed to be addressed.

“That is terrifying to me, but I’m hopeful we can fix that,” said Jalen Ross, student council president at UVA and a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

Under UVA’s current policy, a student bringing a rape allegation has several options: going to the police, having an on-campus hearing, doing both, or doing neither. If UVA feels the student community is at risk in a given case, its policy allows for taking action without the victim's consent.

Campuses across the country are struggling with how to handle allegations of sexual misconduct; critics have said universities shouldn’t be in the business of investigating rape at all, that the cases should always go to the police. Ross disagrees, saying it would “eviscerate the number of reports you actually get.”

Some argue that the unequal treatment of fraternities and sororities creates an environment that contributes to unchecked sexism.

Uva "It seems that the only time that sororities are actually being treated equally with fraternities is with punitive actions," said Story Hinckley, COO of UVA's Kappa Alpha Theta chapter. IBT/ Daisy Alioto

For example, in an ironic twist, it is senior sorority sisters and not senior fraternity brothers who are barred, per Virginia's Inter-Sorority Council regulations, from socializing with freshmen women during their first semester, for fear that they might try to recruit them early and deny them a semester of college life outside the sorority. Sorority sisters can talk to first-year students in their first semester only if it's "in a public venue within 2 miles of grounds," and "If alcohol is present, they cannot talk to them beyond a 'common courtesy' greeting."

And incredibly -- given the accounts of freshmen women raped at fraternity parties -- a first-year, first-semester female student cannot be in an older sorority sister's room or vice versa. If they are seen together, they could be reported for early recruitment, or "dirty rushing."

A freshman who cannot be friends with a senior sorority sister, then, simply ends up going to the same fraternity parties, but she doesn't have the guidance an older sorority sister could give her, says Story Hinckley, chief operating officer of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.

Even the fact that sororities were included in the current Greek ban grates on some. "It's like we're being punished twice," Hinckley said. "It seems that the only time that sororities are actually being treated equally with fraternities is with punitive actions. Right now I think the playing field just needs to be equal."
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-12/uva-president-addresses-sexual-assault-in-michigan-state-speech.html

UVA President Addresses Sexual Assault in Michigan State Speech
By Lisa Wolfson and Chris Christoff Dec 12, 2014 3:09 PM CT
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Photographer: Norm Shafer/For the Washington Post via Getty Images

University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan said that the school’s agreements... Read More

The University of Virginia will use the attention thrown at it by a now-discredited article about an alleged gang rape to find ways to improve campus safety, President Teresa A. Sullivan said.

UVA “has been thrust into the spotlight by recent media focus, and we intend to use this moment of opportunity to lead the way toward solutions,” Sullivan said today at an advance degree commencement at Michigan State University, where she was awarded an honorary doctorate of law.

Rolling Stone backtracked last week on the Nov. 19 rape story, though not before it set off outrage across the country, led the university’s leadership to suspend its more than 30 fraternities until Jan. 9 and ramped up the national debate over alcohol abuse and sexual assaults on colleges campuses.

“Addressing this problem requires us to consider an array of issues,” such as education and prevention, popular culture, law enforcement and adjudication, Sullivan said. “This one is complex and it will require collaboration across disciplines to develop solutions and in the meantime care for and support survivors.”

Charlottesville police continue to investigate the alleged incident and a review of campus policies and procedures on sexual misconduct by an independent counsel is also proceeding, Sullivan said earlier this week.

Sullivan is a graduate of Michigan State’s James Madison College.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lisa Wolfson in Boston at lwolfson@bloomberg.net; Chris Christoff in Lansing at cchristoff@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lisa Wolfson at lwolfson@bloomberg.net Chris Staiti
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When, does anyone hazard a guess, will Ms. Erdley confront what is becoming more obvious each day, the absolute total journalistic mess that she has spawned? Or, when will Rolling Stone have an accounting of its sloppy journalism?

I guess that fact checking does not exist at all at Rolling Stone. I know, because Mr. cks has been called occasionally by the NY Times fact checkers about various things involving wine, that there is at least some semblance of concern at the Grey Lady for accuracy - however one has to wonder whether this is just one more thing that has been abandoned as a cost cutting measure.

Why wouldn't an author, who pens such an explosive story, not want to check, double check, and triple check to make certain that the story hung together? I would think that the three "friends" of Jackie would have grounds to sue Erdley because of what she reported them as having said to Jackie - as they appeared to be the most uncaring, self-centered people of all time. Someone who had been raped (which we now know - given the change in story that it was oral sex rather than vaginal) as originally claimed for so many hours on shards of glass would have had to have gone to the emergency to remove all the ground in glass - an easily checked fact at the medical center in Charlottesville. But, guess that would have taken too much effort.

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I am so sick and tired of this Fake MSM we have & fools like Sullivan & Brodhead who pretend to be leaders

What needs to be taught is the ability to analyzed data and judge true facts. Instead we get agendas and narrative writing pretending to be the true facts.
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It occurs to me that Matt Taibbi's reportage must be viewed with suspicion now, as well
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cks
Dec 12 2014, 11:05 PM
When, does anyone hazard a guess, will Ms. Erdley confront what is becoming more obvious each day, the absolute total journalistic mess that she has spawned? Or, when will Rolling Stone have an accounting of its sloppy journalism?

I guess that fact checking does not exist at all at Rolling Stone. I know, because Mr. cks has been called occasionally by the NY Times fact checkers about various things involving wine, that there is at least some semblance of concern at the Grey Lady for accuracy - however one has to wonder whether this is just one more thing that has been abandoned as a cost cutting measure.

Why wouldn't an author, who pens such an explosive story, not want to check, double check, and triple check to make certain that the story hung together? I would think that the three "friends" of Jackie would have grounds to sue Erdley because of what she reported them as having said to Jackie - as they appeared to be the most uncaring, self-centered people of all time. Someone who had been raped (which we now know - given the change in story that it was oral sex rather than vaginal) as originally claimed for so many hours on shards of glass would have had to have gone to the emergency to remove all the ground in glass - an easily checked fact at the medical center in Charlottesville. But, guess that would have taken too much effort.

I had heard about the horrible gang rape at UVA, but it took several
days before I got around to reading the actual article in Rolling Stone.

I was only several paragraphs into the story, when visions of
Mangum reared their ugly head -- Jackie's story was obviously made
up! It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize what a bunch of crock it was!

I couldn't believe it was being taken so seriously, and causing
such shock waves across the nation as well as across UVA!

The media did not learn a damn thing from the Duke LAX case!

That frat is lucky, though, that Jackie added details that were verifiably false.
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/12/11/_istandwithjackie_and_the_feminist_response_to_the_unraveling_of_rolling.html

Feminism Can Stand Without Jackie
By Amanda Hess

I’m told that this has been a bad couple of weeks for the anti-rape movement. “Rolling Stone just wrecked an incredible year of progress for rape victims,” Arielle Duhaime-Ross wrote at the Verge last week. Since the magazine’s November story about a brutal gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity began to unravel early this month, feminists have raised alarms that the magazine’s whiff will have devastating effects for past and future victims. The story “could be read as a setback for an entire movement,” campus activist Annie Clark wrote in BuzzFeed. UVA is “on its way to becoming the next Duke Lacrosse—a highly publicized incident that misogynists will point to as a way to discredit all people, especially young women and students, who experience rape,” Audrey White wrote at Autostraddle. According to Duhaime-Ross, “the credibility of rape victims will be put into question for years to come,” as Rolling Stone has helped to “perpetuate the dangerous and damaging myth that women lie about rape.”

Amanda Hess is a Slate staff writer.

I’m surprised that these activists and commentators are so quick to hand over the future of this movement to packs of roving social media misogynists. There are people on the fringe who believe that any rape story with any discrepancies is evidence of a vast feminist conspiracy aimed at inventing rapes and vilifying innocent men, but these rape truthers are not reasonable people, nor are they most people, and it is unwise to mold the conversation around their fantasies. I am, however, concerned with how some feminists and progressives have responded to the ever-expanding holes in Rolling Stone’s story.

At this point, it is clear that Rolling Stone failed to meet its basic journalistic requirements many times over. There is also compelling evidence that Jackie herself fabricated all or parts of her story. Neither of these scenarios serves to dismantle the anti-rape movement. Journalists have messed up reporting on rape since they began reporting on rape. In addition, there have been false rape allegations in the past, and there will be false allegations in the future. Any successful anti-rape activist or movement must be willing to accept that false accusations are not a “myth” and grapple with how to handle them appropriately. Whatever really happened at UVA one Saturday night in 2012 cannot possibly undermine a social justice movement because any understanding of justice must accommodate the truth.

Rolling Stone presented Jackie’s story as a powerful symbol for how rape victims are denied justice across America. When it was revealed that the magazine had torpedoed itself, Jackie, and UVA in its negligent reporting, it gave anti-rape activists the opportunity to disavow the false framework that Jackie is somehow emblematic of victims everywhere. Instead, many doubled down. Under the hashtags #IStandWithJackie and #IBelieveJackie, feminists lent their support for Jackie’s story, noting that certain aspects of her experience resonate with the way that other rape victims have been shamed and disbelieved. “We know institutions will bring their power to bear to obfuscate sexual violence. That's why we stand with survivors. #IBelieveJackie,” the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence tweeted. By using Jackie’s individual story, which was already coming under legitimate scrutiny, to reinforce the movement’s broader narrative about how sexual assault operates, and boosting the message with activist hashtags, they bet the big story on the strength of one anecdote. That’s a mistake.

On Monday, after a weekend of the Washington Post reporting on a number of inconsistencies in the story, the NAESV released a full statement, saying that it “believes ‘Jackie’ ” because the NAESV is made up of “very experienced survivor advocates” who “do not take minor discrepancies in certain details of ‘Jackie’s’ story as any reason to begin doubting that she experienced horrific sexual violence by a number of perpetrators. The research on traumatic memories is clear: those who survive trauma can often have difficulty consolidating the details of the experience and discrepancies are not uncommon.” There is never a wrong time to highlight the effects of traumatic crimes on their victims or how PTSD affects testimony, but it is misleading to suggest that Jackie’s experience is somehow normative of sexual assault victims in general. The NAESV’s own advocates have presumably never counseled Jackie directly. They do not know what happened to Jackie and do not understand all the various possible explanations for her behavior. Right now, none of us do.

Rolling Stone’s editors have pledged to reinvestigate the tale themselves, and after the magazine’s disastrous first round, I suspect that their project will be about as useful as O.J. Simpson’s search for the real killers. But it is likely that more reporting on this story from other sources, as well as an investigation currently being undertaken by the Charlottesville, Virginia, police, will further illuminate what happened at UVA and how Rolling Stone got it so wrong. So it is confusing to me that since the story broke, activists on both sides have attempted to fill in the blanks with rank speculation about what “really” happened, coming to conclusions that conveniently align with their worldviews. “I think it's pretty clear Jackie was assaulted, and that her memory of the trauma is inaccurate—which is far from uncommon,” feminist blogger Jeff Fecke tweeted after the Washington Post’s most recent story was published Wednesday night.

I’m not sure what would make Fecke so clear on that point, given the reporting that has come out. And there are many feminists who claim that the situation ought never be clarified because attempts to “pick apart” Jackie’s story are necessarily offensive to Jackie and by extension all rape victims. “The current frenzy to prove Jackie’s story false—whether because the horror of a violent gang rape is too much to face or because disbelief is the misogynist status quo—will do incredible damage to all rape victims, but it is this one young woman who will suffer most,” Jessica Valenti wrote in the Guardian on Monday. It is wrong to assume that seeking the truth—to the extent that it is discoverable—comes from a place of mistrust or outright derision of rape victims. Carefully examining the Rolling Stone debacle and taking rape seriously as a national problem are not incompatible goals; we are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.

And there are real reasons for reinvestigating the story. The students of UVA deserve to know whether their campus is being occupied by a pack of ritualistic gang rapists, and if so, who they are. It is also appropriate to re-examine whether UVA’s response in this case was, in fact, insufficient, as Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s story strongly argued. As for the other students who appeared in Erdely’s story, especially the three friends Jackie says she called on the night of the alleged incident, it is fair to provide them the opportunity to share their own recollections of the events. Erdely characterized “Cindy” as a “self-declared hookup queen” and attributed this direct quote to her: “Why didn't you have fun with it? … A bunch of hot Phi Psi guys?” It is not petty or mean for her to dispute this narrative. None of this means that Jackie ought to be hounded or harassed in the process. Declining to speak further to reporters is her right, and cruel, unsourced speculation about her personality or motives or history of victimization is unfair.

And yet there is something strange in the claim, from advocates at the NAESV, Valenti, and Autostraddle’s Audrey White, that they “believe” Jackie. I don’t challenge their right to believe in anything they choose, but I do question whether belief is a productive framework for this story, because it suggests faith in something that lies outside the bounds of human knowledge. To put claims of rape in this category is to buy the idea that rape reports are by nature ambiguous, and that feelings override facts. The Rolling Stone incident shows that is not the case—many aspects of many rape allegations are capable of being thoroughly investigated, and one of the greatest problems with the American justice system’s response to rape is that police so often refuse to do that work (or in this case, that a journalist declined to). The idea that fully investigating or truthfully reporting on rape claims boils down to a simple “belief” in a victim’s account is simplistic and offensive, as Rolling Stone itself realized after it claimed that its trust in Jackie was “misplaced,” and it was swiftly and rightfully shamed for saying so.

Even journalists who aren’t staking out a position on Jackie’s story have turned to questionable tactics in order to shift the focus. Many have attempted to contextualize the fallout of the Rolling Stone article by pointing to statistics that show that false rape reports are an extremely rare phenomenon. In a representative piece, the Marshall Project’s Dana Goldstein wrote: “Rape-prevention groups on campus and elsewhere have already expressed concerns that even the suggestion of a false allegation could perpetuate misconceptions about the crime and hurt efforts to persuade women to come forward when they have been assaulted. In fact, research on rape allegations suggests that only a small percentage of the rape claims presented to the authorities—not only in the United States but also abroad—are false.” Goldstein relied heavily on a 2010 study published by the psychologist David Lisak and a team of researchers that found that just 6 percent of rape claims reported to one American university’s campus police department were investigated by authorities and determined to be false; the team’s review of similar international research on the subject found that between 2 percent and 10 percent of rape claims in those studies were determined to be false. But these studies refer to claims made to campus and local police departments; Jackie did not bring her story to them. I am not aware of any research investigating the veracity of rape claims told among friends, at campus consciousness-raising groups, or to the media. Perhaps these stories are more likely or less likely to be true. Why pretend that we know?

A common refrain in this fallout is that by even asking questions like these, we risk suppressing victims’ stories or making abused women feel distrusted and alone. “I worry about how many people won’t come forward about past or future attacks because they’ve been told once again that assault victims shouldn’t be trusted,” Audrey White wrote at Autostraddle as the story began to self-destruct. But that’s not true. The lesson of the Rolling Stone story is not that victims shouldn’t be trusted, but that unreliable storytelling shouldn’t be trusted; at the Post, Erik Wemple has rightfully used the incident to question Rolling Stone’s deployment of vivid, cinematic narratives in its treatment of other subjects. And many journalists are using the Rolling Stone example as an opportunity to re-examine their own responsibilities as reporters on all kinds of stories, not as evidence to distrust rape victims. Officials at UVA have also reaffirmed their commitment to taking sexual assault reports on the campus seriously, even as Jackie’s story has come undone. This makes sense, as UVA’s responsibility to its students in this regard is not predicated on coverage in Rolling Stone but is mandated by the federal government, which is keeping a watchful eye on the administration and has for years.

Perhaps the sort of self-examination that journalists and UVA administrators are going through now could also serve activists and feminists. Big ideological narratives about sexism and rape culture don’t need to fit neatly with every incident in order to remain compelling. In fact, they are strengthened when they are accepting of nuances and aware of their own limitations.
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http://www.enterprisenews.com/article/20141212/NEWS/141218273/12326/OPINION

December 13. 2014 5:00AM
WENDY MURPHY: About that Rolling Stone article
A recent Rolling Stone story about a reported gang rape of a student at the University of Virginia named “Jackie” has some people asking whether campus sexual assault is a true epidemic (it is), but the real question is whether UVA itself is behind the story.

A recent Rolling Stone story about a reported gang rape of a student at the University of Virginia named “Jackie” has some people asking whether campus sexual assault is a true epidemic (it is), but the real question is whether UVA itself is behind the story.
It’s strange to imagine a university wanting any bad press, but in a “wag the dog” world, a seemingly shocking story that then blows up is excellent public relations compared to the horrific truth.

Suspicions about UVA’s involvement developed when columnists, rather than the unnamed male attackers, started complaining about the credibility of “Jackie’s” story – leading some to question whether there even was a “Jackie” who reported any rape at UVA.

Things got even weirder when it came out that the writer who penned the piece, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, focused on a story that she knew or should have known had problems, and that she recklessly failed to subject it to appropriate journalistic standards.

The focus then shifted to a UVA employee named Emily Renda because, according to The Washington Post, she is the one who gave the “Jackie” story to Rolling Stone. Renda appeared on MSNBC with me right after the story broke, without revealing that she was an employee of UVA and without mentioning that she was the one who delivered the story to the magazine.

Rolling Stone didn’t mention Renda’s role in getting them the “Jackie” story, nor did they mention that UVA is currently under federal investigation by the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, a case I filed, charging multiple serious Title IX violations and that UVA is implicated in a landmark federal lawsuit, also a case I filed, related to one of its most shocking cases. The facts were readily available to Rolling Stone because they exist in publicly available court documents.

The federal lawsuit I filed involves disturbing allegations about a UVA forensic nurse who took numerous photographs of a victim’s genital injuries after she reported being sexually assaulted. The nurse initially prepared a medical record describing the injuries, but then submitted a report to the hearing board stating that there were no sexual assault injuries. The board ruled in favor of the alleged perpetrator, despite finding the victim “compelling” and “credible,” and noted in support of its decision that there were “no injuries.” The nurse’s inconsistent reports are on file with the court and with federal investigative agencies.

When the victim and her family learned the nurse had testified that there were no injuries, they asked UVA for copies of the photographs. University officials responded, without explanation, that there were “no photographs.”

UVA has been in trouble with federal agencies many times over the years for subjecting violence against women to substandard policies on campus, and not a single perpetrator has ever been expelled from UVA.

This recycling of rapists on campus was recently defended by UVA Dean Nicole Eramo, who coldly explained that perpetrators who confess are rewarded with the ability to remain students at UVA. She also said that offenders who don’t confess receive the same “gift,” though she nowhere explained why the alleged perpetrator in the missing photographs case won his case despite the hearing board’s determination that the victim, not the perpetrator, was “compelling” and “credible.”

It’s not clear whether the writer or Rolling Stone magazine deserves the most criticism for allowing the “Jackie” story to be propped up, and it’s hard to believe a reputable journalist would intentionally sabotage her own career.

But the writer hasn’t explained her actions, or complained that she was thrown under the bus by a higher-up. Hence, reasonable people wonder whether she wasn’t thrown so much as willingly flung herself.

People aren’t stupid, especially the parents of potential UVA students.

The good news is, “Jackie’s” story is so over-the-top, it screams red herring (OK, neon whale) and has many folks shining an even brighter light on UVA to see what’s behind the PR curtain. Yet another reason to send our daughters (and sons) to college someplace else.

Wendy Murphy is adjunct professor of law at New England Law|Boston and a well-known television legal analyst. A former prosecutor, Murphy specializes in the representation of crime victims in civil and criminal litigation. Read more of her columns at wendymurphylaw.com.


http://www.enterprisenews.com/article/20141213/NEWS/141218273
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http://nypost.com/2014/12/12/campus-hysteria/


Campus hysteria

By Linda Chavez

December 12, 2014 | 9:42pm

Rolling Stone magazine has now apologized, sort of, for publishing a lurid account of a gang rape at a fraternity at the University of Virginia that — it has become increasingly clear — never happened.

But the larger story is why so many people — editors, readers and university officials — bought the story in the first place.

Within three days of publication of the fantastical account, which read more like third-rate pulp fiction than investigative journalism, the university president had suspended all Greek activities on campus.

As with the Red Queen from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” it was “sentence first — verdict afterwards.”

UVA President Teresa Sullivan’s statement may have struck some as reasonable: “The wrongs described in Rolling Stone are appalling and have caused all of us to reexamine our responsibility to this community.”

She might as well have shouted “Off with their heads!” regarding the unnamed members of Phi Kappa Psi accused of the crime.

The motives of everyone involved in this story are suspect. It is hard to know whether the alleged victim, identified in the story and subsequently as Jackie, deserves pity or investigation for slander.

Although her friends and roommates claim that “something” happened to change the woman’s personality during her first semester at UVA, it is hard to know whether she was mentally ill or had, indeed, experienced some sexual or other trauma.

Whatever happened to her, she chose not to go to the police — a wise choice, given the obvious inconsistencies and downright fabrications in the story she told Rolling Stone.

But Jackie’s actions were only the beginning of the travesty. Why did Rolling Stone’s editors accept a story that had not been thoroughly vetted, especially one that described horrific criminal activity?

Why did the author of the story, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, accept her source’s account without, at a minimum, seeking corroboration from others the source claimed she had told about the incident contemporaneously?

Why would so many people believe that seven young men with high academic achievement and promise readily engaged in behavior that was brutal, disgusting and criminal — behavior that could put them behind bars and destroy their futures?

Why? The gullible bought the story because it reinforced their worldview: that elite universities are bastions of patriarchy and white privilege; that fraternities exist to promote drunkenness, lechery and exclusion; and, most of all, that “rape culture” pervades campus life.

Even President Barack Obama has pushed the narrative about campus rape culture. Two months before the Rolling Stone article made it into print, the president held a White House event that decried campus sexual assault.

The president repeated the oft-quoted statistic that “an estimated 1 in 5 women has been sexually assaulted during her college years — 1 in 5. Of those assaults, only 12 percent are reported, and of those reported assaults, only a fraction of the offenders are punished.”

But those figures are bogus. A new study released by the Department of Justice this week shows that women on college campuses are far less likely to be victims of sexual assault than their peers.

The actual rate of sexual assault is a fraction of the president’s figures: 6.1 assaults per 1,000 female college students, or 0.61 percent, not 20 percent.

None of this is to say that young women don’t face a sexually confusing, sometimes dangerous environment on college campuses today. Campuses are hyper-sexualized. Orientation at many schools involves promoting guilt-free “safe-sex” exploration and experimentation.

Sure, these indoctrination sessions include messages that “no means no,” but the underlying ethic is one that promotes promiscuity and no-commitment sex.

But the answer to this hyper-sexuality isn’t to invent a narrative that turns all male students into potential or actual rapists and all women into victims.

By pushing the rape culture narrative, activists, irresponsible journalists and university administrators may actually undermine the credibility of genuine victims.

Rape is a violent crime — not a political metaphor to be used to promote an anti-male, anti-elitist agenda.
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http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/13/us/uva-rape-turmoil/

Bombshell rape story triggers weeks of turmoil at the University of Virginia
By Sara Ganim, CNN
updated 10:35 AM EST, Sat December 13, 2014

Charlottesville, Virginia (CNN) -- The University of Virginia school year began with a terribly sad story.

The disappearance of one of its most vulnerable — a student embarking on the rest of her life -- rocked the campus and attracted national news coverage.

Investigators say a man they have now connected to several heinous crimes against women abducted and killed Hannah Graham, an 18-year-old accomplished athlete and straight-A student. Her death sucked the carefree joy out of college life, especially for those who had just arrived for their first term.

The crime was a blunt reminder that campus is not a utopia of safety. It began a change in late-night behavior on and near campus -- the grounds, as they are called here. Some students said they started looking out for each other a bit more, checking to make sure friends got home safe.

So a few weeks later, on November 19, emotions were still raw on campus when Rolling Stone published a lengthy piece detailing the brutal gang rape of a woman on campus. It portrayed the university as cold, tolerant of awful behavior -- certainly not safe for women.

National news crews descended on the university again, but things were different this time. This story did not bring the community together, as had Graham's disappearance and death. This story divided the campus, as can happen when something catches a group of people and their way of life off guard.

Bombshell article rocks campus

On an unusually warm day in late November, the campus seemed unusually solemn.

There were no impromptu quad sport pickup games in sight, even though almost everyone was in shorts.

The most noise on the quaint and historic grounds came from a protests on the steps of the main administration building, where students held signs with slogans such as "She trusted you to do the right thing" and "UVrApe." Inside, the university's governing board discussed what to do in light of the damning Rolling Stone story.

At a bagel shop around the corner, the story dominated a quiet conversation among three young women -- one defensive, one unsure and a third, silent.

"This will blow over in two weeks," one said.

Some at the bagel shop bristled at the idea that their university posed more danger to women than any other college.

"The article made it seem like it was a UVA-only problem and that people were accepting of it," said Sam Mirzai, a first-year who had just finished eating breakfast with a friend. "I think that's blatantly untrue."

Others said they felt the university had for too long ignored an obvious problem by never expelling a single student for assault, even when they admitted to it. Graffiti showed up near Rugby Road, where the fraternity houses are. A concrete barrier reads "Save the party, end rape." Someone vandalized the fraternity house of Phi Kappa Psi, where the allegedly gang rape purportedly happened.

The university administration reacted to the article swiftly.

First, the university suspended Greek life for the rest of the semester. Suddenly there were no more fraternity parties on Friday and Saturday night. The college demanded that police investigate.

University President Teresa Sullivan announced a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual assault.

"There's a piece of our culture that is broken and I ask you to come together as a strong and resilient community and to fix it," she said.

As students moved into Thanksgiving break, it seemed like things might calm down. Police worked their case. Advocates on campus were grateful for attention they felt was long overdue. Students studied for final exams and got ready for a break after the tumultuous semester.

Then Rolling Stone shocked everyone -- again.

The ripple effects of sloppy journalism

Two weeks after publishing the chilling account of a student's rape in a fraternity house, Rolling Stone apologized under pressure from the Washington Post, which was scrutinizing its reporting methods.

The magazine admitted that its writer had not contacted the man who allegedly orchestrated the attack on Jackie -- the woman who said she was assaulted. It said the writer didn't contact any of the men that Jackie claimed participated in the attack for fear that they would retaliate against her.

"In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced," Rolling Stone said.

That last line -- "our trust in her was misplaced" -- sparked complaints that Rolling Stone was blaming the victim. The magazine amended its apology to say this: "These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie."

Advocates for victims of sexual violence feared that inaccuracies in one woman's story would taint the credibility of all sexual assault victims, that it would make it harder than it already is for victims to come forward.

"Honestly I was terrified when I first heard the news," said Ashley Brown, president of the campus survivor's group, OneLess. She said she feared this would set back the cause "30 years."

Those fears reverberated across the country.

"I've had a lot of our members, especially sexual assault survivors, emailing me, asking if this is going to distract from the broader, bigger problem of sexual assault on campus," said Monika Johnson-Hostler, president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. "They're worried that fallout from one story is going to give people a reason to believe campus sexual assault isn't a real problem or it's been over-hyped."

Jackie's supporters noted that victims sometimes don't remember things in linear terms, that details sometimes come back in pieces.

The fraternity at the center of the storm, meanwhile, fought back with its own set of facts.

It said that the man Jackie claimed had lured her to a dark room was never a member of the frat. Phi Kappa Psi also cited records showing it did not have a party on the night Jackie says several men attacked her. And the fraternity said its house doesn't have a side staircase -- important because Jackie described descending such a staircase as she left, bloodied and broken.

"It's not part of our culture. It's just not true," said Phi Psi's attorney, Ben Warthen, of the allegations.

Yet the university administration did not budge when national Greek groups demanded an apology for shutting down fraternity activities.

And a university council that governs Greek life calmed the fears of some advocates with a pledge to remain focused on the very real problem of campus of sexual assault.

"We remain committed to being leaders in the campaign for long-term change," its statement said. "We ask that our community does not become mired in the details of one specific incident..."

Dredging up painful memories

The attention surrounding the Rolling Stone story dredged up painful memories for some women who say they were not at all surprised by the tone of the original piece.

Lyra Bartell recalled a friend who she said took advantage of her while she was drunk and upset a few years ago. She reported it to the university, asking for a no-contact order and then a formal campus investigation.

"I was having panic attacks on campus. I was literally covering my face with a hood and running from class to class because I was so fearful of running into the person who had hurt me," she said.

Then, she lost all of her friends, who sided with the accused instead of her.

Bartell graduated in May but drove back to Charlottesville at night after the Rolling Stone story. She asked students and others to write messages of support to rape survivors on a white board -- and more than 200 did in just a few days.

She recalled friends who believed someone had given them a date-rape drug.

"I remember having girlfriends roofied in frats and we would carry them out, and it was just another Friday night," she said. "People use words like, 'Oh, that's the rape-y frat.'"

Another student, Emily Powell, said friends doubted her after she said a man assaulted her during her third year on campus.

"I was really sick. I was vomiting. I felt horrible whenever I stood," she said. "I asked ... a friend of the person who had assaulted me to take me to the hospital because she had a car. And she told me that she would take me in a week, once I had calmed down, which very much felt to me like, you know, she thought I was making this up."

Later, when Powell mentioned she might file a police report, "they (friends) threatened that they would tell the police that I was — obsessed with the idea of rape and that — I would accuse anyone of rape, and they would say that I was mentally unstable."

All but one of a handful of people who told CNN they were sexually assaulted at UVA did not report the assault to the university. Bartell did. She said she dropped her case after getting an apology from the man she accused.

They all said the process is long and stressful. They also said it requires a woman to tell her story several times, including to fellow students, a prospect that made them nervous; a U.S. Senate report on campus sexual assault recommends against having students help adjudicate sexual misconduct allegations.

Uncertainty about the past -- and the future

Jackie's supporters initially were shocked after the Rolling Stone apology. Some stumbled for the right words. Some said they wanted an explanation.

After a few days, most said they believe something bad did happen on September 28, 2012, the night Rolling Stone reports she was attacked. Yet many also believe it's possible some of the graphic and disturbing details in Rolling Stone were wrong.

Sarah Roderick, a student who knows Jackie, said Jackie was terrified before the Rolling Stone article because she feared the retaliation. She acknowledged that "there do appear to be holes in her story" but said few rape victims give "a straight linear account" of their attack.

Another friend and peer advocate, Annie Forrest, said that, after the apology, Jackie was overwhelmed and that she never expected the fallout to be so bad. Forrest said the account Jackie gave to Rolling Stone is consistent with what Jackie told her about the incident.

Meanwhile, as investigators try to sort out varying versions of events, unanswered questions swirl around campus and beyond, as students start a month-long winter break.

Jackie has not spoken publicly since Rolling Stone published its story. Her lawyer recently told the news media that Jackie would like some privacy.

Next month, when classes resume, life could look a little more normal. Greek life will no longer be suspended. Barring major updates, TV news vans should be out of the much-coveted parking spots.

Students, many unsure exactly what to think, hope for a much less eventful new year.
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http://letterstotheeditorblog.dallasnews.com/2014/12/another-victim-of-story.html/

Another victim of story

Letters to the Editor Email comments@dallasnews.com
Published: December 13, 2014 2:02 pm


Re: “A Horrific Failure — Rolling Stone fiasco hurt women, journalism,” Tuesday Editorials.

Your editorial identifies two victims of Rolling Stone’s article on an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia: the magazine’s integrity and sexual assault victims. It conspicuously omits the most direct victim: the UVa fraternity that was falsely accused of actively encouraging gang rape as a fraternity function.

That fraternity has been vilified and vandalized as a result of the demonstrably false accusations in the story. Similarly, Rolling Stone apologized to “anyone who was affected by the story,” but noticeably failed to apologize to the direct victim: the falsely accused. This shows that an accusation as horrible as gang rape taints perceptions of the accused so badly that they will not be considered innocent even after the accusation completely unravels.

John Helms, Dallas
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http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/12/14/Jack-Kelly-Rape-story-falls-apart/stories/201412140087

Jack Kelly: Rape story falls apart
Rolling Stone and UVA acted irresponsibly
December 14, 2014 12:00 AM
By Jack Kelly / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Seven men raped her for three hours during a pledge party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia on the night of Sept. 28, 2012, “Jackie” told writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely.

Jackie, then an 18-year-old freshman, was brought to the party by “Drew,” whom she’d met at the university pool, where both worked as lifeguards. Drew took her upstairs to a “pitch black” bedroom. She was pushed over backward onto a low glass table, which broke, “sharp shards digging into her back.”

The gang rape was a kind of initiation, talk among her assailants indicated. Jackie passed out. When she awoke hours later, she was alone in the room. No one noticed her leave the frat house.

Jackie told three friends about her ordeal. They talked her out of going to the hospital for fear they’d be blackballed from fraternity parties, she said.

Neither Ms. Erdely nor Rolling Stone, where the article was published, bothered to check Jackie’s story, because “women don’t lie about rape.”

Except when they do. There were “discrepancies,” Rolling Stone editors admitted after The Washington Post did the due diligence they hadn’t.

Phi Kappa Psi rushes in the spring, not the fall. It did not host “a date function or social event” during the weekend of Sept. 28, 2012, the fraternity said. No members of Phi Kappa Psi worked at the Aquatic and Fitness Center that month. When Jackie first told her story, there were only five rapists.

The Washington Post tracked down “Drew,” who was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi. He never took Jackie on a date, Drew said.

Though Jackie had no apparent injuries, they offered to take her to the hospital or to the police, but Jackie wanted to go back to her dorm, her friends “Andy” and “Cindy” told the Post.

Claire Kaplan, program director of Gender Violence and Social Change, said in a Facebook post that the students involved told her “the scene about whether or not to go to the hospital never happened, and that when they wanted to take her to the police, she didn’t want to go.”

Ms. Erdely has responded by saying that it doesn’t matter so much whether Jackie’s story is really true. The point of her article is the University of Virginia didn’t respond forcefully enough to her charges.

But if her story was false, UVA’s response was appropriate.

An appropriate punishment for the gang rape Ms. Erdely described would be life without parole — if it had occurred. The more serious the offense, the more despicable it is falsely to accuse someone of committing it.

Ms. Erdely was determined to write a story about sexual assault at a major university. She shopped around for six weeks before she found the “right” one, she told Slate magazine. Phi Kappa Psi, she said, is “really emblematic … of elitist fraternity culture.”

Maybe so. But there is no evidence Jackie was raped at the Phi Kappa Psi house.

To print so sensational a charge without attempting to verify it is an unforgivable breach of journalism ethics.

This isn’t the first time Ms. Erdely has played fast and loose with the facts to advance a narrative. She wrote a story in 2011 accusing three Catholic priests of homosexual rape, based on what she was told by a “victim” who was lying.

“Anyone who touched this story — save newsstand personnel — should lose their job,” said Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple.

No one should print anything Sabrina Erdely writes ever again.

Phi Kappa Psi should sue Ms. Erdely and Rolling Stone for libel.

After Rolling Stone published the story Nov. 19, University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan suspended all fraternity social activities. It is customary to investigate charges of wrongdoing before issuing punishment.

Jackie’s story has fallen apart, but Ms. Sullivan hasn’t apologized for her rush to judgment. She has a duty to treat all UVA students fairly — even the frat boys. If she had any integrity, she’d resign. Evidently she doesn’t, so the regents should fire her.

Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).
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