| UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,470 Views) | |
| Walt-in-Durham | Dec 20 2014, 11:43 AM Post #496 |
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We know that a system of progressive discipline based on objective measurements yields the best results for the organization and the people involved. If this matter came across my desk on a complaint either from outside the company, or inside, our employee handbook and our operating policies say investigate first. Find the facts. Apply discipline designed to correct the problem. Hold people accountable and then follow up to see that they have corrected the problem. Hold an after action review to learn lessons. I am always guided by the rule: "revenge is a dish best served cold." Walt-in-Durham |
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| sdsgo | Dec 20 2014, 12:01 PM Post #497 |
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Walt First, I would like to give our readers a little background reading on your original comment, "I think they tried once before and it didn't take." Anatomy of a Campus Coup By ANDREW RICE Published: September 11, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/magazine/teresa-sullivan-uva-ouster.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 And then point out a short article released your a few days before Sullivan suspended Greek social functions. West Virginia U. Suspends All Greek Activities November 14, 2014 West Virginia University placed a moratorium on all Greek activities Thursday after a "catastrophic medical emergency" occurred at one fraternity chapter and 19 students were cited at another. Last week, Morgantown police arrested three students and cited 16 others for underage possession and consumption of alcohol. All 19 students were pledges of Sigma Chi, and the chapter was suspended. The medical emergency occurred at a separate house early Thursday and required a 911 response, the university said in a statement. The university referred to the student as "gravely ill," but many on campus took to social media on Thursday offering their condolences and saying that the student had died. The moratorium comes three weeks after the university moved to quickly expel several students involved in a riot near campus -- and at a time when its president, E. Gordon Gee, is trying to clean up the university's hard-partying image. West Virginia joins a growing number of universities, including Johns Hopkins University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that are imposing systemwide bans of Greek parties and social functions following incidents at one or two houses. "The action to halt fraternity and sorority activities while these matters are being reviewed is being done with the well-being and safety of our students in mind," Corey Farris, dean of students at West Virginia, said. "That is -- and must always be -- our foremost priority." I'll post more later today. |
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| abb | Dec 20 2014, 12:07 PM Post #498 |
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If a college prez thinks a frat should be suspended for drinking or partying, then do it for that reason. But don't gin up a false flag operation, and then when caught, fallback to "well, they're a bunch drunks/dopeheads/women chasers/party animals (fill in the blank) and should be shut down anyway." If I were God, I would bounce that woman out of office so fast it would make her head spin. She has no business anywhere near a leadership position. |
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| abb | Dec 20 2014, 12:18 PM Post #499 |
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http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/article_8502dfde-8846-11e4-849c-5bcc1f3e6301.html Audio of Rolling Stone interview, emails detail article's fallout BY K. BURNELL EVANS The Charlotteville Daily Progress | Posted: Saturday, December 20, 2014 7:48 am In a 44-minute recorded interview Oct. 2 with University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan, the author of Rolling Stone’s shattered UVa expose cited “gang rape” allegations but disclosed none of the details of the account that sparked a national uproar. Asked by reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely about “three separate allegations of gang rapes” at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, Sullivan replied that “we do have a fraternity under investigation and … we have spoken with a national chapter of that fraternity.” The Daily Progress on Friday obtained an audio recording of the interview along with more than 250 pages of emails. The material sheds further light on Rolling Stone’s reporting, what university officials knew and when and their response as the story spread. Several days after the Rolling Stone interview, Sullivan alluded to the upcoming story as well as sexual assault allegations in a meeting at the local Phi Kappa Psi house across Madison Bowl from her office, according to a source with close ties to the fraternity. An officer with the fraternity’s housing corporation said he called Charlottesville police less than three weeks later, on Oct. 23, asking that they investigate. Neither city police nor university officials would comment on that detail Friday. On Nov. 19, 27 days after the call from the housing corporation and shortly after Rolling Stone published the story online, Sullivan contacted Charlottesville police Chief Timothy J. Longo asking for an investigation of the magazine account. “The Rolling Stone article raises new and more specific allegations regarding this alleged assault that have not been shared with the University previously,” Sullivan wrote in an email to Longo. “For this reason, we are asking that CPD open a criminal investigation …” Police have declined to comment on the investigation. The source tied to the fraternity has said that Associate Dean of Students Nicole Eramo advised Phi Psi of sexual assault allegations and the upcoming story in a Sept. 17 meeting. Those allegations entailed forced oral sex by multiple men, according to the source. That differs from the discredited account in Rolling Stone, which described a woman named Jackie being thrown through a glass table and raped by seven men in an upstairs room at Phi Psi on Sept. 28, 2012. The magazine has said it discovered discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and the fraternity has said it has records refuting key aspects of the story. Jackie never filed a complaint with police, according to the Rolling Stone story. U.Va. rector decries 'drive-by journalism' The chairman of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors ripped into Rolling Stone magazine Friday, saying the magazine unfairly tarnished the school's image with a piece of "drive-by jour… During her phone interview with Sullivan, Erdely inquired about the mid-September contact with Phi Psi, but Sullivan said only that university officials had spoken with a national fraternity about their concerns. She did not identify the fraternity. Moments earlier, Sullivan said, “I can also tell you that as far as I know we don’t have the names of any specific individuals.” Following the story’s release, dozens of alumni and parents of prospective students fired off sharp emails to Dean of Students Allen Groves, whose office oversees Eramo’s. “As it stands, your institution is not getting a penny from me and I’ll make sure no one I know attends,” one email read. Although Groves cited problems with the stories in emails to friends and colleagues, he offered to resign from Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s Task Force on Combating Campus Sexual Violence. “I fear that my involvement is about to become a distraction to the Task Force’s critical work,” Groves wrote Nov. 26 to Laura Fornash, a member of UVa’s state governmental relations staff. Fornash advised against a quick decision, instead saying she would have a conversation with McAuliffe’s chief of staff, Paul Reagan. “I have heard multiple people in the Administration recognize that UVA is ahead of many in Virginia on these issues,” Fornash wrote. “Your current place on the taskforce is in recognition of this.” Groves also declined a planned appearance at the North-American Interfraternity Conference Academy in January, citing fallout from the story and an independent counsel’s review of the school’s sexual assault policies. “I have decided that I must cancel all talks and appearances until the independent counsel announced yesterday completes his review of sexual misconduct at UVA,” Groves told the organization Nov. 20. “I’m sure you understand.” Emails show Erdely made repeated attempts to land an interview with Eramo, an effort eventually scuttled by the university communications office. Erdely first reached out to Eramo on Sept. 5 to arrange an interview for an “article about rape/rape culture on college campuses.” Eramo chairs UVa’s Sexual Misconduct Board and has defended the school’s handling of sexual assault cases, which in 10 years has not resulted in an expulsion, although dozens have been expelled over honor code violations. Initially, Eramo agreed to be interviewed. “Thanks for your note,” Eramo wrote Erdely on Sept. 6. “A few of my students mentioned this story to me so I’m really glad you reached out! My schedule isn’t too bad on Thursday. Is there a time that would work for you?” The exchange appeared to be Erdely’s first written communication with top administrators charged with carrying out sexual assault policies. For several days, Eramo and Erdely corresponded about setting up a time to meet, copying members of the university’s communications office. But on Sept. 11, university spokesman McGregor McCance said Eramo was off-limits. “I apologize for the change of direction particularly on the interview that had been planned for Nicole on Friday,” McCance wrote, “but I hope that you will be interested in finding a good time to interview [President Sullivan] for this story.” McCance told Erdely that he encouraged Sullivan to make herself available for the story. “We think the issue is important enough that the institutional voice ought to be from President Sullivan,” he wrote. Erdely responded 19 minutes later, “insist[ing] upon speaking to Nicole, who, as we discussed, is the primary authority on sexual assault at UVA.” “Nicole is indeed among the most knowledgeable of our policies and procedures here,” McCance replied. “Unfortunately, she is not going to be available for an interview.” Three weeks later, Sullivan took Erdely’s questions. Erdely asked about an example used in her story in which a student identified as “Stacy” is assaulted and brings the case to the Sexual Misconduct Board. Two other women then came forward claiming the same man sexually assaulted them. He was found responsible and was suspended for a year. Erdely asked whether that was enough. Citing student privacy laws, Sullivan declined to respond. She also would not detail the fraternity investigation cited after Erdely mentioned Phi Psi. “It’s under investigation. I don’t know how else to spell that out for you, Sabrina,” Sullivan responded when Erdely asked for more information. Erdely did not press Sullivan further, nor did she appear to inquire in follow-up emails with the university: In exchanges with roughly a half-dozen officials between Sept. 5 and Nov. 12, neither Erdely nor the magazine’s fact-checkers shared the graphic account that would be the centerpiece of the story. “A couple last questions (and thanks again for all your help with this!!),” Rolling Stone Assistant Editor Elisabeth Garber-Paul wrote university spokesman Anthony be Bruyn on Nov. 12. In a flurry of emails exchanged between the two, Garber-Paul asked de Bruyn to detail the university’s handling of honor code violations and whether Eramo is a UVa alumnus. She verified that the school has had zero expulsions for sexual assault since 1998 and asked whether Eramo sits in on informal hearings of sexual assault cases. Her final questions related to university policy: “UVA has recently designated most authority figures at UVA as mandatory reporters of sexual assault, in order to make sure that allegations reach the necessary parties. Deans have been known to make emergency-room visits to victims of sexual assault [?]’ That should be it, and thanks again!” Questions about UVa’s policies and procedures for managing sexual assault complaints also formed the bulk of Erdely’s questions for Sullivan and de Bruyn and Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Susan Davis, who also took part in the Oct. 2 interview. When Erdely inquired about specific numbers, Sullivan said she could not answer. After Erdely hangs up, a woman’s voice can be heard on the recording saying: “She was a rather unpleasant character.” Erdely has not responded to interview requests since the story crumbled. |
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| Joan Foster | Dec 20 2014, 12:37 PM Post #500 |
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Totally agree. |
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| Baldo | Dec 20 2014, 03:07 PM Post #501 |
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Spot on! The first problem is that alcohol abuse & drug addiction is a raging epidemic in our colleges. That has been well-documented & I have posted this before. I would bet most all of the cases of alleged rape, whether true or not, start with either excessive drinking or drugs. |
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| abb | Dec 20 2014, 03:13 PM Post #502 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rolling-stone-editor-will-danas-failures-have-cost-everyone-involved/2014/12/19/e7f2bbd0-86e0-11e4-b9b7-b8632ae73d25_story.html Rolling Stone editor Will Dana’s failures have cost everyone involved By Amanda Bennett December 19 at 7:41 PM Amanda Bennett, the former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Lexington Herald-Leader, is a freelance editor and writer. So, dear Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana , a month has passed since you published the dramatic, and now questioned, tale of gang rape at a fraternity at the University of Virginia. You have told us you are now reporting out the story to find out what really happened, and that you will tell us what you have found as soon as possible. And so you should. The brutal account that landed with such force deserves a thorough vetting. Unfortunately, as you now undoubtedly know, the time to do that was before you published, not afterward . Everyone involved in that story — the fraternity, the campus, the unnamed (but since identified) alleged perpetrators and especially the victim — deserves a calm, dispassionate, evenhanded presentation of the facts of the evening in question, presented from all points of view. Do not rush this. Good investigative work rests on facts, and facts can be stubbornly hard to acquire. But once you get these facts and present them to us, your job is far from done. For no matter what your investigation finds, you have done untold damage. You have done so by allowing a narrative to take control, by relying on what you have called “credibility” rather than facts to rule. Allowing the narrative to take control is what crowds do. It is what mobs do. It is what despots and tyrants do. It is what, unchecked, we all will do. We believe the narrative that makes the best story. We believe the narrative that fits our point of view. We believe the narrative that underlies our fears. We will believe the narratives that allow us to feel good about our own actions and to demonize those who act differently. There is nothing wrong with pursuing a strong story, or even with having a strong point of view. Advocacy demands it. And journalism, like science, is often at its best when pursuing a powerful thesis statement. A crime was committed here. An administration is corrupt. This system is unjust. There is nothing wrong with such advocacy journalism. The search for social change in a cause you believe in is an admirable pursuit. But a strong narrative without the underpinning of facts is bias. And bias can morph in the blink of an eye into destruction, fear and suspicion. Look all around us for evidence of it from recent news events: All black men are threatening. All police are brutal. Our courts mete out justice. Our courts cannot be trusted. All Muslims are terrorists. All Christians are intolerant. All men are would-be rapists. All women are liars. You, Will — as editor of a major publication with huge readership and huge credibility — had an obligation to do one thing well, and that was to find out what really happened. Everyone should do this before they make up their minds, forward a post, condemn an actor, a politician, a school, a system. For you, Will, whose publication commands so many resources and so much respect, that was your primary obligation. To temper the narrative with the truth. And it was to do so before you passed this story on to others. Buying into a story, as your official statement says you did, based on your feelings that it is “credible” is buying into a narrative. And narrative ungirded by facts is bias. The most basic fact-checking involves reaching out to the other side. And that, you tell us, you did not require the reporter to do. So, Will, if your temptation down the road is to seize on whatever facts your investigation uncovers to say: “See? We told you. We were right all along” — don’t. Just don’t. Instead, look at the harm that you have done by buying into the narrative and not checking the facts. If it turns out that “Jackie” is a troubled young woman who has turned some trauma in her life into a gruesome fantasy tale, then you have committed the sin of exploitation. Deep, thorough reporting would have exposed the fault lines in the story and spared her and you. If your reporting finds that Jackie is credible and her story, despite inaccuracies in details, is largely accurate, then you have committed another sin by handing detractors of the issue the crowbars with which to pummel your — and her — account. No matter what you find, it is hard to imagine that you will ever restore the story to the credible status that you once believed it deserved. And that harms her, you and the cause you profess to believe in. There remains a chance to pull some good out of this. First you must resign. It was the job of the reporter and the editor on the story to get the facts. But it was your job to make sure they did — and that you could stand behind what you published. You did not do this. You must acknowledge this and step down. Once you have resigned, you need to spend some time using your experience to help show everyone what happens when you believe the narrative you want to believe. Share your experience with Old Media. We can certainly use a refresher course. Share it with New Media. Spare younger journalists the pain of your experience. And share it with us all. We all need to hear this again and again. For it is the decision to believe the narrative without checking that is made every day by anyone who forwards an Internet post without reading it. Who posts an outraged comment on a blog without stopping to think if the other side is true. You see the results of believing whatever narrative we want to believe in Ferguson, in New York, in Virginia, in Australia, in Pakistan. Bias in support of a cause you love seems righteous. Bias in support of a cause you hate seems evil. Either way it is bias. And bias is so, so close to hatred. |
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| sdsgo | Dec 20 2014, 03:22 PM Post #503 |
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Text of Rector George K. Martin's address to UVa Visitors "Let me begin today by expressing our collective sorrow also to the students, the student affairs professionals, the fraternities, and the countless others on Grounds who have been wrongly maligned and traumatized by the Rolling Stone article and the reaction to it. We are sorry." <snip> The whole story is still not clear, but it is not too soon to assess some of the damage. - Innocent people have been hurt; some of them devastated. - Our great University’s reputation has been unfairly tarnished. - Our community—one characterized distinctively by honor and leadership and selfless service to others—has been cast into self-doubt. - And great and important causes have suffered mightily as a result: -- the cause of sexual assault prevention and prosecution, which requires the engagement and goodwill of our whole community; -- and the cause of due process, which is our only sure refuge against the storms of passion and our only protection against the rush to judgment. We are tempted to respond to these injustices with anger. But a great University does not respond in anger. Its very mission is to teach the power of truth and reason over prejudice and passion. And we need to practice what we preach. We are here, after all, to teach our students … to set before them a positive and constructive example. And sometimes, as at our last meeting—indeed, as on many occasions—we are here to learn from our students and to be inspired by them. <snip> Full Statment |
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| LTC8K6 | Dec 20 2014, 03:27 PM Post #504 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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What a tangled web... |
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| Quasimodo | Dec 20 2014, 03:34 PM Post #505 |
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How long did it take Brodhead to get around to apologizing for not keeping in better contact with the falsely-accused (but not more than that)? Six months? |
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| MikeZPU | Dec 20 2014, 04:07 PM Post #506 |
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I am glad to hear someone in a high leadership position at UVA finally lashed out Rolling Stone for publishing Jackie's spectacular fabrication without doing a single bit of fact-checking NOT even talking to the friends who Jackie claimed talked her out of going to the police or the hospital. How can Erdely possibly justify that? BUT Prez Sullivan needs to speak up and lash out at RS too! She should use the opportunity to warn RS against letting Erdely "re-report" the story, that any re-reporting needs to be done with a fresh set of eyes!!!! Edited by MikeZPU, Dec 20 2014, 06:16 PM.
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| abb | Dec 21 2014, 05:37 AM Post #507 |
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http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-uva-report-will-be-clarifying-moment/article_8d99745a-9e82-5e74-ba53-ca67ef7467ed.html Our view: UVa report will be clarifying moment Posted: Sunday, December 21, 2014 2:15 am The University of Virginia has finally done what it should have done at the beginning: Last week, the rector of the school’s governing board announced that the independent counsel’s report into how the university handles allegations of sexual assault will be made public. This sets up a potentially clarifying moment, not just for that school, but others, too — one that tuition-paying parents, students and the public in general ought to be asking. How often do college administrators hear about alleged sexual assault on campus and not report it to police? For that matter, the task force that Gov. Terry McAuliffe appointed to look into sexual violence on campus — something he did before the infamous Rolling Stone story — ought to be asking that question, too. If the answer is that federal privacy laws somehow prevent colleges from notifying police, something that’s been intimated in the UVa case, that would be a good thing to know, too. Colleges often offer victims some form of a campus judicial system, on the theory that’s easier on rape victims than going to the police. However, it winds up being easier on actual rapists, too. Rape is a crime, whether it happens in a downtown alley, or on a college campus. Why should the law be different on one side of the street than the other? If one student killed another on campus, that wouldn’t get shuffled off to some college administrator to figure out the proper rap on the knuckles. So why is sexual assault sometimes downplayed to mere “misconduct”? Of course, that does put the onus on victims to go to police, an additional trauma, to be sure. But forget “Jackie” and whether her story of a gang rape at a fraternity is true; it seems to unravel by the day. Instead, consider this: In October 2002, a student at Liberty University said she was raped on campus by a fellow student. However, she declined to press charges with police, so none were filed. The man she said raped her behind the Vines Center quit school that same day; Liberty can’t say, but one sure gets the feeling he quit before he could be expelled. The next fall, the same guy was accused of sexual assault at his new school — Christopher Newport University. The woman there did not want to go to police, but instead took the complaint to the campus disciplinary system. CNU can’t say what happened, but the man left school soon thereafter, so you can read between those lines. You might also by now have figured out who he is: Jesse Matthew Jr., who now stands charged with the abduction with intent to defile in the case of Hannah Graham, the University of Virginia student who went missing this fall and was later found dead. What if the accusations against him at either Liberty and Christopher Newport had gone to court? Draw your own conclusions. |
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| abb | Dec 21 2014, 05:39 AM Post #508 |
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http://www.richmond.com/opinion/their-opinion/article_07918b0c-3d0c-53f7-9915-7deeb2679da4.html What the Rolling Stone story tells us about campus sexual assault By Matt Kaiser and Justin Dillon | Posted: Saturday, December 20, 2014 10:30 pm Rolling Stone has walked away from its story about a woman it called Jackie being gang raped at a fraternity at the University of Virginia. The story was sensational and relied on Jackie’s detailed description of a brutal rape by seven members of a U.Va. fraternity. Rolling Stone apologized for the story because its reporter, her editor and its legal department blindly believed Jackie and didn’t investigate or scrutinize what she said. Based on our experience handling dozens of campus sexual assault cases at 19 universities across the country, it looks like Rolling Stone took a page out of the playbook from most colleges when they handle allegations of sexual assault on campus. The article and the investigation that led to it was long on emotional response and short on truth-searching. One part of the story that seems to be true is that something very traumatic happened to Jackie. Her suitemate said that after the night of the alleged rape, she withdrew into her room and didn’t talk to others. The woman who started at U.Va. as a bright and enthusiastic person transformed into a shell of herself. That transformation is striking — and it looks like the school should have done more to help Jackie. But, in light of the significant problems with her story, what she says happened that night just couldn’t have happened. Even her own roommate said that she feels Jackie misled her. What this suggests to us is that the takeaway of the Rolling Stone controversy is that just because a person went through a traumatic experience — and there is no reason to doubt that Jackie had something happen to her — that person’s report of what happened shouldn’t be accepted uncritically. *** The mantra of the recent action around campus sexual assault has been that women just don’t falsely report rape — that a person making a sexual assault claim should be believed. Jackie’s story shows the limits of that assumption. And the Rolling Stone story isn’t the only example — at two separate schools in New Hampshire, two separate women are being prosecuted by the police for making false reports of campus sexual assaults. We don’t know why a woman would make a false accusation. But what the discrepancies in Jackie’s story make clear is that it does happen; any system of resolving these cases that assumes otherwise is bound to be flawed. In its apology, Rolling Stone said that it found the story of Jackie — the woman who reported the gang rape at a fraternity party — credible because she neither said nor did anything that made the reporter, or Rolling Stone’s editors and fact-checkers, question Jackie’s credibility. In the story, her friends and rape activists on campus strongly supported Jackie’s account. She had spoken of the assault in campus forums. Outrage and emotion trumped good journalism. The magazine didn’t push to talk to the people who could have shed light on what happened because they “were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault.” Out of a concern for victims, the magazine decided not to do its job. This is precisely what happens at college campuses across the country as they investigate these cases. Students are accused, told only the thinnest of details about the accusations, and given no meaningful ability to investigate or present their side of the story. Campus hearings on these cases don’t help much, either. In our experience handling these at colleges around the country, the young woman is almost uniformly distraught. The young man, believing himself to be falsely accused, usually comes across like one might expect a falsely accused college student to come across — as cold, angry, and incredulous. So the panelists at the hearing often side with — and do not closely question — the sympathetic person, while leaving their hard questions for the less sympathetic one. A search for truth, this is not. *** Virtually every campus in America also prohibits an accused, or his attorneys, from trying to interview witnesses about what happened. The schools’ view is that if a witness is approached by someone trying to defend himself, it could be uncomfortable for the person bringing the complaint. But schools have forgotten what Rolling Stone has just been reminded — the search for truth is often uncomfortable. And the problems don’t stop there. Often, in campus hearings, an accused person can’t ask questions of the accusing student. In some cases, a male student is told a date but not the name of the accuser or any of the details of the accusation. The discrepancies in Jackie’s story came out only because the case went public. Everyone read what Jackie said and critically evaluated it. We were able to see how the mere fact of trauma does not mean that everything the person who experienced the trauma says is true. But in campus cases across the country, men are accused, found guilty and expelled, without anyone knowing, seeing, or challenging what happens. Sexual assault, on campus or elsewhere, is serious. It deserves serious discussion and attention. And women who experience trauma should receive support. But Jackie’s story shows that an experience of trauma isn’t the end of an inquiry; it’s the start. Just as Rolling Stone shouldn’t have thrown away the practices of good journalism out of concern for victims of sexual assault, colleges shouldn’t throw out basic fairness in investigative practices when handling these cases. If Jackie had named her attackers, they would almost certainly have been expelled and likely prosecuted. For, apparently, nothing. Yet that is exactly what’s happening at campuses across the country every day; Rolling Stone just isn’t there to cover it. |
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| abb | Dec 21 2014, 05:41 AM Post #509 |
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http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/20/phi-kappa-psi-president-responds-to-washington-post-columnist/ Phi Kappa Psi President Responds To Washington Post Columnist Posted By Chuck Ross On 1:04 PM 12/20/2014 In | No Comments In an interview with The Daily Caller on Friday, Phi Kappa Psi national president Scott Noble, the fraternity president, said that an article from The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, with the dismissive title “‘Gentlemanly’ nonsense from frat at center of U-Va. sexual assault controversy,” lacked key context about a program the fraternity began implementing earlier this year. In the piece, Capehart adopted an accusatory tone towards the University of Virginia’s Phi Kappa Psi chapter, members of which were accused in a now-debunked Rolling Stone article of gang-raping a student named Jackie in 2012. Capehart’s thinking is difficult to follow, but he appears to be upset at the timing of a robo-call, which Noble’s wife recorded and placed to Phi Kappa Psi members and alumni on Dec. 9. Capehart seems to be under the impression that the call was Phi Kappa Psi’s response to the Rolling Stone piece. But Noble says that is not at all the case. “We had a five year plan that was in place months prior to the Rolling Stone article,” he told The Daily Caller in a phone interview. Noble has declined to discuss Jackie’s accusations or the Rolling Stone article because the investigation into the claims is still ongoing. That fraternity’s plan included a series of monthly calls which Noble says he began formulating in August. The plan was officially set into motion on Sept. 9, according to an email Noble shared with TheDC. The monthly calls are available to any of the 80,000-plus alumni and 6,600 hundred members who are willing to listen, Noble said. And they carry a simple message. “We have to respect each other as brothers and as women because if we don’t start with an underlying basis it’s hard to go to the next level on education,” Noble told TheDC, adding that the fraternity “will continue to educate our men proactively.” He noted that Phi Kappa Psi proactively joined “It’s On Us,” a campus sexual assault awareness campaign started by the Obama administration in September. Capehart quoted a portion of the robo-call, which he says was provided by a man who resigned from the fraternity in the 1990s. “As the holiday season approaches, we have decided it’s the perfect time to focus our efforts on being gentlemen who are courteous and cultured and showing respect to others. We will have Lorrie Bossart joining us on our call and we are certain you will enjoy her brief talk on gentlemanly conduct, good manners and etiquette,” Noble’s wife said on the call. Capehart allowed his source to characterize what he thought was wrong with that presentation. “What jumped out at him in that tone-deaf message was ‘gentlemanly conduct,’” Capehart wrote. Seemingly based on the assumption that the call was Phi Kappa Psi’s weak effort to address the issues raised in the Rolling Stone article, Capehart slammed the Greek-letter organization. “Fraternities need to lead by example,” Capehart wrote. “It is not enough for them to have online modules on ‘personal integrity’ as Phi Kappa Psi has. They need to live out those good manners and hold those accountable whose behavior violate a code of conduct or break laws.” Capehart provided only slight awareness that the Rolling Stone article — and Jackie’s claims — have been thoroughly discredited. “Yes, the controversy over the lax reporting undergirding Rolling Stone’s U-Va. feature casts doubt on ‘Jackie’s’ story,” Capehart wrote, indicating through the use of quotation marks around the accuser’s name that he is not aware that her real name is indeed Jackie and not a pseudonym. “But it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to ignore, mistrust or automatically doubt every person who comes forward with an allegation,” Capehart continued. Noble says that he believes there is nothing wrong with teaching fraternity members to behave respectfully and act like “gentlemen.” He also says that such guidance is much-needed and appreciated given the diverse backgrounds of the young men who are admitted into universities and join fraternities. “We see incredible value in fraternities right now because of breakdown in the family structure,” Noble told TheDC, citing a statistic that 51 percent of young men today are raised without a father present. “We see incredible value in educating these kids in how to respect men and women and use proper manners.” |
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| abb | Dec 21 2014, 05:53 AM Post #510 |
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http://www.richmond.com/news/article_14b820fc-f580-5a1f-9313-c63b8271f347.html Audio of Rolling Stone interview, emails detail article's fallout By K. BURNELL EVANS The Daily Progress | Posted: Saturday, December 20, 2014 4:36 pm CHARLOTTESVILLE — In a 44-minute recorded interview Oct. 2 with University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan, the author of Rolling Stone’s shattered U.Va. exposé cited multiple allegations of gang rape but disclosed none of the details of the account that sparked a national uproar. Asked by reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely about “three separate allegations of gang rapes” at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, Sullivan replied that “we do have a fraternity under investigation, and … we have spoken with a national chapter of that fraternity.” The Daily Progress on Friday obtained an audio recording of the interview along with more than 250 pages of emails. The material sheds further light on Rolling Stone’s reporting, what university officials knew and when, and their response as the story spread. Several days after the Rolling Stone interview, Sullivan alluded to the upcoming story as well as sexual assault allegations in a meeting at the local Phi Kappa Psi house across Madison Bowl from her office, according to a source with close ties to the fraternity. An officer with the fraternity’s housing corporation said he called Charlottesville police less than three weeks later, on Oct. 23, asking that they investigate. Neither city police nor university officials would comment on that detail Friday. On Nov. 19, 27 days after the call from the housing corporation and shortly after Rolling Stone published the story online, Sullivan contacted Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy J. Longo to ask for an investigation of the magazine account. “The Rolling Stone article raises new and more specific allegations regarding this alleged assault that have not been shared with the university previously,” Sullivan wrote in an email to Longo. “For this reason, we are asking that CPD open a criminal investigation.” Police have declined to comment on the investigation. *** The source tied to the fraternity has said that Associate Dean of Students Nicole Eramo advised Phi Kappa Psi of sexual assault allegations and the upcoming story in a Sept. 17 meeting. Those allegations entailed forced oral sex by multiple men, according to the source. That differs from the discredited account in Rolling Stone, which described a woman named as Jackie being thrown through a glass table and raped by seven men in an upstairs room at Phi Psi on Sept. 28, 2012. The magazine has said it discovered discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and the fraternity has said it has records refuting key aspects of the story. Jackie never filed a complaint with police, according to the Rolling Stone story. During her phone interview with Sullivan, Erdely inquired about the mid-September contact with Phi Kappa Psi, but Sullivan said only that university officials had spoken with a national fraternity about their concerns. She did not identify the fraternity. Moments earlier, Sullivan said: “I can also tell you that as far as I know, we don’t have the names of any specific individuals.” After the story’s release, dozens of alumni and parents of prospective students, who felt U.Va. officials didn’t do enough to address the allegations, fired off sharp emails to Dean of Students Allen Groves, whose office oversees Eramo’s. “As it stands, your institution is not getting a penny from me, and I’ll make sure no one I know attends,” one email read. Although Groves cited problems with the story in emails to friends and colleagues, he offered to resign from Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s Task Force on Combating Campus Sexual Violence. “I fear that my involvement is about to become a distraction to the task force’s critical work,” Groves wrote Nov. 26 to Laura Fornash, a member of U.Va.’s state governmental relations staff. Fornash advised against a quick decision, instead saying that she would have a conversation with McAuliffe’s chief of staff, Paul Reagan. “I have heard multiple people in the administration recognize that U.Va. is ahead of many in Virginia on these issues,” Fornash wrote. “Your current place on the task force is in recognition of this.” Groves also declined a planned appearance at the North-American Interfraternity Conference Academy in January, citing fallout from the story and an independent counsel’s review of the school’s sexual assault policies. “I have decided that I must cancel all talks and appearances until the independent counsel announced yesterday completes his review of sexual misconduct at U.Va.,” Groves told the organization Nov. 20. “I’m sure you understand.” *** Emails show Erdely made repeated attempts to land an interview with Eramo, an effort eventually scuttled by the university communications office. Erdely first reached out to Eramo on Sept. 5 to arrange an interview for an “article about rape/rape culture on college campuses.” Eramo chairs U.Va.’s Sexual Misconduct Board and has defended the school’s handling of sexual assault cases, which in 10 years has not resulted in an expulsion, although dozens have been expelled for honor code violations. Initially, Eramo agreed to be interviewed. “Thanks for your note,” Eramo wrote Erdely on Sept. 6. “A few of my students mentioned this story to me, so I’m really glad you reached out! My schedule isn’t too bad on Thursday. Is there a time that would work for you?” The exchange appeared to be Erdely’s first written communication with top administrators charged with carrying out sexual assault policies. For several days, Eramo and Erdely corresponded about setting up a time to meet, copying members of the university’s communications office. But on Sept. 11, university spokesman McGregor McCance said Eramo was off-limits. “I apologize for the change of direction, particularly on the interview that had been planned for Nicole on Friday,” McCance wrote, “but I hope that you will be interested in finding a good time to interview (President Sullivan) for this story.” McCance told Erdely that he encouraged Sullivan to make herself available for the story. “We think the issue is important enough that the institutional voice ought to be from President Sullivan,” he wrote. Erdely responded 19 minutes later, “insist(ing) upon speaking to Nicole, who, as we discussed, is the primary authority on sexual assault at UVA.” “Nicole is indeed among the most knowledgeable of our policies and procedures here,” McCance replied. “Unfortunately, she is not going to be available for an interview.” Three weeks later, Sullivan took Erdely’s questions. Erdely asked about an example used in her story in which a student identified as “Stacy” is assaulted and brings the case to the Sexual Misconduct Board. Two other women then came forward, claiming the same man sexually assaulted them. He was found responsible and was suspended for a year. Erdely asked whether that was enough. Citing student privacy laws, Sullivan declined to respond. She also would not detail the fraternity investigation cited after Erdely mentioned Phi Kappa Psi. “It’s under investigation. I don’t know how else to spell that out for you, Sabrina,” Sullivan responded when Erdely asked for more information. Erdely did not press Sullivan further, nor did she appear to inquire in follow-up emails with the university. In exchanges with roughly a half-dozen officials between Sept. 5 and Nov. 12, neither Erdely nor the magazine’s fact-checkers shared the graphic account that would be the centerpiece of the story. *** On Nov. 12, Rolling Stone Assistant Editor Elisabeth Garber-Paul wrote university spokesman Anthony de Bruyn to say she had some final questions and to thank him for help with the story. In a flurry of emails exchanged between the two, Garber-Paul asked de Bruyn to detail the university’s handling of honor code violations and whether Eramo is a U.Va. alumnus. She verified that the school has had zero expulsions for sexual assault since 1998 and asked whether Eramo sits in on informal hearings of sexual assault cases. Questions about U.Va.’s policies and procedures for managing sexual assault complaints also formed the bulk of Erdely’s questions for Sullivan and de Bruyn and Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Susan Davis, who also took part in the Oct. 2 interview. When Erdely inquired about specific numbers, Sullivan said she could not answer. After Erdely hangs up, a woman’s voice can be heard on the recording saying: “She was a rather unpleasant character.” Erdely has not responded to interview requests since questions have arisen about the story. |
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9:16 AM Jul 11