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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,500 Views)
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LTC8K6
Dec 5 2014, 03:35 PM
In the story, Jackie’s roommate at the time, Rachel Soltis, tells Erdely, “Me and several other people know exactly who did this to her.”

So, will a reporter re-interview Rachel?
And more importantly, when will a complaint be filed with police?
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Rachel Soltis, a recent U-Va. graduate and a close friend and former roommate of the woman in the Rolling Stone article, criticized the administration’s overall response to the article, saying it has been weak from the start.

“I feel like it happens everywhere, but U-Va. doesn’t talk about it . . . they want to cover it up,” Soltis said. “I don’t think the administration did a fair enough job in her case.”

Soltis said she’s sickened by students who say the victim made up details and only came forward to gain attention.

“One of the biggest problems is that most kids on campus don’t believe that it happened,” Soltis said. “But something like this did happen and will continue to happen.”

Soltis said she thinks fraternity members skate through what she considers a biased system and that the university has played down the issue of sexual assault on campus.

There are many students who have been raped and the university doesn’t do anything about it, Soltis said, adding that her friend came forward “because she wanted to save the next girl and raise awareness about this issue. She doesn’t want her case to be reopened . . . it’s already happened and there’s nothing they can do about it.”


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-student-leaders-hoping-to-foster-culture-change-regarding-sexual-assault/2014/11/24/3419c0f8-73f4-11e4-9c9f-a37e29e80cd5_story.html
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-fraternity-to-rebut-claims-of-gang-rape-in-rolling-stone/2014/12/05/5fa5f7d2-7c91-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html?hpid=z1
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A name of an alleged attacker that Jackie provided to them for the first time this week, for example, turned out to be similar to the name of a student who belongs to a different fraternity, and no one by that name has been a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

Reached by phone, that man, a U-Va. graduate, said Friday that he did work at the Aquatic and Fitness Center and was familiar with Jackie’s name. He said, however, that he had never met Jackie in person and had never taken her on a date. He also said that he was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi.
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Dec 5 2014, 03:36 PM
LTC8K6
Dec 5 2014, 03:35 PM
In the story, Jackie’s roommate at the time, Rachel Soltis, tells Erdely, “Me and several other people know exactly who did this to her.”

So, will a reporter re-interview Rachel?
And more importantly, when will a complaint be filed with police?
never?

Quote:
 
A name of an alleged attacker that Jackie provided to them for the first time this week


So they didn't know "exactly who did this to her" until this week?
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-reimer-uva-rape-20141207-column.html

Rolling Stone's missteps distract from the real story of campus rape

Susan Reimer
Baltimore Sunsusan.reimer​@baltsun.com

It should be a conversation about rape, not one about journalism
University disciplinary boards are no substitute for criminal justice system

On Nov. 19, Rolling Stone magazine published a horrifying account of the gang rape of an unsuspecting freshman at a University of Virginia fraternity party, including how her date for the evening called out directions and encouragement to the men who were assaulting her.

She said she left the party bloodied, half-naked and in shock.

The lengthy story, written by veteran freelancer Sabrina Rubin Erdely, went on to chronicle the go-along-if-you-want-to-get-along responses of the woman's friends and UVA's seeming determination to protect its brand instead of its vulnerable co-eds.

The university responded with shock and horror, shut the Greek system down for a token few weeks at the end of the term, and turned the 2012 case over to the Charlottesville police for investigation.

But Rolling Stone, the author and the young woman identified as Jackie came under intense scrutiny. Why hadn't the perpetrators been named if everyone on campus knew who they were? Why hadn't they been asked to respond to the charges? Where was the corroborative evidence of that horrible night?
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Ms. Erdely says Jackie asked her not to name or contact the men because she was afraid. The author said she corroborated Jackie's account and its aftermath with Jackie's friends and with administrators. Ms. Erdely said she found Jackie eminently credible.

On Friday, a detailed fact-checking by The Washington Post and an apology to its readers by Rolling Stone cast Jackie's story in grave doubt. The magazine said it was misled.

Early on, skeptics asked if the whole thing wasn't a hoax. An apocryphal story built on the well-known narrative of heavy drinking (Jackie said she was not drunk), fraternities and unwanted sexual contact?

Now it appears it may have been just that, and the damage extends far beyond the reputations of the magazine, the author and the young woman who told this story.

Will any college student who cries rape be believed now? What college woman will come forward if she knows she will face this new skepticism?

What young woman will tell her story when she knows she may face the unrelenting questions of a phalanx of journalists in addition to those of university officials or police?

Are fraternities and sports team houses, often the scene of unholy parties, safe from scrutiny now?

Universities have been encouraging women to report sexual assaults and — I am sure with great pain — posting the numbers for parents to see in a new era of transparency. Will all those numbers have an asterisk now?

Universities have been scrambling to dial back the standards of proof a woman must provide before action is taken against the accused in order to answer Department of Education criticism of their insensitive handling of sexual assault cases.

Will they now plug in the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" and break for happy hour?

What an ungodly mess.

The Rolling Stone article about UVA, where Yeardley Love was murdered by her drunken boyfriend in 2010 and where sophomore Hannah Graham recently disappeared after a party and was later found dead, looked like it might finally bring this dirty campus practice into the light.

Now it has degenerated into a conversation about journalistic best practices instead of one about the insensitivity or the incompetence of colleges when investigating crimes on campus — most notably rape — that could harm their reputations.

I refused to believe that the only answer is to send our daughters to college with a set of tactics that will help them avoid being raped. To teach them that rape should be expected, like all-nighters during finals and the freshman 15. But that is what every parent must now do.

We had a chance to talk about whether a university disciplinary board can substitute itself for the criminal justice system — when its employer's reputation is at stake — and be at all credible.

We won't be having that conversation now. We will be talking about slip-shod journalism and the motives and mental health of a young woman we know as Jackie.

Susan Reimer's column appears on Mondays and Thursdays. She can be reached at sreimer@baltsun.com and @SusanReimer on Twitter.com.
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/05/rolling-stone-backtracks-magazine-badly-tarnished-by-uva-gang-rape-article/

Rolling Stone backtracks: Magazine badly tarnished by UVA gang rape article

By Howard Kurtz

Published December 05, 2014

| FoxNews.com

The Rolling Stone story on an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia is falling apart.

After days of criticism, the magazine itself is backing away from a sensational report that rocked the campus and led to the temporary banning of all fraternities and sororities.

The article was already drawing criticism for relying on a single source, a woman named Jackie, who claimed she was raped by seven men at a frat party, and for not contacting any of the alleged assailants.

But after fresh reporting by the Washington Post, Rolling Stone says, “there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.”

That is one half-step above a retraction, and a humiliating admission for the magazine.

The Post, which interviewed Jackie, said a number of her friends have come to doubt her account—especially after she told them the full name of the alleged lead attacker, and details about the man did not match her story. That man told the paper he had never met Jackie, let alone taken her on a date where they wound up at a frat party.

What’s more, the fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, said in a statement today that there was no party on the night reported by Rolling Stone. “Our initial doubts as to the accuracy of the article have only been strengthened as alumni and undergraduate members have delved deeper,” the statement said.

And friends say Jackie changed her story, at first recalling she was raped by five men and later saying it was seven.

With a lawyer for the fraternity scheduled to release a statement today, the already-shaky story could be further undermined.

It's hard for me to believe Rolling Stone published this sensational story without insisting on getting some response, even a no comment, from the accused men. In effect, the magazine bet the franchise's credibility on a single accuser--a woman the editors now admit they no longer trust. Whatever the ultimate outcome, Rolling Stone and its reporter, Sabrina Erdely, have been badly tarnished.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/us/rolling-stone-re-examines-its-account-of-virginia-rape.html?_r=0



Rolling Stone Re-examines Its Account of UVA Rape

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA and RAVI SOMAIYADEC. 5, 2014

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Rolling Stone magazine acknowledged on Friday that it now had reservations about an article it published that made startling and detailed allegations of a gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity. The magazine said that its trust in the sole source for the article, Jackie, the woman making the allegations, was misplaced.

The magazine’s managing editor, Will Dana, wrote that there appeared to be “discrepancies” in the description of the brutal gang rape in the article, “A Rape on Campus” by Sabrina Rubin Erdely.

In the face of new information, Mr. Dana wrote, “we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.”

The fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, released a statement on Friday in which it denied the assault took place. “Our initial doubts as to the accuracy of the article have only been strengthened as alumni and undergraduate members have delved deeper,” the statement said.

Mr. Dana said the magazine did not seek to contact any of the individuals whom Jackie, who was identified only by her first name, accused of a rape on Sept. 28, 2012.

“We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault,” he said, “and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.”

The fraternity said that the chapter had no event scheduled on the weekend in question. In addition, the fraternity questioned the claim that one of the men involved had worked at a campus pool. “As far as we have determined, no member of our fraternity worked there in any capacity during this time period,” the statement said.

Ms. Erdely did not return messages seeking comment Friday. In an interview this week, after questions were raised about the Nov. 19 article, she stood by her reporting. “I am convinced that it could not have been done any other way, or any better,” she said, and suggested that the debate about the veracity of the article stood only to divert attention from the real scandal — a crime that had not been sufficiently investigated.

The report of the discrepancies first appeared on the website of The Washington Post.

The Rolling Stone article drew widespread notice and became part of a national debate over the problem of sexual assault on college campuses. Phi Kappa Psi suspended its operations. University officials were accused of mishandling and concealing the sexual assaults for years.

At a meeting last week in Charlottesville, members of the university’s board said they were devastated by the report and gave no indication that its veracity was in question. George Keith Martin, the university rector, began the meeting by saying, “I would like to say to Jackie and her family that I’m sorry.” Others lamented her reported treatment at the hands of the university, and the police chief called for witnesses to come forward.

At the meeting, university officials agreed to come up with recommendations on how to address the problem of sexual assaults on campus.

Gary Pleasants, a spokesman for the Charlottesville Police Department, said latest report did not change the focus of its work. “Our purpose is to find the truth in any matter and that’s what we are looking for here,” Mr. Pleasants said. The fraternity said that it would also continue to assist investigators.

Sarah Roderick, a senior from Williamsburg, Va., said on Friday she had mixed feelings about the revelations because of her varied connections to the article. Ms. Roderick said she had been raped on campus by a former boyfriend who was not a student, and knows Jackie, although she had not been in contact with her on Thursday.

“I’m angry as an advocate and survivor because I know what it’s like for people not to believe survivors,” Ms. Roderick said, “and I fear it will set back the work that we’ve done, and the stories that survivors have told in recent weeks will be questioned.”

Speaking about the Phi Kappa Psi members, she added: “But as a human being, I think it’s reasonable for them to want to be believed, too. Part of me feels bad for them because there appear to be holes. I hope Jackie can find the strength to address them, because we still need to believe survivors.”

Richard Pérez-Peña reported from Charlottesville, Va., and Ravi Somaiya from New York. Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting from Washington.
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http://www.vox.com/2014/12/5/7341297/rolling-stone-uva-sentence-wrong


One sentence that explains what went wrong in Rolling Stone’s rape story

Updated by Sarah Kliff on December 5, 2014, 2:25 p.m. ET @sarahkliff sarah@vox.com

The Washington Post has published a lengthy story detailing discrepancies in the Rolling Stone's story on an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia.

It's worth reading in full, but there is one sentence that jumps out especially as an indictment of where the Rolling Stone story went wrong. Gabriel Malor pointed it out on Twitter:

uva

(Gabriel Malor via Twitter)

Publishing a story about a rape victim against her will is dangerous, and arguably unethical, journalism. It goes completely against the DART Center for Journalism and Trauma, a respected advisory group at Columbia University's Journalism School, guidelines for how to report on sexual assault. There is an entire section that directs reporters to "respect a potential interviewee's right to say no."

"Be fair and realistic. Don’t coerce, cajole, trick or offer remuneration," the guidelines instruct.

If Rolling Stone published the story against Jackie's will, that is a terrible mistake on the magazine's part — and a violation of the ethical guidelines reporters should follow when reporting difficult, and sensitive stories about rape. And it's coupled with the fact that Rolling Stone didn't track down the accused rapists. As Erik Wemple wrote at The Washington Post:

Even if the accused aren’t named in the story, Erdely herself acknowledges that "people seem to know who these people are." If they were being cited in the story for mere drunkenness, boorish frat-boy behavior or similar collegiate misdemeanors, then there’d be no harm in failing to secure their input. The charge in this piece, however, is gang rape, and so requires every possible step to reach out and interview them, including e-mails, phone calls, certified letters, FedEx letters, UPS letters and, if all of that fails, a knock on the door. No effort short of all that qualifies as journalism.

A story where the main source tried to back out and the other participants were never interviewed is not a solid story. But Rolling Stone ran it anyway.
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As the last man sank onto her, Jackie was startled to recognize him: He attended her tiny anthropology discussion group.


How many males are in this tiny group?

Should be another person that's easy to find.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2014/12/05/wow-rolling-stone-now-doubts-account-of-victim-in-its-bombshell-story-about-a-gang-rape-at-uva/


Wow: Rolling Stone now doubts account of victim in its bombshell story about a gang rape at UVA; Update: WaPo issues clarification
posted at 2:41 pm on December 5, 2014 by Allahpundit

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And to think, this morning it looked like TNR would surely have the worst day among old liberal magazines that no one reads anymore.

A total travesty. But no lessons will be learned here.

Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie’s story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her. In the months Erdely spent reporting the story, Jackie neither said nor did anything that made Erdely, or Rolling Stone’s editors and fact-checkers, question Jackie’s credibility. Her friends and rape activists on campus strongly supported Jackie’s account. She had spoken of the assault in campus forums. We reached out to both the local branch and the national leadership of the fraternity where Jackie said she was attacked. They responded that they couldn’t confirm or deny her story but had concerns about the evidence.

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. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.

“We decided to honor her request not to contact” the alleged rapist is RS-speak for “we’re terrible, irresponsible journalists.” As for the unspecified “discrepancies,” WaPo found all kinds of details that the crack Rolling Stone fact-checking team somehow missed:

Officials close to the fraternity said that the statement will indicate that Phi Kappa Psi did not host a party on Sept. 28, 2012, the night that a university student named Jackie alleges she was invited to a date party, lured into an upstairs room and was then ambushed and gang-raped by seven men who were rushing the fraternity…

The officials also said that no members of the fraternity were employed at the university’s Aquatic Fitness Center during that time frame — a detail Jackie provided in her account to Rolling Stone and in interviews with The Washington Post — and that no member of the house matches the description detailed in the Rolling Stone account…

A group of Jackie’s close friends, who are sex assault advocates at U-Va., said they believe something traumatic happened to Jackie but have come to doubt her account. They said details have changed over time, and they have not been able to verify key points of the story in recent days. A name of an alleged attacker that Jackie provided to them for the first time this week, for example, turned out to be similar to the name of a student who belongs to a different fraternity, and no one by that name has been a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

I can’t quote more than that for fair-use reasons but read it all, as it includes their own interview with “Jackie,” the alleged victim. One key detail: Jackie claims that, after being interviewed by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author of the Rolling Stone piece, she actually asked Erdely to remove her from the story. Erdely refused. She’d spent weeks interviewing students at universities across the country looking for a blockbuster story of campus rape (“rape shopping,” as Daily Caller writer Chris Bray puts it). Jackie’s story was too good to pass up and ultimately, quite literally, too good to check. Jackie went on to tell the Post that she felt manipulated by Erdely and, while insisting that the story is true, admitted that “some details in the article might not be accurate.”

Another key detail: WaPo claims that Jackie didn’t reveal the name of her main attacker to friends until earlier this week. Which means, as Peter Suderman notes, that not only did Rolling Stone run this without asking the accused for his side of the story, they ran it without even knowing who he was. Imagine being in RS’s legal department, facing a blockbuster defamation suit from members of the fraternity where the rape supposedly happened, and trying to massage that fact. WaPo, doing the work that Rolling Stone wouldn’t, eventually tracked this guy down and decided to chat with him about it. Result: They concluded that not only isn’t this guy a member of the fraternity in question, he had never met Jackie. Keep that in mind in the aftermath of all this, when the “Justice 4 Jackie” brigades inevitably double down and insist that her story must be broadly true even if she misremembered a few details. How do you misremember your chief attacker as someone you’ve never met? Where did she even get this guy’s name?

I wonder how much longer Rolling Stone would have sat on the story without WaPo burning them by doing the investigation they should have done. The editor’s note from RS appeared online this afternoon right around the time the Post’s new story about Jackie was being published; obviously, Rolling Stone ate sh*t here “voluntarily” only because they knew that WaPo was about to bring down the hammer. Otherwise they would have gone on standing by Jackie as long as they could, and not just because they’re disgracefully irresponsible reporters. As Richard Bradley and Robby Soave found out this week, questioning the story of a rape victim even when there are obvious reasons to be skeptical is a felony thoughtcrime. Had Rolling Stone belatedly pulled the trap door on Jackie itself, without pressure from WaPo, it would have enraged the Stalinist wing of feminism that’s been unloading on Bradley and Soave all week. In fact, even Jackie’s smear of the seemingly innocent frat boys will be framed in the aftermath of this as being chiefly a wound to women, not men. I understand that logic — Ashe Schow is right that every false rape claim makes it harder for true rape victims to get a fair hearing — but imagine being the guy whom Jackie named as her attacker, who’d apparently never even met her, and getting a call from the Washington Post one day asking if you’re the perp behind a horrendous rape that was written up in Rolling Stone. Who’s the most proximate victim here?

But no lessons will be learned. That’s not how this works; if it did, the Duke lacrosse fiasco would have made Rolling Stone — and the faculty at UVA — more skeptical than they were. The “logic” that even false rape claims must be treated as irrebuttably true to ensure that actual cases of rape are punished will continue to hold, although it’s a safe bet that RS will be a little more circumspect about what it publishes once the frat is done cleaning out Jann Wenner and his insurers. RS’s goal in all this was to find a Teachable Moment about campus rape, and the thing about Teachable Moments is that they don’t have to be actually true to be teachable. In fact, arguably, the less true they are, the more teachable they are; a good “just-so story” requires simple facts and reality is rarely simple, as you see when you compare the “hands up, don’t shoot” version of the Ferguson shooting with the actual evidence. The Teachable Moment here was that rape does happen on campus (true) and that frats are dangerous (sometimes true). Why get bogged down in whether the particular details in this case support that all-important lesson? I’ll leave you with the words of Jackie herself:

“Haven’t enough people come forward at this point?” she said. “How many people do you need to come forward saying they’ve been raped at a fraternity to make it real to you? They need to acknowledge it’s a problem they need to address instead of pointing fingers to take the blame off themselves.”

Her story served its purpose. What more could you want?

Update: Another discrepancy: According to the fraternity, Jackie couldn’t have been at one of their pledge events in late September. They pledge in the spring, not the fall.

Update: And one more kick in the teeth for Robby Soave, who had the gall to approach a rape victim’s story critically and, by the way, ended up being totally right:

Update: Annnnnd now WaPo is walking back a detail from its own reporting. Their original report, as noted above, claimed that Jackie had never met the man she claimed raped her. WaPo presented that as a fact, as though they had investigated it and were asserting it themselves. Nope:

Clarification: An earlier version of this story did not properly attribute in one instance a statement about whether Jackie had met the man she named to friends as one of her attackers.

The story now makes clear that the man himself claims he never met Jackie. WaPo is taking no position on whether that’s true or not.
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http://www.npr.org/2014/12/05/368768507/rolling-stone-walks-back-on-sexual-assault-story-at-uva


'Rolling Stone' Walks Back On Sexual Assault Story At UVA
December 05, 2014 4:20 PM ET

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approximately 7:00 p.m. ET.

A Rolling Stone magazine story about a frat house gang rape rocked the academic world and sparked serious discussion about sexual assault is now being walked back. We hear reaction from the campus.
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http://www.thefire.org/rolling-stone-developments-underline-need-professional-response-campus-sexual-assault/

‘Rolling Stone’ Developments Underline Need for Professional Response to Campus Sexual Assault

By FIRE December 5, 2014

This afternoon, new reporting from The Washington Post called into serious question the veracity of a Rolling Stone story regarding an alleged 2012 gang rape at the University of Virginia (UVA). Following publication of the Post’s story, the UVA fraternity identified by Rolling Stone as home to the alleged gang rape’s perpetrators released a statement disputing key facts of the account. In response, Rolling Stone has now issued a note stating that the magazine has concluded that its trust in Jackie, the young woman at the center of the story, was “misplaced,” and apologizing to “anyone who was affected by the story.”

Given the immense public attention and institutional action generated by the Rolling Stone story and the continuing criminal investigation into Jackie’s allegations, The Washington Post’s reporting will further intensify the debate on how best to respond to allegations of campus sexual assault. But both Rolling Stone’s flawed reporting and the ensuing fallout serve to confirm FIRE’s position: Only law enforcement is properly equipped to adjudicate allegations of sexual assault.

Jackie’s allegations should have been investigated by law enforcement—not university administrators—two years ago. Whether Jackie’s account is true or false, the immediate involvement of law enforcement would have provided the best chance to see dangerous criminals imprisoned or the accused cleared of suspicion.

As FIRE has repeatedly argued, sexual assault allegations require a professional response from law enforcement, not a self-interested campus judiciary. Universities can competently provide alleged victims with resources, counseling, and remedial measures. But they cannot consistently provide just outcomes upon which all parties can rely.

Only the criminal justice system has the resources and authority necessary to investigate allegations, gather evidence, and, if necessary, arrest and try the alleged perpetrators. Only the criminal justice system can ensure that those accused of such a heinous crime receive the proper due process safeguards necessary to arrive at a fair and just verdict. If the accused is found guilty, only the criminal justice system can enforce the proper punishment.

At least one study suggests that most campus rapes are committed by serial offenders. If so, the harshest penalty available to universities—expulsion—is flatly inadequate. As FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said recently, “The idea that the best we can do against serial rapists—if that’s what the data is showing—is kick them out of Swarthmore, so they can prey on the 70 percent of the population that isn’t wealthy enough to go to college, is an outrage.”

Rolling Stone’s apparent failure to properly investigate Jackie’s account does not change the fact that our current system for responding to campus sexual assault is broken. If law enforcement too often fails victims of sexual assault, we must pursue reforms that ensure victims will be taken seriously and their claims vigorously and effectively pursued, not simply pass the duty to educational institutions ill-equipped to handle it.

Entrusting colleges with a grave responsibility that they cannot possibly fulfill is not the answer. As FIRE’s Robert Shibley argued in TIME earlier this week, “Neither accusers nor the accused will get justice if Title IX continues to be interpreted to force colleges to investigate and adjudicate these crimes themselves. That system has failed.”

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2014/12/05/reckless-disregard-for-facts/

Reckless disregard for facts
By Jennifer Rubin December 5 at 4:22 PM

In a stunning admission of journalistic malpractice, Rolling Stone on Friday backed away from its story about an alleged rape at a fraternity at University of Virginia. The Post reported, “Several key aspects of the account of a gang rape offered by a University of Virginia student in Rolling Stone magazine have been cast into doubt, including the date of the alleged attack and details about the alleged attacker, according to interviews and a statement from the magazine backing away from the article.” It is impossible to know if any part of the story is true. Rolling Stone lamely confessed, “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. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.”

Jalen Ross, at podium, president of the University of Virginia student council, ponders a question during a news conference at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., Monday, Nov. 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

The same day the joint legislative committee investigating the bridge scandal in New Jersey found no evidence to connect New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to the incident. The Associated Press says, “A report commissioned by Christie previously cleared him of any wrongdoing, and a lawyer for the governor said in a statement Thursday night that the report corroborates that investigation. ‘The Committee has finally acknowledged what we reported nine months ago — namely, that there is not a shred of evidence Governor Christie knew anything about the GWB lane realignment beforehand or that any current member of his staff was involved in that decision,’ Christie attorney Randy Mastro said in a statement.” In weasel words the committee refused to affirmatively exonerate him, simply saying it is “impossible” to decide one way or another. Given that it is nearly impossible to prove the negative, Christie has every right to take that as vindication. When do you suppose MSNBC will recant its hyperventilating coverage? How much time will it devote to Christie getting cleared or to reviewing its own coverage?

And then there is the Ferguson, Missouri episode. In contrast to the Eric Garner killing, the claims of many protesters and grievance mongers have been widely discredited. There is ample evidence that Michael Brown robbed a store, grabbed for the officer’s gun and then charged at him. The burden being on the state to prove the officer’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the legal standard was not remotely met.

That did not stop many in the media from portraying Brown as a passive and innocent victim or politicians from indicting the entire judicial system. That did not stop the president, the governor and the U.S. attorney general from turning this into a narrative about race, regardless of the facts. Nor did Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) pause before leaping to indict the entire legal system as racially unfair, use it as a pretext to talk about overly-militarized police and sit down with Al Sharpton. Then the rioting became an excuse to “mostly blame the politicians” (as if Paul is not one of them). When do the media and Rand Paul acknowledge their factual assumptions may be wrong and therefore this was not an instance of bigoted policing but of good-faith self-defense? Maybe the facts don’t matter anymore. (Paul also stumbled when he weirdly blamed cigarette tax laws for the choke hold killing of Garner.)

The gross irresponsibility of politicians and the media in creating and fanning firestorms based on false accusations, incomplete accounts or contrived “facts” should have consequences. There are victims at UVA whose reputations have been smeared. I urge them to consult with good lawyer to pursue remedies. Politicians can and should be rebuked when they speak out recklessly and manipulate events to serve other ends. The media scandal machine loses credibility with each of these episodes, revealing that too often the ideologically based narrative is much more important than the truth.

Viewers have tuned out and turned off MSNBC in droves for good reason. News consumers should be far more discerning in what they believe. And voters should be skeptical of trusting politicians who don’t bother to get the facts right before racing to the microphones.

Not everyone acts like a fool in these episodes. I commend readers to look at remarks by former President George W. Bush and Speaker of the House John Boehner who confessed surprise, but did not accuse; invited further investigation, but did not leap to conclusions; and expressed concern about racial tensions, but did not indict the entire legal system. Others can learn from them. As for the media, I doubt in the age of social media with unlimited hours of cable TV news time to fill they can ever demonstrate restraint. But the rest of us can treat them as more akin to tabloids than to respected news outlets. Maybe we should give fellow citizens some benefit of the doubt. That would be novel.
Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.
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http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/uvas-tumultuous-2-weeks-how-the-rolling-stone-story-developed-and-fell-apart/90723

December 5, 2014 by Andy Thomason

UVa’s Tumultuous 2 Weeks: How the ‘Rolling Stone’ Story Developed, and Showed Cracks

Rolling Stone magazine on Friday apologized for its longform account of an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity party after it said it had found “discrepancies” in the alleged victim’s story. And Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity in question, released a statement Friday afternoon disputing some of the account’s key details.

The revelations are the latest developments in a barely two-week-old saga that has rocked the Charlottesville campus and higher education. Here’s how it unfolded:

November 19. Rolling Stone publishes the article, “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVa.” That evening, the university’s president, Teresa A. Sullivan, responds with a statement that does not directly address the article but touts measures to prevent sexual assault that the college has taken.

November 20. The university names an independent counsel to investigate the alleged incident. The next day, after observers point out he is an alumnus of Phi Kappa Psi, the choice is scrapped.

November 22. Ms. Sullivan releases a second statement, which appears to accept the allegations as fact and announces that the university’s fraternities have suspended activities until early January.

November 25. As protests flare on the campus, the university’s Board of Visitors holds a special meeting to discuss campus rape, and passes a resolution supporting a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual assault.

December 1. In a speech to students, Ms. Sullivan announces a series of steps the university will take to combat campus rape, including negotiating new contracts with fraternities and instituting bystander-intervention training for students and faculty and staff members. That same day, The Washington Post opens media criticism of the Rolling Stone article, reporting that its author did not speak to the alleged rapists.

December 2. Media criticism of Rolling Stone’s reporting grows, anchored by Slate’s comprehensive deconstruction of the article and a piece in The New York Times.

December 5. The Post reports that Phi Kappa Psi disputes central assertions in the Rolling Stone account. Among other things, the chapter says it did not hold a party on the weekend of the date cited in the article. Rolling Stone publishes a short apology.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/in-disturbing-twist-rolling-stone-casts-doubt-on-its-explosive-report-about-campus-gang-rape/article21975469/


In disturbing twist, Rolling Stone casts doubt on its explosive report about campus gang rape

ERIN ANDERSSEN

The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Dec. 05 2014, 4:36 PM EST

Last updated Friday, Dec. 05 2014, 4:39 PM EST


Two weeks ago, Rolling Stone magazine published a shocking story about a reported gang rape on the campus of the University of Virginia. Told in sharp detail and researched for months, the 9,000-word piece heightened anger about mishandled cases of sexual assault on campus, as well as the sense of urgency for how to better prevent them from happening. At UVA, fraternities were suspended, and an investigation commenced.

Now, this bombshell: Rolling Stone is stepping back from its story. Citing new evidence – but not explaining what that evidence is – managing editor Will Dana explained in a note to readers that “there now appear to be discrepancies in [alleged victim] Jackie’s account and we have come to the conclusion that our trust is her was misplaced.”

What discrepancies, the magazine doesn’t say, although the fraternity named in the piece has come forward with the results of its own investigation, to refute some important facts – specifically the date of the alleged assault and the workplace where the victim claimed to have met one of the perpetrators. A Washington Post story has also poked holes in many of the details in the piece.

In a letter to readers – one that, frankly, levels too much blame at “Jackie” and too little at the magazine’s own handling of her story – Rolling Stone claims that they had fact-checked her version of events over months of reporting. Her account was supported by her friends, the letter says, and she had publicly discussed the assault in campus forums. But they also “honoured her request” not to contact the men she claimed participated in the assault “for fear of retaliation against her.” This is a decision that the magazine regrets, Dana said in the letter. Meanwhile, in its statement, the Phi Kappa Psi chapter at UVA says it will continue “to assist investigators in whatever way we can.”

And so now, a conversation that was moving toward solutions – one about values and responsibility, culture and consent – is about to take a turn. That conversation will be, and rightly so, about story-hungry journalists playing fast and loose with the facts. It will be about whether the University of Virginia – and by extension other universities and fraternities – even has a real problem with sexual assault. It will be about how easily we were duped, and whether and how often women lie about being assaulted.

Rolling Stone has much more explaining to do, for itself and for the alleged perpetrators in the story: What was the “new information?” What facts are wrong? Did an assault happen at all? How did they handle their responsibility to “Jackie” herself?

The University of Virginia, however, is not off the hook – even before the story was published, the UVA was part of a federal investigation for its handling of sexual-assault complaints.

But one consequence will be the possible effect this turn of events has on victims. For all efforts to reform the law, to prevent complainants from being unfairly judged for irrelevant facts – what they were wearing, how much they were drinking, did they say “no” with just the right amount of force – those question still creep into our discourse about sexual assault, our parsing out of which victims we choose to believe. This attitude already results in the under-reporting of assaults, and prevents complainants from coming forward to authorities, if not to press charges, to just get help.

Imagine how hard it just became for a victim of a sexual assault to come forward for that help on the University of Virginia campus, and possibly elsewhere. Our responsibility to them has not changed.
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