| UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,458 Views) | |
| Payback | Jan 16 2015, 08:52 PM Post #676 |
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Nice response, MikeZPU!!!! |
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| abb | Jan 17 2015, 05:56 AM Post #677 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-rape-survivor-author-questions-rolling-stone-account/2015/01/16/a50f0560-9cfe-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html U-Va. rape survivor, author now doubts Rolling Stone account Liz Seccuro, author of Crash Into Me: A Survivor's Search for Justice. (mikefosterphotography.com/mikefosterphotography.com) By T. Rees Shapiro January 16 at 5:25 PM CHARLOTTESVILLE — During her freshman year at the University of Virginia in 1984, Liz Seccuro was gang-raped at a date party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity here. Seccuro wrote a memoir decades later about facing her main attacker and became a prominent advocate for sexual assault awareness and speaker about violence against college women. Beginning in July, Seccuro gave hours-long interviews to Rolling Stone writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who sought her help for an explosive magazine account that would center on an alleged 2012 gang-rape at Phi Psi, an attack that resembled the sex assault of Seccuro. After the article was published in November, Seccuro emerged as a stalwart supporter of the account when reports began to question its veracity. In a Time magazine piece in December, Seccuro urged people not to doubt the Rolling Stone allegations just because they sounded horrific, writing: “The similarities between my experience and Jackie’s story are astounding because the culture has remained almost identical in the three decades separating our rapes.” “I was quick to defend the fact that these things can and do happen because they happened to me,” Seccuro, 48, of Southampton, N.Y., told The Washington Post this week. But now Seccuro no longer believes the allegations described in Rolling Stone, she told The Post. Seccuro said she changed her opinion in recent days after evidence appeared in news reports highlighting inconsistencies in the magazine’s account. “I think it’s important, for a gang-rape survivor at U-Va. who was portrayed in this story, to say what was a red flag to me,” Seccuro said. “I became frustrated in that I felt like the work of so many other people in the article went down the toilet.” Seccuro is the latest among a growing group of sexual assault survivors, U-Va. students and fraternity members to raise concerns about the Rolling Stone account. In interviews with Rolling Stone and later with The Post, a U-Va. student named Jackie, who is now a junior, said she attended a date party at the Phi Psi house in 2012 and was lured to a bedroom, where seven men took turns raping her while two others watched. The Rolling Stone account alleged that the attack was part of a hazing ritual — referring to Seccuro’s rape decades earlier at the same house — an allegation that members of the fraternity vehemently denied in recent interviews as “animalistic and totally unrealistic.” On Monday, the Charlottesville Police Department announced that detectives had cleared Phi Psi of the allegations. Stephen Scipione, the fraternity president, said Wednesday that Phi Psi had determined within 24 hours of the article’s publication online in November that the account was deeply flawed. Rolling Stone editors have since apologized for inaccuracies in the article, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is doing an independent review. Kathryn Brenner, a spokeswoman for the magazine, declined to comment, and Erdely did not return a message seeking comment. Palma Pustilnik, an attorney for Jackie, also declined to comment. Seccuro said that at first, she felt confident that the Rolling Stone article would empower women to speak about their own rapes. Now, she said she’s worried that survivors will suffer because it focused on an account that has come under so much scrutiny. “I knew this piece was going to rock the world and shake it to its core, just not in the way it ended up doing so,” Seccuro said, noting that had it not included Jackie’s account, “the story could have been just as powerful and just as meaningful.” Seccuro said she was closely involved in Erdely’s efforts to report the article. Besides interviews, she also helped arrange for Erdely to speak with experts on college sexual assault, she said. Speaking on the phone with Erdely the night before the story’s publication online, Seccuro said, “we were so excited about it and proud of this piece.” But when the story went live, Seccuro said, she couldn’t find the will to read it. “I decided I was not strong enough to read the entire article,” Seccuro said. “I had no reason to read it because I knew what was going to be in there.” When Seccuro finally sat down to read the magazine in early December, she immediately spotted red flags in the narrative, she said. “I decided to take it apart with a fresh eye,” Seccuro said. Armed with a highlighter and pen, Seccuro began to circle, underline and annotate in the margins. She highlighted the detail that the room where Jackie alleged she was attacked was pitch-black. She underlined a section that described how Jackie crashed through a low glass table, causing shards to cut into her back as the men raped her. In another section, Seccuro wrote in the margins: “Not possible.” Seccuro said she scrutinized the piece based on her experience at Phi Psi on Oct. 5, 1984, the night she was attacked by a student who lived at the house — William Beebe. Shawn Collinsworth, executive director of Phi Kappa Psi’s national office, said that “Mr. Beebe has never been an initiated member of our organization.” Details still escape her, but Seccuro said she remembers waking hours later wrapped in a bloody bedsheet. Years later, seeking to make amends, Beebe wrote a letter to Seccuro and ultimately admitted to raping her in a series of correspondences. She then filed charges against him, and Beebe eventually served five months in prison. Two other men who allegedly attacked her have not been charged because of a lack of evidence. In 2011, Seccuro published a book “Crash into Me,” about her rape. She told The Post that she was struck by how her own story was “similar in so many, many ways,” to Jackie’s account in Rolling Stone. Seccuro, who has spoken on the U-Va. campus about her attack, said she does not know whether Jackie’s story was influenced by her book. “It’s been suggested to me,” Seccuro said. “It’s a horrifying thought. . . . I don’t want the attention to be on me. But there’s only been one documented gang rape at Phi Kappa Psi, and it’s mine, so do the math.” Seccuro, who has never interacted with Jackie, said she believes that the student “suffered a trauma of some sort” and that she would like “to know the real story, whatever it may be.” Seccuro said she is now focused on helping sexual assault survivor groups regain credibility. “If they don’t believe even a small part of it, then they will discount the whole of it,” Seccuro said. “That’s the tragedy of it.” |
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| abb | Jan 17 2015, 05:57 AM Post #678 |
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http://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/uva-emails-reveal-tension-worries-following-rolling-stone-story/article_9200a454-1bd3-5617-81fa-9201570c3ceb.html UVa emails reveal tension, worries following Rolling Stone story By Burnell Evans and Dani Kass The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress | Posted: Friday, January 16, 2015 12:12 pm UVa Rector Martin and President Sulivan The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress | File DecemberUniversity of Virginia Rector George Martin speaks with President Teresa Sullivan before the start of a board of visitors meeting in December. CHARLOTTESVILLE — As outrage flooded the inboxes of top University of Virginia officials after the Rolling Stone magazine story that shook the campus in November, one of the saga’s central figures pleaded with administrators to clear her name. “This is MY reputation, my very life’s work, I hope you all realize that,” Nicole Eramo, UVa’s associate dean of students, wrote in a Dec. 2 email to the school’s communications team. Through open records requests filed shortly after the Rolling Stone story broke Nov. 19, The Daily Progress obtained more than 1,500 pages of emails from members of the board of visitors, as well as Eramo and Claire Kaplan, director of UVa’s gender violence and social change program. Covering a range from September to December, the documents include clashes between former Rector Helen Dragas and her successor, George Martin, along with disapproval from alumni, faculty and others in the immediate aftermath of the 9,000-word story. The graphic account of a 2012 gang rape at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house since has been discredited, with the magazine issuing an apology to readers last month. Officials had been concerned about releasing the emails, which reflect the anger so prevalent when Rolling Stone released the story two days earlier than the university expected. The documents also shed light on the response of Eramo, who has not spoken to the media since the story broke, as well as board members, who largely have been publicly silent on the story outside of meetings. “Although the Rolling Stone apology and considerable inaccuracies in their reporting are now well documented in the media, these emails reflect the immediate shock and outrage felt by Board of Visitors members upon reading that story nearly two months ago,” Martin said in a statement released with the board emails. “You will see determination to take swift and meaningful action. You will also see the sharing of raw emotions during early discussions on the speed and path forward to best meet our duty to address sexual assault.” Much of what Martin described centered on exchanges between him and Dragas, the former rector who engineered the ultimately failed attempt to oust school President Teresa Sullivan in 2012. As board members snapped off exchanges with one another, Eramo described herself as being “overwhelmed” after the release of the story, which characterized “Jackie,” the woman around whom Rolling Stone’s flawed story was built, as being disappointed by Eramo’s “nonreaction.” Prohibited by her boss from communicating with author Sabrina Rubin Erdely and overwhelmed by media requests for comment on her seemingly unfeeling reaction to the claims laid out in Erdely’s article, Eramo asked communications workers to tell reporters about her 18 years “devoted to the care and well-being of University of Virginia students.” “I do not plan to do any interviews because they would be counterproductive and while the reporters are promising to ‘let my voice be heard,’ I know that I cannot trust that to happen,” Eramo wrote Nov. 25 in an email that included a 157-word prepared statement that was never distributed to the media. She suggested forwarding a statement titled “A Community Letter in Support of Dean Nicole Eramo” to media outlets. While Eramo scrambled to keep up with a torrent of media requests, board members’ inboxes overflowed with emails expressing outrage over the allegations and disappointment in the university’s response. “I waited to write until I saw the response from the Administration, hoping it would allay my concerns,” alumna Maria McLemore wrote the board Nov. 20. “However, President Sullivan’s response is too little, too late — so tone deaf and unacceptable that I read it twice to ensure I hadn’t missed anything.” Sullivan’s decision to leave Charlottesville the day the story was published to moderate a question and answer session at an academic conference overseas fanned the flames, prompting calls for her resignation. “Please ask her to stay in the Netherlands,” wrote alumnus Brock Muir. “I will be happy to help pack her boxes, clean out her desk and forward them to her. Absolutely incredible.” Sullivan declined to release any correspondence sent to her in the wake of the story, invoking an exemption to state open records law designed to protect the deliberative process for university leaders. State Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, said he took note of that decision in filing a bill this session that would remove the protection for presidents at state institutions of higher education. “This idea of a blanket exemption is just nonsense to me,” Petersen said. “I strongly believe that it should be repealed.” Board leaders cautioned other members against discussing the Rolling Stone fallout in ways that would be subject to Freedom of Information Act requirements. “We need to avoid emails,” Martin wrote Nov. 19 in a response to fellow board member Edward Miller. “Will call you tomorrow.” Miller fired back, saying he was reconsidering writing a recommendation letter for a female high school senior who wanted to attend the university because he questioned whether UVa was “a safe place to put her.” “George I totally disagree,” he wrote. “We need to address this issue with an emergency meeting of the board. I really don’t care who sees this email,” Miller continued. “Screw the reputation of the university if we have a problem and as the Jeffersonian dinners showed and as the death of Hannah Graham highlighted we have a culture that is not in keeping with our principles.” Miller’s sense of urgency was matched in repeated pleas from Dragas for information about Jackie’s case and the university’s response. “Delay and [in]action by the full board are unacceptable,” she wrote Martin on Nov. 21 in a message copied to the board. “I want to make it clear and state emphatically that this is not a time for a ‘go slow’ and ‘see what happens’ approach,” she continued. “The time to show strong leadership is now.” Dragas’ messages drew a rebuke from Vice Rector William Goodwin, who told her to “lighten up.” “Let’s try to work together and when appropriate in closed session,” Goodwin wrote. “We really do not [need] an email trail of our efforts to accomplish what is best for our University.” Dragas persisted and expressed her disappointment in the university’s closed response to Martin weeks later. “Besides running contrary to our public nature, being unresponsive to the public will undeniably impact everything from a woman’s willingness to report a rape to applications for admission and even fundraising,” Dragas said. “To be quite direct, those making these decisions are causing us to get absolutely killed in the press.” The emails released this week document the university’s challenges dating to Eramo’s first contact with Erdely on Sept. 5, two weeks before Eramo called Phi Kappa Psi representatives about the magazine’s upcoming story to discuss allegations of a sexual assault involving multiple men. Eramo initially welcomed the opportunity to sit down with Erdely. “I think it is a positive sign that she has decided to talk to me but I am, of course, wary,” Eramo wrote to her boss, Chief Student Affairs Officer Patricia Lampkin, in an email forwarding Erdely’s inquiry. Lampkin intervened. “After reading this summary, I don’t think Nicole should be interviewed,” Lampkin said. In a second email, she said, “This is not reflective of Nicole but of the issue and how reporters turn the issue.” Communications officials at the school initially were receptive toward Erdely’s proposal, but stressed the need to add an “institutional voice” to the story. That wound up coming from Sullivan, whom Erdely interviewed over the phone for 44 minutes Oct. 2. Erdely never mentioned the explosive allegations her story later would contain — that Jackie was thrown through a glass table and raped by seven men. Charlottesville police cleared the fraternity brothers of any wrongdoing this week but say they are still investigating to determine what actually happened to her. After the story’s release, Eramo repeatedly emailed communications staff concerned about her portrayal in the story. She offered in her defense a statement from Jackie. “I can’t imagine what my life would be like now if it were not for Nicole Eramo,” Jackie’s statement reads. “She has changed everything for the better.” In a Dec. 3 email, Eramo wrote the communications staff, apologizing “for sending another missive.” “People are deeply questioning the veracity of [Erdely’s] reporting,” she said. “We can add a significant nail in that coffin with what we know. I urge you to strike while that iron is hot.” After the magazine backed off the story Dec. 5, new pressures emerged, cited by Dragas in another email to Martin after a round of stories by The Daily Progress and editorials authored by the newspaper along with The Roanoke Times over officials’ refusal to answer whether an independent counsel’s review of the school’s handling of the case would be made public. “I am extremely uncomfortable, and will not stand for, being a party to a delayed or denied responses that impugn the integrity of the University and of each individual board member,” Dragas said, noting that she had asked Martin and Sullivan to share “as much information as possible with the broad community.” Martin responded with an offer “to chat.” “From the beginning of this crucial discussion, our first obligation has been to ensure the protection and safety of our students, faculty, staff and visitors to our Grounds,” Martin said in his statement. “The University of Virginia remains a beacon of integrity and we remain resolute in our mission.” |
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| abb | Jan 17 2015, 05:59 AM Post #679 |
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http://www.roanoke.com/news/holdout-uva-frats-sign-agreement/article_1eafbc97-ca38-5228-a674-f06745bf98d8.html 2 holdout UVa frats sign agreement The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress | Posted: Friday, January 16, 2015 8:09 pm Every fraternity has agreed to new rules set by the University of Virginia, but at least two of them remain critical of the administration’s handling of the recent sexual assault scandal. UVa spokesman Anthony de Bruyn confirmed that all fraternities had signed on to the changes by the Friday afternoon deadline. There were no changes to the proposed addenda, which included requirements for designated sober monitors at fraternity events and rules against pre-mixed alcoholic beverages. The national chapters of two fraternities — Kappa Alpha Order and Alpha Tau Omega — announced they would not agree to the new rules earlier this week. On Friday afternoon, the organizations issued a joint statement saying they signed the new fraternal order agreements, “FOAs” , but they remained critical of the university’s response to a Rolling Stone magazine article alleging a gang rape at a UVa frat house. The article, now discredited, prompted an outcry from the public and a systemwide suspension of all fraternal organizations on campus. Leaders from the Inter-Fraternity Council and Inter-Sorority Council drew up new rules meant to minimize the risk of sexual assault, which were supposed to go into effect at the beginning of the spring semester. Officials from Kappa Alpha Order and Alpha Tau Omega had held out on the rules, which they said they felt were forced upon them under false pretenses. “The fact that our chapters are signing the FOA does not alleviate the coercion, duress or other wrongdoing of the University through this entire process,” read the statement from the fraternities. “Given the University’s poor handling of this matter, we are now exploring the right to pursue any legal remedies.” The statement calls on the General Assembly and Congress to enact legislation that “ensures the protection of the individual student and student organizational rights.” It also implies that the organizations will take up the matter again during negotiations for fraternal order agreement renewals. “The current FOA expires May 15 and we anticipate more equitable treatment by the University in any possible future agreement,” reads the statement. The dissenting organizations hired a public relations professional, Kevin O’Neill of Squire Patton Boggs, to speak on their behalf. O’Neill did not respond to requests for comment Friday. Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity implicated in the Rolling Stone article, was among the first organizations to sign the agreement. About 3,500 students belong to at least one of about 60 Greek organizations on campus. The spring semester, which began on Monday, is the traditional recruiting period for the organizations. The rush process kicked off Thursday with open houses and officially gets underway on Monday, according to the Inter-Fraternity Council website. |
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| abb | Jan 17 2015, 06:00 AM Post #680 |
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http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2015/01/all-uva-greek-organizations-sign-new-foa-addendum-including-kappa-alpha-and-alpha-tau-omega All Greek organizations sign new FOA addendum, including KA, ATO National organizations said agreement was 'reluctant' after University refused to extend suspension deadline by Andrew Elliott | Jan 16 2015 | 12 hours ago ns_ka_kgrant Kelsey Grant | The Cavalier Daily nsato2kgrant Kelsey Grant | The Cavalier Daily Full statement from national organization available here. All organizations in the four Greek councils signed on to a revised Fraternal Organization Agreement, the University announced Friday afternoon. This includes two organizations in the Inter-Fraternity Council, Kappa Alpha Order and Alpha Tau Omega, which said earlier this week they would not sign the addendum, which establishes a host of new obligations for fraternities when hosting parties. “These student-driven, thoughtful agreements have now been signed by all of the fraternities and sororities as part of their FOAs with the University,” according to a University press release. “We are grateful for the leadership shown by our students in achieving this result.” In a letter released jointly by the national organizations for Kappa Alpha Order and Alpha Tau Omega, the organizations said they “reluctantly” agreed to sign the new addendum when the University declined to offer an extension on the suspension beyond the Jan. 16 deadline. “As we have said from the beginning, the fraternity men and sorority women at the University of Virginia were harmed by the suspension in December and deserve to regain their rightful standing as leadership organizations on campus,” the organizations wrote in the letter. “It is extraordinarily disappointing to see a university of this caliber sacrifice the ideals of freedom of association and due process on the altar of public opinion.” The revised agreement comes at the start of the start of the IFC rush process — which began Thursday. The national organizations said they wanted to sign the agreement so chapter members could return to “normal operations.” “The fact that our chapters are signing the FOA does not alleviate the coercion, duress or other wrongdoing of the University through this entire process,” the letter read. “Given the University's poor handling of this matter, we are now exploring the right to pursue any legal remedies.” In the letter released Tuesday announcing their intention to reject the addendum, the fraternities’ national organizations said they feared the revised agreement would pose liabilities on the chapters which more fairly belonged to the University, and that criteria imposed by the national organization were more severe than those in the addendum. They also said the original suspension of fraternity social activities was unfair and a violation of the pre-existing FOA. “Together, these circumstances set a dangerous precedent of an erosion of student and organizational rights,” the original letter read. Friday, the organizations called upon state and national legislators to develop laws which would help protect students and student groups “from this sort of unprecedented action against our students and organizations.” “The principled stand of our student members spotlighted the University's ham-handed approach to this issue,” the letter said. “ATO and KA national organizations stand behind our chapters and recognize their leadership in doing their best to resist the coercion of the administration.” The new FOA agreements are set to expire May 15, according to the letter. The organizations said they “anticipate more equitable treatment by the University in any possible future agreement.” |
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| abb | Jan 18 2015, 06:32 AM Post #681 |
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/reinstated-uva-frat-packed-with-rush-hopefuls.html Reinstated UVA Frat 'Packed' With Rush Hopefuls By Christopher Looft Spring fraternity rush began Thursday night at the University of Virginia after Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity at the center of a controversial Rolling Stone story, was reinstated. That controversy did nothing to discourage a wave of rushees from attending its open house event, according to three UVA students interviewed over the phone and by email. After the article detailing the brutal gang rape of a university student at the Phi Psi house in 2012 was published, all Greek activities were suspended and Phi Psi was kicked off campus. The Greek system resumed its normal functions on Jan. 6, a few days before the temporary ban was set to expire. Phi Psi reclaimed its official status on Monday after a Charlottesville Police Department found no evidence that the events described in the Rolling Stone article took place at that fraternity house. The controversy over the Rolling Stone article didn’t appear to have affected turnout at Phi Psi, according to a UVA freshman who attended the fraternity's open house on Thursday. He asked to remain anonymous. "I can definitely affirm that it was crowded and lively. They were the last house I hit and I still had to wait in line," he said in an email. A female freshman, who wanted to remain anonymous, said that as she walked through campus during sorority rush on Thursday night, it looked like Phi Psi’s centrally-located house “was the busiest frat I saw that night." Matt, a UVA freshman who asked that his last name not be used, walked past the Phi Psi house on Thursday. “It wasn’t a deserted house by any means. I feel like it’d be a little unfair if it was,” he said, in light of the fact that several investigations have effectively cleared the fraternity of any wrongdoing. Matt didn't rush Phi Psi, but a friend who was inside told him the place was “packed.” Although Matt didn't attend Phi Psi's open house on Thursday, he wasn't discouraged by the allegations against the fraternity. “I personally didn’t avoid it because of that. There could have been people that would have because of that, but if they could vocalize that, it’d be an unpopular opinion. There were plenty of people who did go to Phi Psi… They’re considered to be one of the popular fraternities.” In an email, Phi Psi president Stephen Scipione said, “we had a good crowd last night but it’s far too early to judge rush this year.” In the wake of the allegations in the Rolling Stone article and the ensuing investigations, rush this year “is expected, by some, to be the safest and most supervised recruitment in recent years,” according to the Cavalier Daily student newspaper. This is due in large part to new rules governing drinking at UVA’s frat houses. The rules were written up by UVA’s fraternities based on input from the university. “I’m really proud of it,” said IFC board member Brian Head of the agreement. “I think everything written in it is achievable by all the fraternities.” Head is also president of One in Four, an all-male group that works to prevent campus sexual assault, as well as a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. Under the new rules, at so-called “Tier 1” events – frat parties, basically – beer must be served in cans, wine poured by a sober frat boy and liquor by a licensed bartender. All this must be supervised by “sober and lucid” fraternity members. The new rules also outlaw the beloved undergraduate staple known as “hunch punch” or “jungle juice”. These policies are, at the very least, unlikely to make things worse, according to a sophomore named Joanna, who participated in sorority rush last year but decided not to join a house. “It’s harder to get drunk off beer or boxed wine,” she said. The female freshman who walked past the frat on Thursday night said the absence of strong, sweet, pre-mixed drinks will make these parties less popular for young female undergraduates. She and her friends, at least, prefer punch over beer. To make up for the lack of alcohol, “I think there’s going to be more pregaming,” she said. If the allegations – and their aftermath – didn’t keep anyone away from the fraternities this spring, they appear to have motivated at least one person to join. A freshman recently told Business Insider he reversed his decision not to participate in rush, based on their response to the story. “They tried to do it in a way where they were getting behind the cause and show that it's something they don't approve of," he told the website. |
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| abb | Jan 18 2015, 06:34 AM Post #682 |
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http://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/uva-to-pay-for-gang-rape-claim-reviews/article_f4f836d2-a1b1-5dd5-8c1f-6fe8b97484db.html UVa to pay $500,000 for gang rape claim reviews By K. Burnell Evans The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress | Posted: Saturday, January 17, 2015 8:41 pm The University of Virginia will pay more than $500,000 for separate reviews of its response to a since-discredited fraternity gang rape claim and the school’s sexual assault policies, but many lingering questions could go publicly unanswered. Recently signed contracts obtained by The Daily Progress show that an international law firm will be paid $500,000 to probe the university’s handling of “the specific allegations in Rolling Stone,” while, separately, Philadelphia attorneys will assess school policies and procedures. The contract for the latter work includes a clause stipulating that the attorneys “maintain all communications as confidential.” A university official did not respond to questions about what might be made public from the second evaluation, which, according to the contract, does not contain a cap for fees or expenses. “It once again pushes things deep into the bowels of the Rotunda, where the university always goes to make important decisions,” former UVa administrator John Foubert said of the decision to thrust the actual sexual assault policy work onto a separate law firm. “UVa continues to go about this the wrong way.” Both the scope of the international firm’s review and new questions over the transparency of the assessment of policies and procedures differ from the picture that emerged following the Nov. 19 release of the Rolling Stone story that forced the state’s public flagship university into the national spotlight. In a statement announcing the Nov. 25 appointment of O’Melveny & Myers to lead a single, far-reaching probe, state Attorney General Mark Herring pledged that “all other aspects of campus sexual violence, including how school officials handled this case, [would] be thoroughly and independently scrutinized.” Chief Deputy Attorney General Cynthia Hudson followed with a letter the same day indicating a sweeping review. “The team will also evaluate the university’s entire structure of policies and procedures for preventing sexual violence and handling reports of sexual violence, both for legal compliance and for effectiveness in meeting the needs of students,” Hudson wrote. After reviewing the letter and both contracts, Foubert, who is a co-founder and national president of the nonprofit sexual assault prevention group One in Four, said bringing in law firms to analyze the issues signals a desire to limit liability, not to engage in a robust discussion about sexual violence policy and prevention. “They don’t seem to be engaged in a process that’s going to have an actual impact on sexual assault cases at UVa,” said Foubert, who was an assistant dean at UVa from 1998 to 2000. School officials and Herring repeatedly ignored questions last month from The Progress about whether the O’Melveny review would be kept private until Rector George Keith Martin released a statement saying a final document indeed would be made public. Top board of visitors officials and O’Melveny representatives negotiated the contract’s scope and cost for more than a month before reaching the agreement, signed Jan. 15. “It’s not worth half a million dollars, and it misses such an opportunity UVa has here to target real cultural changes,” Foubert said. “They have gigantic cultural issues that they need to face head on.” Hudson’s letter said O’Melveny would help the board of visitors determine cultural and institutional changes needed “to make it clear sexual violence will never be tolerated, and to create a supportive environment for survivors who come forward to report sexual violence.” The bulk of that work now falls to Philadelphia-based attorneys Gina Smith and Leslie Gomez, of Pepper Hamilton LLP, who entered a consulting agreement with the university Tuesday to review the school’s sexual assault policies and procedures. “All the work in the original letter is still being done,” said Michael Kelly, spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office. O’Melveny “is doing the review described in the letter and the university and board have made arrangements to tackle the other … tasks described.” It is unclear whether the university’s handling of events related to the Rolling Stone story prior to its release will be reviewed. The 9,000-word piece was hinged on the account of a woman named Jackie being raped by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house. Slightly more than two weeks after publication online, the magazine acknowledged discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and Phi Kappa Psi denied the claims and said it had documents that refuted several key facts cited in the story. Charlottesville police announced last week that they had cleared fraternity brothers of the allegations contained in the article. Rolling Stone contributing editor Sabrina Rubin Erdely began emailing university administrators about the story in early September, according to records obtained by The Daily Progress. Within two weeks of receiving Erdely’s initial email Sept. 5, UVa Associate Dean of Students Nicole Eramo twice spoke with Phi Psi representatives, citing allegations of a sexual assault involving multiple men and alluding to an upcoming Rolling Stone story, according to one of the participants in the conversation. Those allegations were similar to claims Jackie’s friends told media outlets she made in September 2012 but differed from the Rolling Stone account. University President Teresa Sullivan visited the fraternity in early October, several days after being interviewed by Erdely, to discuss her concerns about sexual assault. Sullivan asked Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo to investigate the claims in the Rolling Stone story shortly after its online release. Neither the O’Melveny nor Pepper Hamilton contract touches on the specific events in the immediate period leading up to the Rolling Stone story’s publication. What the school knew about Jackie and her claims in advance of the story were among the questions in the aftermath of its release online. “When did we know about Jackie and why did it take a Rolling Stone article for [everyone else] to learn about it?” board member L.D. Britt said during an emergency meeting Nov. 25. Longo intervened, advising officials not to answer Britt because of the police investigation into the matter. In a Nov. 21 email to Martin, board member Helen Dragas, the former rector, similarly inquired about what the school knew and when. “Regarding the main incident described in the Rolling Stone article,” she wrote, “it is alleged to have occurred while I was serving as rector of the Board of Visitors. This situation was never brought to my attention, nor to that of the board … nor were we made aware of other more general sex crime problems at UVa.” Martin and other board members did not respond to emails and calls from The Daily Progress asking why the scope of the O’Melveny review was narrowed or what the university hopes to learn from it. An O’Melveny spokeswoman referred reporters back to the university. Kelly said the scope of O’Melveny’s review was determined by the board and other reviews will “complement” the firm’s work. “The board requested outside counsel to conduct an internal review of the way the university responded to the claim of sexual violence that was described in Rolling Stone,” Kelly said in an email. “It is still important for the public and the university community to have a clear, accurate and complete accounting of how that incident was handled.” Under the two contracts, O’Melveny will be paid $500,000 plus expenses while Smith and Gomez will be paid hourly rates of $660 and $550, respectively, and remaining staff will be paid $40 to $475 an hour plus expenses. The money for both reviews will be derived from private funds, not tuition or state appropriations, UVa spokesman Anthony de Bruyn said in an email. He did not respond to questions about the source of those funds. Pepper Hamilton’s review will look at how the university handles complaints of sexual and gender-based harassment and violence under Title IX, the Clery Act and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, according to the agreement. Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits federally funded education programs and activities from discriminating on the basis of sex. Under the Clery Act, schools must release yearly statistics citing the number of sexual assault reports — including those where a formal complaint to police was never made, said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. Among the tasks identified in the Pepper Hamilton contract are providing assistance and support with ongoing and future Title IX sexual assault reports; implementing Title IX sexual assault policies; reviewing protocols with law enforcement; assessing the university’s policies and procedures relating to the Clery and the Violence Against Women acts; and assisting with responses to ongoing federal compliance reviews. “The assistance requested of Pepper Hamilton would support your internal team moving forward in the months pending the independent review,” Smith said in an email to Pat Hogan, the university’s chief operating officer, and UVa attorneys Richard Kast and Roscoe Roberts. “Given the role of the independent investigator, our assistance with current and ongoing matters as described would not interfere with the independent review.” Smith did not respond to questions Friday. The reviews unfold as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights continues a probe launched in 2011 into the university’s handling of sexual violence. U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and others in the upper chamber have urged the department to accelerate the pace of such investigations. “While a thorough investigation is critical, it is important for investigations to be completed in a timely manner,” reads the letter signed by Kaine and fellow Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, both former governors of Virginia, and Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar. An education department official responded to Kaine last week. “[The Office for Civil Rights’] investigative and resolution activities in the University of Virginia case are ongoing and we are moving expeditiously to bring the case to conclusion,” wrote Catherine Lhamon, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights. Lhamon’s response left questions unanswered, a Kaine spokeswoman said “Senator Kaine and his staff will continue to push the Department of Education to share information regarding the progress of ongoing Title IX investigations into how college campuses handle sexual assault, specifically why the UVa investigation — which has been pending since June 2011 — is still open,” the spokeswoman said. UVa is one of 95 schools under investigation for possible Title IX violations. Recent actions taken to bolster sexual assault prevention and limit drinking at college fraternities and sororities do not go far enough, said Foubert. “I don’t think right now that parents of females in the commonwealth of Virginia should feel safe sending their daughters to UVa,” he said. |
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| MikeZPU | Jan 18 2015, 10:41 AM Post #683 |
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These reviews that UVA is paying $500K for will conclude that the public pressure following the release of the Rolling Stone article was such that Teresa Sullivan had to take action against the fraternities irrespective of the truth of the article. That's my prediction. Which means we live under "mob rule" in this country. If that's true, can we go back to the days of burning alleged witches? or at least stoning them to death?
Edited by MikeZPU, Jan 18 2015, 10:42 AM.
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| Quasimodo | Jan 18 2015, 10:48 AM Post #684 |
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Yep. |
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| Quasimodo | Jan 18 2015, 10:51 AM Post #685 |
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Correction:
Well, first, whoever is paying for the reviews will "own" them; why is the source a secret? Especially at a public university? Is the entire process designed to reach a desired result, without public scrutiny? If not, why not have more transparency? |
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| cks | Jan 18 2015, 01:23 PM Post #686 |
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And who is going to compensate the fraternity for the damage done to its building? What about those students who had to decamp to hotels so that they had a safe place to stay? Teresa Sullivan should be out of a job. |
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| abb | Jan 19 2015, 05:16 AM Post #687 |
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UVA fraternity vilified by Rolling Stone 'packed with rush hopefuls' during open-house event - days after being reinstated Wave of hopefuls reportedly attended Phi Kappa Psi's open-house event One undergraduate said: 'It was crowded and lively. I had to wait in line' Fraternity president,Stephen Scipione, affirmed: 'We had a good crowd' Event on Thursday came just three days after fraternity was reinstated It had been at the center of Rolling Stone article about brutal gang rape Police declared they were unable to confirm female junior's allegations By Sophie Jane Evans For Dailymail.com Published: 22:35 EST, 18 January 2015 | Updated: 22:37 EST, 18 January 2015 It was at the center of a controversial Rolling Stone article about a brutal gang rape. But that didn't stop a wave of spring rush hopefuls from attending the newly-reinstated University of Virginia fraternity Phi Kappa Psi's open-house event on Thursday, according to reports. During the event, the group's centrally-located house was apparently 'crowded and lively', with hordes of undergraduates hoping to impress the fraternity's members and leaders. One UVA freshman, who attended the open house but wished to remain anonymous, said: 'I can definitely affirm it was crowded and lively. It was the last house I hit and I still had to wait in line.' Meanwhile, a female freshman said that as she walked through campus during the spring sorority rush on Thursday, it appeared that Phi Psi's house 'was the busiest frat I saw that night'. In an email to New York magazine on Friday, fraternity president, Stephen Scipione, confirmed: 'We had a good crowd last night'. But he added: 'It’s far too early to judge rush this year.' On Monday, police announced that they had been unable to confirm that an alleged gang rape occurred at Phi Psi's house, as described in the controversial Rolling Stone article. The story detailed the graphic claims of an unnamed UVA junior who said she was gang-raped by seven men in an apparent initiation ritual at the fraternity in 2012. But in an email to the Associated Press, Charlottesville Police Captain Gary Pleasants said: 'The statement reads that we did not find any substantive basis to confirm the allegations occurred at Phi Kappa Psi, not that we said the assault did not occur. We are still investigating.' Following Monday's verdict, the school declared it had reinstated the group and its activities after consulting with the police force about the findings of their investigation. Speaking about Thursday's open-house event, Matt, a freshman who did not rush Phi Psi, said he thought it would have been unfair if the house had been 'deserted' due to the allegations. 'I personally didn’t avoid it because of that. There could have been people that would have because of that, but if they could vocalize that, it’d be an unpopular opinion,' he said. He added that his friend, who had rushed the fraternity, had told him the place was 'packed'. After the Rolling Stone article was published in November, the magazine issued a statement noting discrepancies in the story and apologizing to those involved in the fraternity. Despite its apology, campus and fraternity leaders were put under pressure to adopt reforms as protesters gathered outside Phi Psi's house, with many calling for the end of all Greek Life. The building was gratified with statements like 'UVA Center for Rape Studies' and 'Suspend Us!'. Fearing for their safety, most fraternity members fled the house, booking hotel rooms. Meanwhile, police launched an investigation into the alleged assault at the request of the university. 'We knew that the Rolling Stone story was not true,' said 22-year-old fraternity member David Fontenot, a senior from McLean, Virginia, recalling the aftermath of the article's publication. On Monday, Cpt Pleasants said that although university officials were not presented a written report on the police investigation into Phi Psi, they were updated via a telephone call. 'We just didn't find any reasons to keep sanctions on that particular fraternity right now,' he told the AP in a telephone interview. While the school temporarily suspended fraternities' and sororities' social activities, administrators vowed to take an extensive look at improving safety on campus. Phi Psi was the first fraternity to agree to new rules, some of which address alcohol distribution at parties. Officials want to make it less likely for drugs to be slipped into drinks. 'We believe that in the midst of this ordeal, there is an opportunity to move forward with important safety improvements,' Mr Scipione, a 21-year-old junior from Richmond, said last week. 'This has prompted us to take a closer look at ourselves and what role organizations like ours may play in this problem. It's opened all of our eyes to the problem of sexual assault. 'Now it's time to do something about it. As a fraternity, we are going to continue discussing that need in the coming weeks.' Other fraternities had a Friday deadline to sign new agreements with the university that were developed by the school's Inter-Fraternity Council in a bid to keep students at parties safer. Among them: Kegs of beer and pre-made mixes of liquor and punch will be banned; beer must be served in closed cans, and food and water must be made available. The female freshman who walked past Phi Psi's fraternity house on Thursday night said the absence of strong pre-mixed drinks will likely make parties less popular for young female students. Because of this, 'I think there’s going to be more pregaming,' she told New York magazine. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2916137/UVA-fraternity-vilified-Rolling-Stone-packed-rush-hopefuls-open-house-event-days-reinstated.html#ixzz3PGF900aa Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook |
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| Quasimodo | Jan 19 2015, 08:35 AM Post #688 |
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This is like saying police announced that they had been unable to confirm that an alleged gang rape occurred on a train to Scottsboro. A more honest account would have said the charges were false, made by an emotionally unstable person, and had no truth in them at all. But so, so many people's agendas would depend on saying it another way, so that there is still a possibility that "something happened"... (MOO) |
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| abb | Jan 21 2015, 12:15 PM Post #689 |
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http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2015-01-21/post-scandal-uva-frat-parties-rage-on Post-Scandal, UVA Frat Parties Rage On By Matt Stroud January 21, 2015 On Friday, Jan. 16, freshmen and sophomore students at the University of Virginia marched into a cold, clear evening. Dressed in khaki pants and puffy ski jackets, short skirts and sensible coats, they clustered into groups and streamed up Rugby Road, the prestigious state school's fraternity and sorority hub. The words "YOU ARE LOVED" had been scrawled in white lettering onto the brick walls surrounding Beta Bridge, the landmark separating the southern and northern sections of the street. This was the start of rush week—the prolonged annual rite in which fraternities and sororities recruit new members. Students walked north, filing into Alpha Delta Phi, Pi Kappa Alpha, Pi Lambda Phi, and other houses at which they hoped to win over the brothers and sisters who live there. If they made a good impression, they might be asked back. If they made a really good impression, they might be asked to pledge. Perhaps for this reason, everyone was on their best behavior. There were no open containers, and no one stumbled. People talked, sometimes loudly, as they walked down the street. But there was no yelling, no shattering of glass, no fight songs. In this manicured residential area just outside the university's northeast border in Charlottesville, Va.—a town of 43,000 about 100 miles southwest of Washington—the loudest noise was ritual applause and polite cheering as groups of prospective sorority sisters left one sorority house on their way to the next. Rush week has occurred at UVA, in some form, since 1852, when the university's first fraternity was established. This year's rush carries fresh significance: Depending on who you talk to, the student rituals embody either an unchecked culture of sexual violence or a community victimized by stigma and false accusations. In the final months of 2014, a wave of condemnation hit UVA over the party culture in its Greek system. The catalyst was a Rolling Stone article that described an alleged gang rape at a fraternity party of a woman identified as "Jackie." It also outlined a broader pattern of campus sexual violence that had gone unpunished. The article's impact came swiftly: Students protested and school administrators were forced into a public round of self-reflection. University President Teresa Sullivan acknowledged that "rapes are kept quiet" at UVA before announcing a temporary ban on all fraternity and sorority functions. Within weeks, media outlets, led by the Washington Post and Slate, uncovered serious errors in Rolling Stone's account of the crime at the center of the story. The magazine apologized for the story and admitted it had been poorly reported. Talk of a campus-wide rape crisis was largely replaced with a backlash against an administration believed to have hastily punished its student body. The fraternity ban was quietly lifted on Jan. 6, a few days before it was due to expire. Now, less than two weeks later, it was as though the Rolling Stone article had never existed—on Rugby Road, at least. "The incident [involving Jackie] happened or it didn't happen," said Akin Yucel, a first-year student from Istanbul who was walking from one fraternity house to another with a friend. "What I see here [among fraternity members] is a sense of brotherhood and friendship." The article "would never take me away from pledging a fraternity," he said. Questions nonetheless remain about how UVA handles allegations of sexual misconduct. The university is one of only a handful of schools in the country that the Department of Education has put under a "compliance review"—a serious federal audit of processes and policies—for failing to properly handle sexual violence complaints. Out of 129 sexual assault claims brought to the university since 2009, only six resulted in sanctions against students found guilty of sexual assault, university officials disclosed to Bloomberg Businessweek in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. None were expelled. The school's associate dean of students and head of UVA’s sexual misconduct board said in a video interview that even students who confess to sexual assault would not necessarily be kicked out of school. The school has said it would honor its commitment to reform its sexual assault policies, even if the article that spurred the changes had been largely discredited. Sullivan lifted the fraternity suspension only under the condition that every fraternity and sorority on campus sign a list of new rules crafted by university administrators and Greek leaders. Those rules were added as an addendum to a Fraternal Organization Agreement. Two prominent fraternities signed the addendum under protest. (Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity cited in the Rolling Stone article, was first to sign; the fraternity was cleared of any wrongdoing by Charlottesville police on Jan. 12.) The holdouts—Kappa Alpha and Alpha Tau Omega—had challenged the system-wide fraternity and sorority suspension, arguing that punishing everyone for the actions of few was unacceptable, particularly considering that police found nothing criminal in the actions of those few. A joint statement from fraternities said they were signing only under the "threat of further sanctions and retaliation by the University...." This was, nonetheless, a win for UVA officials; all 31 members of the university's Inter-Fraternity Council agreed to the new rules. The difficult part begins now: determining whether those rules change anything for the better. The addendum centers around "fraternity functions"—parties that run past 9 p.m. in which more than half of a frat's members are present and lots of guests attend. It requires sober fraternity brothers to be on hand to distribute alcohol, guard the stairs, and keep keys to every room in the house. In addition, it mandates that fraternities hire security guards to monitor guest lists and act as bouncers. Finally, it prohibits "pre-mixed drinks, punches, or any other common source of alcohol." (Beer is to be served in cans, and wine and liquor can be served only by sober people; in the case of large fraternities, liquor must be distributed by a licensed bartender.) Ryan Duffin, who was portrayed in the Rolling Stone article as "Randall"—the only friend of Jackie who wanted the alleged rape victim to report the crime—is now president of Phi Sigma Kappa at UVA. As a fraternity president, he played a role in the Inter-Fraternity Council that helped shape the addendum. Duffin stopped short of celebrating the results. "We don't know if these are going to help," he says. Duffin and others know the addendum's mandates may look mild. Strict repercussions are not listed, for example, if rules are broken. But he says the council didn't want to take punishment too far. "We think it's a first step," he says. "Is it perfect? Probably not." "We don't want to overreact," says Jakob Scheidt, who served as Phi Sigma Kappa's president before Duffin. He outlines what he sees as a possible unfavorable scenario: "In an effort to be safe, we'll make changes that lead to unintended consequences that don't actually solve our problems or actually make things less safe." What Scheidt means is that tighter restrictions on fraternities could force the open secret of underage drinking off campus, where partying is unregulated and unsanctioned. The addendum is subject to a review at the end of the semester. But Scheidt wonders how the university is going to evaluate its effectiveness. "Can any of these changes be shown to work or not work?" he asks. "I guess it's worthwhile to give these changes a try. It feels good, it looks good. The question is, will it improve life on campus?" Dr. Jody Jessup-Anger doesn't think so. A professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, she co-chairs a presidential task force on preventing sexual violence on campus. Jessup-Anger calls the addendum a "band aid" that does not "address sexual violence on campus." There may be behind-the-scenes administrative discussions going on at UVA about how to "tackle this really complex issue," she says. But the addendum's focus on "risk reduction" is misguided, she believes. It "puts the onus of responsibility on others instead of the perpetrator"—people such as the guard patrolling a fraternity house's front door, or the fraternity brothers tasked with passing out beers, instead of "addressing misogyny and sexism on campus." It's unclear whether most UVA students see a widespread need to alter attitudes toward women on campus. Duffin thinks students have become more wary of how student culture is portrayed in media. "I think people now are a lot more scrutinizing about what they hear about the stories that come out," he says. "They don't want to jump to conclusions because they've now seen how detrimental it was when people took every single word in the Rolling Stone article at face value." Nonetheless, he says, "a lot of people are trying to take the general idea of safety a lot more seriously." Students have become painfully aware of the dangers that face them in a year marked by tragedy and crime beyond the scope of the Rolling Stone article. In September, UVA student Hanna Graham was stalked, kidnapped, and killed after she went to a party. There were also suicides on campus at UVA last semester. "We're looking out for people more," Duffin says. "We've had it thrown in our faces that Charlottesville is not a bubble—that UVA is not a bubble. Unsafe things can happen here, just like they can happen anywhere else." That sense of concern was apparent as students headed up Rugby Road to rush fraternities and sororities. Everyone seemed to move from one place to another in a pairs or huddles of four or six, or in throngs too dense to count. Women in particular moved in huge groups from one house to another. One laughed about the "gaggles of girls" present at this university Greek nerve center just outside campus. But the reality is no joke: Safety is perceived in groups, and everyone seemed to know it. Leaving one fraternity and heading to another on Friday, Liam Wolf wasn't thinking about safety. Instead, he said he was worried that Rolling Stone's sexual assault exposé might cause him "bad publicity" if he decides to join a frat. "At the same time," he said, "I'm not gonna stop [rushing] because of it." |
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| abb | Jan 22 2015, 05:12 AM Post #690 |
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Center City Lawyers Getting $550-$660 Per Hour for UVA Rape Claims Work The Pepper Hamilton attorneys are helping the embattled school with its handling of allegations. By Victor Fiorillo | January 21, 2015 at 2:30 pm The University of Virginia has hired Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton LLP to consult with the school over its response to rape and sexual assault claims as well as claims of sexual harassment. The school recently came under national scrutiny after rape allegations surfaced in a controversial Rolling Stone story. According to a contract obtained by Philadelphia magazine, UVA will pay Pepper Hamilton partners Gina Maisto Smith (left) and Leslie Gomez (right) an hourly rate of $660 and $550, respectively. Both attorneys, previously with Ballard Spahr, are part of subcommittees of the U.S. Department of Education's Negotiated Rulemaking Committee for the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, aka the Campus SaVE Act. Both are former sex crimes prosecutors. Smith and Gomez came under fire last year for a report they issued to Los Angeles' Occidental College. They were accused of blaming recent turmoil at the school on a sexual assault activist group. We asked Smith to tell us more about the work that she and Gomez would be doing with UVA, but instead, Pepper Hamilton's marketing director sent us this statement: ...Pepper Hamilton LLP will provide consultation services and guidance regarding the University’s response to and handling of sexual and gender-based harassment and violence complaints and reports under federal laws. Pepper Hamilton’s services will include assistance and support regarding new and ongoing Title IX sexual assault reports and cases, implementation of current and proposed Title IX sexual assault policies, protocols involving local law enforcement, an assessment of the University’s policies, procedures and practices with respect to applicable federal laws, and assistance to the University in its responses to the ongoing case and compliance reviews conducted by the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education. Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/01/21/center-city-lawyer-getting-660-per-hour-uva-rape-claims-work/#Gb4Wj0zrcoFBEx1T.99 |
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9:15 AM Jul 11