Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,430 Views)
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2015/04/dont-curb-student-protests-against-sexual-assault

Don’t curb student protests against sexual assault
Columbia University should have allowed sexual assault activists to demonstrate last Sunday
by Managing Board | Apr 15 2015 | 4 hours ago

Last Sunday, during Columbia University’s “Days on Campus” event for prospective students, the anti-sexual assault student group No Red Tape projected phrases like “Rape happens here” and “Columbia protects rapists” on Columbia’s Low Library in central campus. According to The Columbia Daily Spectator, Graduate Hall Director Rainikka Corprew and public safety officers obstructed the projection of the phrases, telling activists to wait until prospective students left Columbia’s campus before projecting onto the library again.

Aside from the sloppy handling of the event — Corprew said to the activists, some of whom were sexual assault survivors, that they were “becoming the oppressors” — the inconsistency of allowing No Red Tape to project phrases at some times and not others is problematic. If the school is going to allow protest in that form (as it should), it should not limit when that protest can take place for the sake of the university’s reputation.

Unnecessarily regulating protest prevents it from being its most effective: according to activists who spoke to The Spectator, No Red Tape organized this display specifically to coincide with Days on Campus in order to educate incoming first-years on the issue of sexual assault on campuses and because protesting during that time “was the most likely time that administration would feel obligated to react to activists’ demands.” What is the point of protesting if students can’t do it at times when they can garner the most attention and response?

Curbing these protests also misrepresents Columbia to prospective students. If, on a random day, a Columbia student may see a demonstration such as the one No Red Tape organized, preventing that demonstration just for the sake of a prospective student actually does that student a disservice by inaccurately portraying how a given day at that school may be.

Here at the University, after tremendous scandal surrounding our administration’s handling of sexual assault, administrators did not remove signs of student protest. When students placed post-it notes detailing their concerns on the doors of Peabody Hall, and when the Seven Society placed a banner over that same building — a building where many admissions tours start and end — administrators did not take those messages down. At that time, the presence of those various protests was the true experience of University students. To hide that from prospective students would have been to lie.

There is a difference here between what public and private schools may regulate, but there is no difference between our University and Columbia in terms of what is right and wrong when it comes to the voicing of student concerns. In this case, Columbia students should not see their protests restricted.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2015/04/take-back-the-night-hosts-panel-discusses-new-sexual-misconduct-policy

Take Back the Night hosts panel, discusses new sexual misconduct policy
Eramo says new model details survivor resources, emphasizes affirmative consent
by Kayla Eanes | Apr 15 2015 | 4 hours ago

nssexualmisconductcblackwell
Cameron Blackwell | The Cavalier Daily

Law Prof. Anne Coughlin addressed the issue of a single sanction policy in the wake of the Rolling Stone article.

Take Back the Night held a panel style discussion about Title IX legal requirements and the University's new sexual misconduct policy Tuesday as a part of their week long event combatting sexual misconduct. The panel, titled “A Discussion on Sexual Misconduct Policy and the Law,” was headed by 2014 College graduate Emily Renda, project coordinator in the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, Assoc. Dean of Students Nicole Eramo and Law Prof. Anne Coughlin.

Each panelist prepared a presentation covering topics ranging from the history and background of Title IX and prior policies, community input on the revised interim Policy on Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment and Other Forms of Interpersonal Violence released March 30 and recent legislative changes regarding sexual misconduct policy.

Fourth-year College student Erica Robertson, major event chair for the Sexual Violence Prevention Coalition, said the event was the first time students had the opportunity to openly discuss the new policy.

“It will finally provide people with an understanding of the behind the scenes workings of how the University handles sexual assaults,” Robertson said. “By having this kind of event it helps to break it down to help everyone understand it better.”

At the panel, Renda provided a broad legal context for the new policy and explained the difference between University and criminal actions in cases of sexual assault.

Renda said many people questioned why the police did not directly handle cases of sexual assault on campus.

“School based adjudication is very different from criminal [adjudication],” Renda said. “Under Title IX, [the new policy] covers a spectrum of conduct that is far broader than what might be criminalized in any state.”

Renda emphasized that the University system of investigation and the criminal justice system are not mutually exclusive.

“A lot of people think we are asking people to choose between the University system and the criminal system,” Renda said. “In an ideal world someone would use both, since both are available to them… [and] these two systems have fundamentally different tools at their discretion.”

Eramo explained some of the nuances of the revised policy and said it is not just a procedural document like the previous policy used by the University.

“After some consideration and looking at examples of other schools and what they have done, we broke the policy into this umbrella policy document,” Eramo said.

The new policy outlines resources for survivors, practices to encourage reporting, detailed separate procedures for students, faculty and employees and various expanded definitions.

“[The Violence Against Women Act] requirements require us to enhance some of the definitions we had before,” Eramo said. “In the new policy we talk about affirmative consent rather than effect consent.”

The panel also explained the single investigator model, which Eramo said has already been adopted by schools such as University of Michigan, Tufts University and Dartmouth College.

The single investigator model outlined in the revised policy provides one lawyer trained in relevant areas of the law who will investigate both sides of a complaint, draw up a report and present the report to both the complainant and the respondent as well as a review panel.

Coughlin said the single investigator model is an attempt to avoid the retraumatization of survivors.

“We were trying to balance legal imperatives from a lot of different statues and be mindful of our community as well,” Coughlin said. “The idea was to try to reproduce what cross examination is supposed to produce but without people having to go through the process of being cross examined and confronting each other.”

Coughlin also addressed the issue of a single sanction policy in the wake of the Rolling Stone article.

“At the time that the story first broke there was a lot of commentary coming our way that expulsion had to be on the table,” Coughlin said. “As time went by, we realized there are a range of different types of sexual misconduct covered by our policy.”

Coughlin said she wanted to clarify while expulsion and suspension will be considered, there is no single sanction system regarding sexual misconduct.

“[There] isn’t one form of single misconduct,” Coughlin said. “It’s a broad spectrum of sexual misconduct that we’re discussing.”

Renda said she does not want survivors to be discouraged from reporting incidents of sexual assault from fear of being forced into such a strict system of punishment.

“As a survivor myself and from working with many survivors, there’s a strong presumption from the community that everyone must want the same outcome,” Renda said. “Single sanction is not best process for engaging in higher reporting rates.”
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion/national-editorials/ann-coulter-we-need-an-ankle-bracelet-for-the-new/article_8c4b9a85-2adc-56a5-9345-7f58eb6ea225.html


Ann Coulter: We need an ankle bracelet for the New York Times
4 hours ago

Usually liberals have the decency to wait a few months after one of their rape fantasies collapses to start citing the case as "unresolved" -- it was a tie, the game was rained out, we'll never know what happened.

But with the apocryphal University of Virginia gang rape, lefties started in right away with the "I guess we'll never know what happened" rewrite.

Just last week, the Columbia Journalism Review released the results of a months-long investigation into Rolling Stone's story about a violent fraternity gang rape at UVA. As you will recall, the CJR found that the magazine had based its entire story on the delusions of one girl, who freaked out every time the alleged reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, tried to confirm a single fact.

As the CJR described the reporter's investigative technique: "Erdely asked Jackie for introductions to friends and family. She asked for text messages to confirm parts of Jackie's account, for records from Jackie's employment at the aquatic center and for health records. She even asked to examine the bloodstained red dress Jackie said she had worn on the night she said she was attacked."

So as you can see, Erdely is a tough-minded journalist, who went the extra mile to nail down the truth. Yes, she ASKED for all this stuff.

And what did she get? Only this: Jackie produced her freshman-year suitemate who "confirmed" -- in the words of the CJR -- "that in January 2013, four months after the alleged attack, Jackie had told her that she had been gang-raped."

Which part of Jackie's story does that corroborate? A few weeks ago, I claimed to have been raped by a unicorn to see if I could get Charlottesville chief of police Timothy J. Longo to open a case on my unicorn attack, just as he did on Jackie's gang rape. So according to Rolling Stone, I have about a million corroborating witnesses: everyone who read my column.

We know Jackie claimed to have been gang-raped! That wasn't the part that required confirmation.

Michelle Goldberg summarized the CJR's report for the Nation magazine, saying, "After all this, it's still not clear whether Jackie, the woman at the center of the Rolling Stone story, is a complete fabulist or a true rape victim who confused and exaggerated some elements of her story."

Not clear to whom? People with brain injuries? Some random Kardashian?

Similarly, one of Columbia's crack investigators said: "What happened to Jackie that night is a mystery."

Yes, it's a total mystery! Jackie might have had a pizza. She might have drafted more fake texts from her fake boyfriend. She might have gone for a walk or written poetry.

In fact, the only thing we know beyond a scintilla of a doubt about that night is that Jackie was not gang-raped at a fraternity party, which happens to be the only relevant fact about "what happened to Jackie that night."

The New York Times' Charles Blow wrote a column on the CJR report, suggesting that although this "one particular case" of a fraternity gang rape had been "shown to have flaws," the "overall condition that it illustrated holds true."

If the overall condition is true, I have a top-shelf idea for liberals: Next time, you guys should produce one of the real cases. I think it would make your argument stronger.

Always the last to know, Blow also defended Obama's nonsense claim that 1 in 5 college women will be raped by citing a Washington Post "Fact Checker" from May 1, 2014, which merely called the figure "problematic" -- a resounding confirmation of the statistic, as far as Blow was concerned.

Unfortunately for Blow, about six months after the Post's fact check, that rating got downgraded to "utter B.S.," when Eric Holder's Justice Department released a study of nearly the past decade of crime statistics, finding that 0.61 percent of college students are victims of sexual assault, not 20 percent. That makes it .03 in 5, not 1 in 5.

In another six months, the Times will pretend to have missed the entire CJR report and go back to citing the UVA fraternity gang rape as proof that we are in the midst of a college rape epidemic.

At least Erdely has the excuse of being a not-terribly-bright, standard lefty with all the usual prejudices, who wanted to write bad-ass journalism at Rolling Stone and ended up producing worthless crap.

The New York Times is the "newspaper of record"! It publishes "the first draft of history"! It's the gold standard of journalism!

The Washington Post isn't a fair newspaper, but it isn't constantly falling for laughable hoaxes. To the contrary, the Post was one of the first newspapers to establish that Rolling Stone's gang rape story was hogwash.

By contrast, the Times began to consider the possibility that the UVA story was bunk ONLY after Rolling Stone withdrew the article and the CJR issued its official ruling.

And this wasn't the first time the paper hyped a fake rape story! The Times was also a bitter-ender on the non-existent gang rape by the Duke lacrosse team, waiting for the last dog to die before giving up the case. Even then, the Times just stopped writing about it.

The Times should be required to wear a criminal ankle bracelet for the rest of its days. Nothing the newspaper writes about that touches on a feminist issue can be believed. Responsible people have got to say to the Times, I'm sorry, this is a feminist topic: You've got to recuse yourself from writing about it.

Even the Times would have to admit: You're right. We've got a problem. We'll stop writing about campus rape, military rape, equal pay, sexism, the Augusta National Golf Club and Hillary Clinton.

It's unfortunate that it's come to this, but it's the Times' own fault. When it comes to feminist fantasies, no one can believe anything the newspaper of record says.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

http://planetprinceton.com/2015/04/16/authors-of-report-on-what-went-wrong-in-rolling-stone-rape-story-to-speak-at-princeton-university/

Authors of Report on What Went Wrong in Rolling Stone UVA Rape Story to Speak at Princeton University

April 16, 2015 by Krystal Knapp 0 Comments



The authors of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism report that analyzed what went wrong in the Rolling Stone story, “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA,” will speak at Princeton University on Monday, April 27.

Lead investigator Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize-Winning journalist and dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, and Columbia School of Journalism Dean of Academic Affairs Sheila Coronel will discuss their review of what went wrong in the reporting and editorial process for the Rolling Stone article. The discussion will be moderated by Joe Stephens, an investigative reporter at The Washington Post and Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.

“The collapse of Rolling Stone’s article on UVA ranks among the most distressing media failures in recent history, a cautionary tale for readers and journalists alike. It will be studied in classrooms for many years,” Stephens said. “We’re incredibly lucky to have Steve and Sheila — two of the most esteemed journalists of their generation — coming to Princeton to explain precisely what went wrong and how we can avoid a recurrence.”

Rolling Stone commissioned the independent report after its story depicting a University of Virginia student’s gang rape at a campus fraternity house came under attack as journalists at The Washington Post and other publications raised questions regarding the accuracy of the facts and inconsistencies about the assault. The Washington Post uncovered details suggesting that the assault could not have taken place the way it was described, and the truth of the story became a subject of national controversy.

The Columbia report “A Rape on Campus” What Went Wrong? was released on April 5. The report shows how basic fact-checking with sources other than the victim was not done and members of the fraternity were not confronted with details from the story and given the opportunity to give their side of the story. The report also raises the issue of the use of pseudonyms in stories. The report served as Rolling Stone’s “official retraction” of the story.

The discussion about the report, titled “‘A Rape on Campus': What Went Wrong – An Anatomy of a Journalistic Failure” will be held in Dodds Auditorium at the Woodrow Wilson School on Washington Road at 7 p.m. on April 27. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required to attend. Ticket information will be forthcoming. Check back about ticket information by following the link.

This event is co-sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the Ferris Journalism Seminars in the Council of the Humanities, and the University Press Club.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abb
Member Avatar

https://thebutlercollegian.com/?p=20676


Collegian piece may not have addressed full issue.

Letters to the Editor

In response to the Collegian’s “Like a Rolling Stone”:

I am a proud member of the ranks of Butler University alumni. I am also close to joining the ranks of University of Virginia alumni. I’ve seen, first-hand, the deep concern of its undergraduate students in the wake of the Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus,” and I’ve been surrounded by the frustration and desperation of a divided student body in the aftermath of its retraction. The University of Virginia, like many other campuses, is being forced to confront a fraught (and rather long) history of sexual assault. And at the crux of this confrontation is an overwhelming desire on the part of the university’s students to reconcile a dissonance of profound love for their institution and the reality of violent assault that takes place there.

Because I’ve been existing in the midst of this polemic, I understand the impulse of the Collegian’s op-ed piece “Like a Rolling Stone” to express a sense of destabilization when it comes to the problem of institutional “reputation.” However, I feel that this piece only marginally addresses the more pressing problems of “Rolling Stone’s” retraction, and this is evident in the author’s statement that “the account sheds a bad light on Greek life as a whole and, even worse, discredits real rape cases that are reported on college campuses.” I wholeheartedly agree that the discrediting of victims is worse than ruined reputations, but that is clearly not the primary concern of this piece. This column’s emphasis on defending the University of Virginia’s Greek system undercuts a chance to productively and compassionately open a dialogue for constructive criticism of the ways in which the school has mishandled sexual assault cases in the past—and how the retraction of “A Rape on Campus” has allowed for denial of the occurrence of regular assaults on campus. To love your college does not mean that you are required to accept all of its faults out of obligation. To love your college is to recognize those faults, to critique them and to work cooperatively toward a solution.

But what is most profoundly troubling to me about “Like a Rolling Stone” is the author’s assessment that “the most difficult part for me to come to terms with is the fact that someone could fabricate such a terrible lie. It ruined the fraternity’s reputation and put the entire university in a negative spotlight.” None of us knows the true circumstances of the events that are described in “A Rape on Campus.” True, many of them have been discredited, but there has also been consensus that something egregiously wrong took place. To dismiss “Jackie” entirely, and to deny the possibility of an assault against her as “the fabrication of a terrible lie,” is to directly participate in systematic victim shaming and to continue to promote the institutional privilege of Greek life at UVA and on other college campuses.

For the love of our universities, let us defend them through loving criticism rather through a sense of obligation.

Emelia A. Abbe

B.A., Butler University, 2013
M.A., University of Virginia, 2015
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Payback
Member Avatar

"True, many of them have been discredited, but there has also been consensus that something egregiously wrong took place."
Well, yes, Ms Abbe, a consensus that "Jackie" (whatever her motives) did something "egregiously wrong" by making false accusations about a "rape" that did not happen.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LTC8K6
Member Avatar
Assistant to The Devil Himself
Inventing people and texting the invented people is a step beyond the usual false allegation...

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kbp

Payback
Apr 22 2015, 11:45 AM
"True, many of them have been discredited, but there has also been consensus that something egregiously wrong took place."
Well, yes, Ms Abbe, a consensus that "Jackie" (whatever her motives) did something "egregiously wrong" by making false accusations about a "rape" that did not happen.
Source:
https://twitter.com/EmeliaAbbe

Emelia Abbe @EmeliaAbbe . . · 16 Apr 2014
M.A. thesis will discuss racial and gender encounters in 19th cent. French-American Folklore and Anglo-American responses.
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
cks
Member Avatar

kbp
Apr 22 2015, 04:41 PM
Payback
Apr 22 2015, 11:45 AM
"True, many of them have been discredited, but there has also been consensus that something egregiously wrong took place."
Well, yes, Ms Abbe, a consensus that "Jackie" (whatever her motives) did something "egregiously wrong" by making false accusations about a "rape" that did not happen.
Source:
https://twitter.com/EmeliaAbbe

Emelia Abbe @EmeliaAbbe . . · 16 Apr 2014
M.A. thesis will discuss racial and gender encounters in 19th cent. French-American Folklore and Anglo-American responses.
Originally she wanted to do her thesis about zombie literature....do not think that her current topic will reveal much - French American folklore and the Anglo-American response would have to be a very limited topic.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Payback
Member Avatar

cks
Apr 22 2015, 05:31 PM
kbp
Apr 22 2015, 04:41 PM
Payback
Apr 22 2015, 11:45 AM
"True, many of them have been discredited, but there has also been consensus that something egregiously wrong took place."
Well, yes, Ms Abbe, a consensus that "Jackie" (whatever her motives) did something "egregiously wrong" by making false accusations about a "rape" that did not happen.
Source:
https://twitter.com/EmeliaAbbe

Emelia Abbe @EmeliaAbbe . . · 16 Apr 2014
M.A. thesis will discuss racial and gender encounters in 19th cent. French-American Folklore and Anglo-American responses.
Originally she wanted to do her thesis about zombie literature....do not think that her current topic will reveal much - French American folklore and the Anglo-American response would have to be a very limited topic.
I looked for the :SarC: about the Zombie topic until I decided that you might be serious, cks. Is it BALDO who says you can't make up this . . . . ?
Edited by Payback, Apr 22 2015, 06:02 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
cks
Member Avatar

Payback
Apr 22 2015, 06:01 PM
cks
Apr 22 2015, 05:31 PM
kbp
Apr 22 2015, 04:41 PM
Payback
Apr 22 2015, 11:45 AM
"True, many of them have been discredited, but there has also been consensus that something egregiously wrong took place."
Well, yes, Ms Abbe, a consensus that "Jackie" (whatever her motives) did something "egregiously wrong" by making false accusations about a "rape" that did not happen.
Source:
https://twitter.com/EmeliaAbbe

Emelia Abbe @EmeliaAbbe . . · 16 Apr 2014
M.A. thesis will discuss racial and gender encounters in 19th cent. French-American Folklore and Anglo-American responses.
Originally she wanted to do her thesis about zombie literature....do not think that her current topic will reveal much - French American folklore and the Anglo-American response would have to be a very limited topic.
I looked for the :SarC: about the Zombie topic until I decided that you might be serious, cks. Is it BALDO who says you can't make up this . . . . ?
Dear Professor Payback:

In reading through her tweets (ok, I was trying to avoid grading the 100 essays of my students that are requiring my attention) I found the one referring to her original thesis interest (zombies). She could not find someone to direct a thesis on the topic but did find someone interested in her current topic. Yup - one cannot make this stuff up!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Joan Foster

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/04/22/u-va-associate-dean-nicole-eramo-blasts-rolling-stone-in-open-letter/O

This month, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism issued a widely read report
citing a number of lapses in Rolling Stone’s execution of “A Rape on Campus,” the deeply flawed and ultimately retracted story about sexual assault at the University of Virginia. Upon the report’s release, the story’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely issued a mea culpa that read in part:

I want to offer my deepest apologies: to Rolling Stone’s readers, to my Rolling Stone editors and colleagues, to the U.V.A. community, and to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.

That wasn’t specific enough for Nicole Eramo, the associate dean of students at U-Va. whose actions came under scrutiny in Erdely’s story. In an open letter to Rolling Stone issued today, Eramo hammers the magazine and asserts that “A Rape on Campus” “deeply damaged me both personally and professionally.” In February, writes Eramo, attorneys for Rolling Stone “flatly” indicated that the magazine “stood by” those portions of the story relating to Eramo and her actions handling sexual assault complaints. The story’s treatment of Eramo was “fair,” said those attorneys, according to the Eramo letter.

Oh, how Eramo disagrees.

The centerpiece of the Rolling Stone story related to an alleged September 2012 gang rape at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house suffered by Jackie, a U-Va. freshman at the time. A subsequent investigation by the Charlottesville police department turned up no evidence of such an episode, nor of other sexual assaults alleged by Jackie in Erdely’s story.

“A Rape on Campus,” however, provides detail on how Eramo approached Jackie and her stories of trauma. The piece noted that Eramo was “beloved” by survivors of sexual assault and that the associate dean carefully laid out a series of options for Jackie when she detailed her alleged gang rape: “If Dean Eramo was surprised at Jackie’s story of gang rape, it didn’t show. A short woman with curly dark hair and a no-nonsense demeanor, Eramo surely has among the most difficult jobs at UVA,” wrote Erdely.

In May 2014, reported Erdely, Jackie sat in Eramo’s office and told her of two additional rape allegations involving the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Rolling Stone, though it wasn’t in the room for the meeting, said this about how things played out: “As Jackie wrapped up her story, she was disappointed by Eramo’s nonreaction. She’d expected shock, disgust, horror.” Again, the police found nothing to support those rape allegations.

Eramo:

In the article and related media appearances, Rolling Stone and Mrs. Erdely stated that I discouraged Jackie from reporting or discussing her alleged assault, that Jackie suffered “abuse” at my hands when she tried to hold the perpetrators accountable, that I called UVA “the rape school,” that I did not “support” Jackie, that I did “nothing” in response to Jackie’s allegations and did not report them to the police, and that I sought to “suppress” Jackie’s alleged sexual assault. Rolling Stone celebrated these malicious and false allegations by accompanying the article with a cartoonish picture of me doctored to appear as though I was smiling and giving a “thumbs up” to a crying victim sitting in my office, while angry protestors marched outside with signs like “Stop Victim Blaming.”

The “true facts,” counters Eramo, paint an opposite picture — that of her and the university encouraging Jackie to take her case to the authorities. “I arranged for Jackie to meet with detectives almost immediately,” notes Eramo’s letter. In fact, she notes, Jackie did meet with police twice in spring 2014 with Eramo’s encouragement, though Jackie chose not to cooperate with a criminal investigation.

Media criticism is part of Eramo’s indictment: “These are all things that Rolling Stone would have figured out if its reporters, editors and fact checkers had not made a calculated decision not to contact sources who would have contradicted Rolling Stone’s preconceived story line,” she writes.

As for the damage Eramo has sustained, she writes of e-mails that she has received “expressing hope that I be killed or raped, or commenting that they hoped that I had a daughter so that she could be raped.” Also, Eramo writes that during the investigation of the magazine’s bogus reporting, the university removed Eramo from contact with students she’d been counseling. They had to “start over” with another administrator, she claims.

As for the remedies that Rolling Stone has taken — commissioning the Columbia report; issuing an apology; retracting the story — Eramo declares, “These steps are not good enough.”

The open letter is seeded with language that might well drop neatly into a defamation claim against Rolling Stone — it’s heavy on the damages and the malicious and false nature of the article. All of which are really easy to document. Yet Libby Locke, counsel for Eramo, tells the Erik Wemple Blog, “Dean Eramo is not prepared to comment about possible litigation at this point in time.” Locke’s firm, Clare Locke LLP, specializes in defamation and represents former Pennsylvania State University president Graham Spanier in a case against former FBI director Louis Freeh over allegations in the Freeh report on the Sandusky case.

Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity so thoroughly injured in the story, has signaled that it is moving ahead with a case against the magazine.

On one level, there are indeed some positive comments about Eramo in the Erdely piece. Erdely does point out that the survivors “laud” Eramo “as their best advocate and den mother.” It also notes that Eramo put Jackie in touch with supportive figures on campus.

Come on, though. The sum total of the story is that U-Va. essentially sat on these awful claims. Not only does the story leave that impression, but Erdely restated the point in her post-publication press tour. For instance, she told The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi: “As I’ve already told you, the gang-rape scene that leads the story is the alarming account that Jackie — a person whom I found to be credible — told to me, told her friends, and importantly, what she told the UVA administration, which chose not to act on her allegations in any way — i.e., the overarching point of the article. THAT is the story: the culture that greeted her and so many other UVA women I interviewed, who came forward with allegations, only to be met with indifference.”

Watch for that statement to surface again, in a court document.
Edited by Joan Foster, Apr 22 2015, 06:49 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Joan Foster

Her complete letter is at the link.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Joan Foster

If there are civil suits against RS, will "Jackie's" identity still be shielded from the public?

Can the magazine defend itself without pointing to "Jackie?"
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Quasimodo

Joan Foster
Apr 22 2015, 06:58 PM
If there are civil suits against RS, will "Jackie's" identity still be shielded from the public?

Can the magazine defend itself without pointing to "Jackie?"

Why should it be shielded? She has to be named in a court document,

unless she is called "Jane Doe"; but that would only apply to a victim;

and no one has shown (or established it as a fact in a legal setting) that she is,
in fact, a victim.


(Still, they name persons accused of rape even before they are convicted...
and even put their pictures on the cover of Newsweek...)



Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Free Forums. Reliable service with over 8 years of experience.
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers · Next Topic »
Add Reply