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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,421 Views)
Joan Foster

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2575949/?utm_content=bufferc36f8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Fraternity files suit against Rolling Stone.

"A third lawsuit has been filed against Rolling Stone Magazine for its reporting of an alleged gang-rape at the University of Virginia that turned out to be a hoax.

The fraternity accused of conducting the gang-rape as part of an initiation, Phi Kappa Psi, is suing Rolling Stone for $25 million."
Edited by Joan Foster, Nov 9 2015, 03:07 PM.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/11/09/phi-psi-chapter-at-u-va-files-25-million-lawsuit-against-rolling-stone/?tid=sm_tw

U-Va. fraternity files $25 million lawsuit against Rolling Stone
By T. Rees Shapiro November 9 at 1:13 PM


The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity chapter at the University of Virginia filed a $25 million lawsuit Monday against Rolling Stone magazine, which published an article in 2014 that alleged a freshman was gang raped at the house during a party.

The lawsuit focuses on a Rolling Stone article titled “A Rape on Campus,” which detailed a harrowing attack on a freshman named Jackie at the Phi Psi house on Sept. 28, 2012. The article, written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, described how Jackie was raped by seven men while two others watched in a second floor bedroom while a fraternity party raged downstairs. The article alleged that the attack was part of a hazing ritual at the long-time U-Va. fraternity.

The Washington Post found significant discrepancies in the Rolling Stone account, including that the fraternity did not host a party that night in 2012 and that a student identified by Jackie as her main attacker was never a member of the fraternity and did not attend U-Va.

[U-Va. students challenge Rolling Stone account of attack]

Two investigations — by the Columbia University journalism school and the Charlottesville Police Department — later confirmed that there was no gang rape at the fraternity.

“The fraternity chapter and its student and alumni members suffered extreme damage to their reputations in the aftermath of the article’s publication and continue to suffer despite the ultimate unraveling of the story,” the Phi Psi chapter said in a statement Monday. “The article also subjected the student members and their families to danger and immense stress while jeopardizing the future existence of the chapter.”

Rolling Stone retracted the story in April, and the magazine’s editor, Will Dana, later resigned.

A spokesperson for Rolling Stone declined to comment Monday.

In July, three U-Va. alumni members of the Phi Psi fraternity filed a federal lawsuit in New York against Rolling Stone. One of the fraternity members, George Elias, wrote in the lawsuit that he lived in a second floor bedroom of the house in 2012, which led members of the U-Va. community to assume he possibly took part in the alleged gang rape.

[Phi Kappa Psi fraternity members sue Rolling Stone over retracted story]

The magazine also faces a $7.5 million federal lawsuit filed by Nicole Eramo, a U-Va. associate dean who assists sexual assault survivors on campus and who alleges that she was vilified in the Rolling Stone account.

In the wake of the Rolling Stone article’s publication, the Phi Psi house was vandalized, windows were broken and anonymous activists scrawled “UVA Center for Rape Studies,” on the building.

According to the fraternity’s complaint filed in state court: “This defamation action is brought to seek redress for the wanton destruction caused to Phi Kappa Psi by Rolling Stone’s intentional, reckless, and unethical behavior.”
T. Rees Shapiro is an education reporter.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/vaalpha-static/Phi+Kappa+Psi+Rolling+Stone+Complaint+2015-11-09.pdf
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http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/uva/jackie-fights-efforts-to-access-her-email-texts/article_2680f9ba-8e61-11e5-8d8d-9b7dc64d4151.html

'Jackie' fights efforts to access her email, texts

By K. Burnell Evans | Richmond Times-Dispatch | Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 8:59 pm

RICHMOND — As legal wrangling in the aftermath of a discredited Rolling Stone exposé of rape culture at the University of Virginia escalates, court records show the woman at the center of the 9,000-word feature is not cooperating.

“Jackie,” the former student who was the subject of the piece, has yet to turn reams of correspondence over to lawyers who represent a university dean they say was cast as the “villain” of the story. They requested the records in July.

Days after a third multimillion-dollar suit was filed over the story, counsel for Dean Nicole Eramo asked a judge to force Jackie to comply over the objections of her lawyer, Palma E. Pustilnik, who wrote in court filings that disclosing personal communication would violate Jackie’s “privacy and dignity” and subject her to “extreme harm.”

Many of the requests filed in July by lawyers with Clare Locke LLP are overly broad or cover privileged communication, Pustilnik wrote in a 16-page motion opposing disclosure. She declined an interview request.

Eramo’s lawyers seek, among other things, access to Jackie’s correspondence with story author Sabrina Rubin Erdely and the magazine; email, message board and social media postings Jackie made that reference being the victim of a sexual assault at UVa; and communication about the alleged assault with Jackie’s friends and members of a support group for sexual assault survivors.

A hearing in the matter is scheduled for Friday in Alexandria, according to court records.

Jackie largely withdrew from the public sphere as her account of a graphic September 2012 gang rape at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at UVa began to unravel. Her story formed the backbone of Erdely’s “A Rape on Campus,” which also took aim at the university’s handling of her claim.

Lawyers representing Eramo in her $7.5 million defamation suit against Erdely, the magazine and parent company Wenner Media argue in court filings that Eramo’s “sterling reputation as a fierce advocate and supporter of sexual assault victims was destroyed” as a result of the story and ensuing media firestorm.

“The article claims that after Jackie reported her assault to UVa, Dean Eramo abused Jackie, discouraged Jackie from reporting her gang rape, intentionally coddled Jackie into doing nothing, and took no action in response to Jackie’s report — all, allegedly, to protect UVa’s reputation,” a motion in support of the subpoena states.

Pustilnik asserts in a motion opposing the subpoena that Jackie should not be dragged into Eramo’s court proceedings against the publication because she is not a named party to the suit. But the communications in question speak directly to what the magazine should or should not have known about the credibility of its star source, according to Thomas Clare, a lawyer for Eramo.

“The documents sought by the subpoena will demonstrate that Rolling Stone’s story about Jackie is false and that, to the extent Rolling Stone claims it was relying on Jackie’s credibility, Rolling Stone knew or should have known that Jackie was not a reliable source on which to base the article,” he wrote in court filings.

Clare did not return an interview request.

Rolling Stone ultimately retracted the story; magazine editor Will Dana resigned. Investigations by the Charlottesville police and Columbia University journalism school did not find evidence to support Jackie’s account of a being raped by several fraternity brothers as an 18-year-old first-year student.

The Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Psi filed a $25 million suit against the magazine Nov. 9 in Charlottesville Circuit Court; three fraternity brothers individually filed a defamation suit against the publication in New York federal court in July. Eramo was the first to file, in May.

Eramo grew increasingly frustrated and “overwhelmed” as UVa’s Grounds roiled in the immediate aftermath of the article’s publication, emails obtained through an open records request show.

Prohibited from contacting Erdely by communication officials and swamped with media requests for comment, Eramo asked UVa officials 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.

The week the article was published online, Eramo suggested sending a brief statement to media outlets referencing the story’s “mischaracterizations” of her.

As questions arose surrounding the account’s veracity, she urged communications officials to “strike while that iron is hot.”

The administration did not openly contest elements of Jackie’s story in the immediate dust-up as broader conversations about campus sexual assault unfolded.

The nationwide debate that ensued at times became overshadowed by revelations about the veracity of Erdely’s reporting. In the chaotic interplay between the issue of campus sexual assault and issues with the story, friends and acquaintances of Jackie — some of whom had participated in the story — told media outlets she had offered them different accounts of what happened Sept. 28, 2012.

Eramo’s lawyers say in court filings that accessing information about those discrepancies is critical to their case.

“[Jackie’s] objection that disclosure would intrude upon her ‘privacy’ is meritless,” Clare wrote in an Oct. 30 letter to Pustilnik. “As noted, [Jackie] voluntarily discussed her supposed sexual assault with Rolling Stone magazine knowing full well that this information would be published nationally in a prominent publication.”

Eramo has agreed to withhold Jackie’s last name from court filings at Pustilnik’s request, her attorneys say, in an attempt “to cooperate in good faith.”
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/19/still-healing-a-year-after-u-va-rape-on-campus.html


Liz Seccuro

IT GETS BETTER11.19.151:00 AM ET
Still Healing a Year After U-VA ‘Rape on Campus’

I defended Jackie’s story when it was published, because the same thing happened to me at U-VA 30 years ago.
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On November 19, 2014, I was nervous, because I knew it was imminent: a long-form article in Rolling Stone magazine about campus sexual assault. The focus was on an alleged 2012 gang rape at the Phi Kappa Psi house at the University of Virginia, an echo of the same thing that happened to me there in October of 1984.

I was in my kitchen when the phone rang at approximately 6:30 pm. It was Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the article’s author, who I had worked closely with since July. We had been introduced by RAINN, an anti-sexual assault organization I work with. I was cooking dinner for my young children, but I answered anyway. I knew the call meant that the piece was going live on the web that night or early the next morning.

Our rapport was easy. Sabrina told me that the article should be live by 11:00 pm. She was palpably excited, the months of research finally paying off. We talked about the media attention, the way the public would view it, the social media firestorm. I had not seen the article, but knew from our many conversations, emails, and texts that it would be a game-changing exposé. A story like mine, but 30 years later.

Sabrina only had a few minutes to speak, and as we wrapped up, she asked me if I wouldn’t mind talking to “Jackie,” the story’s central figure. So that was her name. Sabrina had asked me via email in September, and tonight, she repeated the request. I agreed heartily. What are the odds of meeting someone whose dark moment was nearly identical to your own? Was she prepared for the intense media scrutiny? Jackie was excited but nervous, Sabrina told me. She was glad her story was going to be told.

From Sabrina Rubin Erdely on 9/19/14:

P.S. After this article comes out, if it’s OK with you, I’d really love to connect you with the main girl in my article, who’s still at U-VA. I think she’d gain a lot from connecting with someone who survived such a similar experience, and to know that “it gets better.” She’s so strong and courageous but having a hard time dealing, as you might imagine.


The problem, Sabrina explained, was that Jackie “could not see a life for herself past her 30th birthday.” I understood. I hung up the phone with a sadness for this faceless young woman. She quite obviously didn’t know how intense the media would be if she was happy to have her story see the light of day.

My kingdom for a meeting with this woman, I thought. My kingdom for just five minutes, to look into her eyes.

But that was not to be.

“A Rape on Campus” did indeed post online on November 19, 2014, and in the Dave Grohl-covered hard copy, dated December 4, 2014. Reaction was swift, earth shattering, and everything Sabrina thought it would be. My quotes, used to provide context and color, were but a tiny fraction of the extensive piece. I didn’t need to read it—I had spent hours talking with the author and I knew what the article contained.

A week after publishing, fraternities at U-VA were shut down amidst protests. There was a sense of pain and hopelessness about rape culture in general, and pain for Jackie in particular.

But the tide quickly shifted, then bowled us over with wave after punishing wave. One by one, my fellow journalists discovered cracks in the narrative. Richard Bradley was the first, followed by a polarizing piece by Jonah Goldberg at the National Review. Meghan Daum of the Los Angeles Times was more thoughtful. Slate’s Hanna Rosin and her colleague Alison Benedikt did some great work.

When the article was retracted that chilly Friday afternoon, I ran to the powder room near my office and vomited.

Many didn’t believe a story so horrible could happen. Some interviewed Sabrina hoping for answers, as Rosin and Benedikt did. Most didn’t think such a thing could happen on a modern college campus. I believed, because the exact thing did happen to me, so I defended the piece. I was wrong.

Finally, Erik Wemple and T. Rees Shapiro of the Washington Post interviewed Jackie. They chipped away at her story, bit by bit, until it completely unraveled. The end result? An apology from Rolling Stone’s managing editor, Will Dana, which basically blamed Jackie. After a furious backlash, he amended the apology to say it was the fault of Rolling Stone and its journalistic processes.

When the article was retracted that chilly Friday afternoon, I ran to the powder room near my office and vomited. My work was ruined, the work of all who fight against sexual violence was invalidated, and many quarterbacking journalists, caring not so much about victims, were seemingly glorifying the whole “gotcha!” aspect of discrediting Rolling Stone.

A year later, beyond the journalistic train wreck, where are we now? Careers were destroyed, investigations stalled, lawsuits filed, rape victims disheartened, and rape apologists bolstered in their beliefs that most women who report sexual assaults are liars.

So much of what was in that now-retracted article was right. You cannot convince me for one moment that Rolling Stone ever set out to perpetuate a hoax on the American public. They’ve done too much good journalism. Sabrina was dazzled by a story that was supported by mine, and her editors, both male, did not want to question the way a supposed rape victim was interviewed. I get it. We all fell prey to a yarn woven by Jackie, a troubled, possibly mentally ill woman who, perhaps, wanted to win the attentions of a young man who was a classmate by telling this tale for sympathy and love.

I’ve received hundreds of emails from students at the University of Virginia and other schools about the shoddy treatment they received in the wake of reporting their sexual assaults. There is a reason that, when the article came out, people on Grounds (which is what campus is called at U-VA) as well as alumni nodded their collective heads, saying, “Yep, I can totally see that happening–wondering why it took this long to expose.” But few people read past the grafs detailing Jackie’s alleged assault to understand the long-standing culture of sexual violence at U-VA.

Yes, Phi Kappa Psi, you are absolutely a victim of shoddy journalism, but gang rape has indeed occurred in your house.

In May, U-VA Associate Dean Nicole Eramo filed a suit for $7.5 million against Rolling Stone and Sabrina Rubin Erdely for what she claims is a false and damaging portrayal of her in the piece. In April, rumblings of a lawsuit coming from Phi Kappa Psi started, beginning with former U-VA Alpha PKP Chapter President Steve Scipione’s bold statements:

"It's completely tarnished our reputation… It's completely destroyed a semester of our lives, specifically mine. It's put us in the worst position possible in our community here, in front of our peers and in the classroom."

"Clearly our fraternity and its members have been defamed, but more importantly we fear this entire episode may prompt some victims to remain in the shadows, fearful to confront their attackers...If Rolling Stone wants to play a real role in addressing this problem, it's time to get serious."

On November 9 of this year, Phi Kappa Psi did what everyone expected and sued the magazine for $25 million. Additionally, three individuals who were members of the fraternity at the time of publication also sued. They’ll probably win. Why? Because Rolling Stone didn’t use best practices.

Phi Kappa Psi’s astounding 300-plus page filing is full of “we care about women” and “we would never do such a thing” tropes.

From page 6 of the complaint: “Rape is a brutal and heinous crime, and sexual assault on American campuses must not be tolerated; however, serious public discourse about sexual assault is not served by the intentional publication of a lurid and horrific story…” A story that mirrors what happened to me 30 years ago.

From Page 10: “Of Phi Kappa Psi’s 1600 initiates, many have contributed generously to the University of Virginia financially and through service. Several alumni have served U-VA on the Board of Visitors and in other capacities of significance to the University.” Yes, yes, money and connections.

In my experience, Phi Kappa Psi National is an organization with mastery in wordsmithing and parsing of language. They told various members of the media, even in the aftermath of “A Rape on Campus,” that the three suspects in my case were not Phi Kappa Psi brothers. They said that William Beebe, the man who pled guilty to aggravated sexual assault, was merely “renting a room” from the fraternity. So explain this part of the suit:

From page 14: “The Article’s account of Jackie’s rape was graphic and detailed. It precisely identified the location of the rape as an upstairs bedroom in the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity House. Upstairs bedrooms at the Phi Kappa Psi House were leased to and occupied only by Phi Kappa Psi brothers. Any reader would understand the bedroom in the Article as belonging to a Phi Kappa Psi brother…”

I have a photograph in the now defunct University of Virginia yearbook, titled “Corks and Curls,” of all three of my alleged rapists in the official Phi Kappa Psi photograph. These aren’t just people “who rented rooms.” How many fraternities rent rooms to non-brother strangers? I’d guess none.

On page 31 of the complaint: “There has never been a situation quite like Jackie’s narrative at Phi Kappa Psi, either thirty years ago or in any time since Phi Kappa Psi’s founding at the University of Virginia.” Except mine.

On pages 41-42 of the complaint, additionally: “Prior to the publication of the Articles attached as Exhibits A and B, Phi Kappa Psi, a private figure, enjoyed an excellent reputation in the Charlottesville and U-VA communities. Contrary to Rolling Stone’s suggestion and implication, the fraternity had never been publicly identified as an institution with a culture of rape, gang-rape, or sexual assault.”

This is laughably inaccurate. As much as Phi Psi tries, they cannot wish me away or lie about an actual investigation, court process, jail term, and memoir—not to mention international media coverage for a year after my assault.

An entire police department, court system, and publishing house legal department agreed that my rape happened at Phi Psi 30 years ago. Every member of the fraternity that could be accounted for was interviewed by Charlottesville Police during the investigation. Two brothers were brought before a Grand Jury, each pleading the Fifth Amendment on every single question. William Beebe, a Phi Kappa Psi, went to jail for his part in my sexual assault. His defense attorneys uncovered the gang rape via their personal investigator and offered me the file for $30,000.

Yes, Phi Kappa Psi, you are absolutely a victim of shoddy journalism, but gang rape has indeed occurred in your house.

My own experience with Phi Kappa Psi corporate came after William Beebe’s preliminary hearing in 2006, where I testified about the events of my rape at the fraternity. After exhaustedly walking back to then-Commonwealth’s Attorney Claude Worrell’s office, my husband Mike and I were told that the Executive Office of Phi Kappa Psi had called. I assumed this meant he was offering an apology. “No,” said Worrell. “They want to know if you are going to sue Phi Kappa Psi.” I did not.

On September 21 of this year, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) entered into a resolution with the University of Virginia that basically states that the school handled sexual assault improperly, created a “hostile environment” for victims, and violated several federal rules and guidelines, including Title IX. For the first time, there is an acknowledgement that the University has not treated sexual assault victims on campus properly, or in accordance with DOE rules and Title IX requirements. Never has there been this sort of admission on the University’s part. Now a third party, the U.S. government, will enforce and monitor the changes that I and many others have been advocating for years at U-VA. Hopefully, other campuses will follow based on this model.

The University fought mightily to influence the findings of the federal investigation, a move which most people found right and just. Yes, we should absolutely be certain that fairness and due process is given to U-VA during this investigation. But what of the fairness and due process given to victims?

I’ve grown up a great deal in the eight years I’ve been working for justice for sexual assault and domestic violence victims, and especially in the year since Jackie’s story crumbled. What I perceived as my own greater sense of pain and persecution is gone. I am much more concerned with the broader issues of gender violence and why we simply cannot come to agree on some basic human truths. I’ve come to understand that we live in a country that at best, deeply misunderstands—and at worst, hates—women, and allows expression of that hate to be the norm.

Rape apologists and Men’s’ Rights Activists (MRAs) try to point to cases like mine as extreme outliers, but that’s not the case. The CDC reports that 19.3 percent of women will be victims of rape, defined as "completed forced penetration," "attempted forced penetration" or "completed alcohol- or drug-facilitated penetration." Thanks to Rolling Stone, now MRAs get to yell louder, dragging rape victims in the comments sections and on Twitter. They’ve always been there, but they have a bigger podium and a louder mic now.

The issue of sexual assault should not be something we fight about; we should all be united in agreeing it’s horrible. How is this not already a reality?

I’m so grateful that I get to go to work each day writing and speaking about gender violence at colleges, universities, and law firms, to women’s groups, sports teams, and law enforcement. It really is a joy to partner with the great people I do and guide each other as we figure out how to help victims, protect everyone’s rights, and treat each other with compassion. That’s the job. It’s not to sensationalize rape culture or whip everyone into hysterics. We’re past that. Most people I work for understand that Rolling Stone’s story was a disaster. They’ve brushed it off as a fluke, and so should all of us. But the problem of sexual violence is real.

Lately, I’ve been reflective about all that has happened since July of last year, when I first spoke to Sabrina. I’m not angry anymore. My journey is more global and compassionate, and yes, professional in its nature. I’m still impassioned about what I do. But recently, I had a moment where something that had been growing creepily in my soul started pushing itself out much more forcefully than before. I had to acknowledge it before it suffocated me.

Jackie stole my story. She told it as her own.

It’s deeply injurious and personal to think that someone lied, using the worst event of your life to do so. I’m the only person who can stand here and explain that kind of pain. Not Phi Kappa Psi, not U-VA, not Rolling Stone, not Sabrina Rubin Erdely, not Jackie.

The University of Virginia never uttered a word of regret for what happened to me, but on the public record, they apologized to Jackie, who Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner called “a really expert fabulist storyteller.”

It took the advice of friends and strangers alike to help me through that darkness. It was as deep as an ocean, and as wide. I couldn’t fathom how someone would want to go public with such a tale. Whenever I meet someone new and they ask what I do, can you imagine my awkward answers? They press on, “What’s your book about?” or “What kind of speaking do you do?” or “What do you write about?” I stammer, hedge, then mumble something about my memoir. When completely cornered, I finally blurt it out. Eyes grow wide with recognition about 90 percent of the time: “Oh my God, you’re that woman.”

I’m that woman. Jackie isn’t. I am.

My own experience dealing with gang rape and its aftermath at the University of Virginia was nothing short of disastrous, if not criminal. When colleges and universities systematically lie to and about victims, all of us lose.

Change and healing can begin, but not in a vacuum. We can have bad deans who enjoy the status quo. There can be administrators who possess deeply entrenched cultural biases that prevent them from being able to adequately deal with such crimes. A culture of “look the other way” can endure unless universities are policed from the inside and the outside. What happened to me, and to many others, can happen again, and probably will.

Campuses that care about students as human beings, first and foremost, should be the norm. Colleges can have all the best policies and practices in the world, but must have basic empathy afforded the victims of this most devastating crime. This is, to me, the ultimate outcome of this tragedy and how we should be moving forward.

As for me, I choose to love. I will not allow the bitterness of the past year to rob me of life’s sweetness. The horror of what happened to me, and to so many others, will not take up more space in the journey of my life.

That said, my response to Sabrina’s questions stand. Yes, Jackie, I would like to meet you. In fact, I’m extending my invitation here in the hopes that you will read this. I’ve extended prior invitations and told you I’d be on a plane the minute you agreed to meet with me. So, I’m asking again.

Will you talk with me? The weight has to be lifted. I’d love to hear your real story.

All of us would.

Erdely and Dana did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article. [/s]
Edited by abb, Nov 19 2015, 05:35 AM.
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http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2015/11/new-platform-sexual-assault-reports

A new platform for survivors to report sexual assault
A year after Rolling Stone, the University should provide better options for survivors to report sexual assault
by Managing Board | Nov 19 2015 | 5 hours ago | Updated 5 hours ago

Today marks the one-year anniversary of “A Rape on Campus,” the now-debunked article by Sabrina Rubin Erdely claiming several members of Phi Kappa Psi gang raped a woman named Jackie. The article generated continuing discussion pertaining to sexual assault on Grounds, with the issue of low reporting rates remaining a focal point. Per a recent Association of American Universities study of 27 schools, about one in four female undergraduates at the University said they had experienced nonconsensual sex or touching since entering college. A majority of those students said that they did not report instances of sexual assault to school officials or support services.

The disparity between the staggering number of female students who experience sexual assault and those who report those assaults results in part from the emotional difficulty of reporting. Sexual Health Innovations, a nonprofit software startup, has developed a digital reporting system for sexual assault survivors to detail their assaults. The online platform known as Callisto saves and time-stamps the report in case survivors decide later on that they would like to provide the information to their school or police. By providing a way for survivors to create a written report immediately after an assault, Callisto presents an effective solution to the sexual assault reporting gap.

Right now, only Pomona College and the University of San Francisco are testing Callisto. U.Va. has invested heavily in student safety over the past year through initiatives such as the Ambassadors program and through modifying our sexual misconduct policy. Administrators should consider adopting Callisto or creating an internal reporting system so survivors at this school will have a better avenue through which they can report an assault.

Current procedures for reporting a sexual assault can be difficult for survivors. Walking into a building open only at certain hours with the uncertainty of who will be there or what they will ask may discourage survivors from reporting, according to Jessica Ladd, the nonprofit’s founder and chief executive. Callisto removes human interaction from the process of reporting an assault. For many, verbally discussing a sexual assault with another person can be traumatizing. An online reporting system also offers the benefit of being very accessible. If University students were to have negative experiences reporting assaults to our school’s administration, then others may be discouraged from reporting. It would be much easier for survivors to record an assault through a program such as Callisto given its digital reach and limited uncertainty compared to an in-person report with a school official.
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Even if survivors ultimately decide not to share their information with school officials or police, Callisto plans to share aggregated data with school administrators. This will allow administrators to discern patterns that would assist in sexual assault prevention efforts. At the University, if such data were collected, it would improve our own prevention efforts by informing us of when, where and under what conditions these assaults occur. Certainly, there are issues inherent to an online reporting system, including a higher likelihood of false reporting; however, the benefits of such a system outweigh the potential for a small number of false reports. Thus, an online sexual assault reporting platform serves not just as a way for survivors to record assaults immediately after they occur, but as a way to analyze trends associated with sexual assault. Such information could be vital to sexual assault prevention efforts on Grounds and at other universities.
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http://americamagazine.org/content/all-things/year-after-rolling-stones-uva-debacle-new-questions-about-free-press-campus


A Year after the Rolling Stone's UVA Debacle, New Questions about Free Press on Campus [1]
Ashley McKinless | Nov 19 2015 - 3:37pm | 0 comments

A year ago today Rolling Stone journalist Sabrina Erdely published the sensational, and now thoroughly discredited, exposé, “A Rape on Campus [2],” which detailed in horrific detail an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia. As I scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed the evening of Nov. 19 I read again and again the same refrain from my fellow UVA alumni: “I am shocked but not surprised.”

To refresh your memories: The piece told the story of a female student, identified only as Jackie, who recounts attending a date party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Her date, an upperclassman, leads her to a bedroom upstairs, where, allegedly, she is thrown on to a glass table and raped by seven men over the course of three hours. The incident ends with a classmate she recognizes from her anthropology class on top of her:

Someone handed her classmate a beer bottle. Jackie stared at the young man, silently begging him not to go through with it. And as he shoved the bottle into her, Jackie fell into a stupor, mentally untethering from the brutal tableau, her mind leaving behind the bleeding body under assault on the floor.

Shocked but not surprised. I have to admit this was my gut reaction as well, which in hindsight seems strange to me. I had attended a couple of parties at Phi Kappa Psi during my first year at the University of Virginia. I was aware of alcohol-fueled hookups, which by today’s standards of affirmative consent, may have passed into the sexual assault grey zone. But ritualized, premeditated gang rape? If I had thought such an atrocity was within the realm of possibility, surely I would not have stepped foot in the place.

And yet when I saw Ms. Erdely’s reporting, I wanted to believe it. Not because I have an axe to grind with fraternities, but because I didn’t want to question the integrity of the victim, whose voices are too often ignored or silenced. And I did not want to question the integrity of the reporter, who no doubt shared my instinct to take Jackie at her word.

Of course, you know what happened next: Other journalists investigated Ms. Erderly’s work, and found she had not interviewed the accused or any of the central witnesses, at the request of Jackie. Slowly, the whole story unraveled. In its wake, a fraternity house was left vandalized, university administrators were defamed and, worst of all, Jackie herself was potentially revictimized, whatever trauma she had experienced exposed to the harsh and unforgiving scrutiny of the media.

This unfortunate saga has been in the back of my mind in recent weeks as I’ve read stories about the role of the media at protests against institutionalized racism on various college campuses. Earlier this month at the University of Missouri, Tim Tai, a freelance journalist for ESPN, was forcibly prevented from taking pictures of a tent city activists had set up on public grounds. In a widely circulated video, an assistant professor of mass media is heard saying, “Who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here!” The activists justified keeping out the media with a statement on Twitter, which read: “We ask for no media in the parameters so the place where people live, fellowship, and sleep can be protected from twisted insincere narratives.” (The group behind the protests, Concerned Student 1950, later reversed course, putting out fliers that read, "The media is important to tell our story and experiences at Mizzou to the world. Let's welcome and thank them.")

On Nov. 18, students at Smith College organized a sit-in of 300 to 500 people in solidarity with the University of Missouri. The news site MassLive reported media coverage was not welcome, at least not in the traditional sense [3]:

Alyssa Mata-Flores, a 21-year-old Smith College senior and one of the sit-in's organizers, explained that the rule was born from "the way that media has historically painted radical black movements as violent and aggressive."

"We are asking that any journalists or press that cover our story participate and articulate their solidarity with black students and students of color," she told MassLive in the Student Center Wednesday. "By taking a neutral stance, journalists and media are being complacent in our fight."

I do not dispute Ms. Mata-Flores’s assertion that the media has at times failed in its coverage of marginalized peoples and movements. Protesters at other schools, including the Jesuit [4]Loyola University Chicago [4], have adopted similar "no media" policies. But the answer to skewed or biased reporting is not less neutrality but more. If the Rolling Stone debacle taught me one thing it was the danger of mixing journalism with advocacy. Ms. Erdely knew that she wanted to shed light on the horrors of sexual assault on campus, and when she found a story that was sure to make headlines, it became too good to fact check. We cannot say definitively that her reporting “hurt the cause” of fighting sexual assualt on campus (some worry that victims’ stories will now be easier to dismiss), but it certainly did not help.

But the institutions and people wronged by the Rolling Stone’s reckless disregard for the facts did not respond by blocking out the media. Rather, it was excellent reporting by The Washington Post [5] and others, as well as an independent report by the Columbia Journalism Review [2], that uncovered the truth. To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, the remedy to bad journalism, is more journalism. At its best, the free press keeps organizations and movements transparent and honest, which in the long run is in their best interests. Today, campus movements for racial justice deserve nothing less.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3324606/I-think-happened-Jackie-friend-girl-center-UVA-rape-storm-speaks-year-gang-attack-claim-ended-fiasco-cost-university-career.html


UVA rape: Friend says he still believes something happened to Jackie
By Ruth Styles In Charlottesville, Virginia, For Dailymail.com

'Jackie's' claim that she had been gang-raped at a University of Virginia frat house created storm when it was published in Rolling Stone
Girl's account fell apart over inconsistencies that forced magazine to admit to failures - including not verifying any of what she said
Now one of her former friends who was dragged into the row has spoken out after being smeared in Rolling Stone for telling her not to report a rape
Ryan Duffin says he has lost contact with friend; he believes 'something' happened to her, although he knows it was not as she recounted
'Jackie' is no longer a UVA student and has lost touch with friends - and could be deposed because of three separate legal cases

Published: 12:14 EST, 20 November 2015 | Updated: 15:35 EST, 20 November 2015

It was the story that shocked America – an 18-year-old girl brutally gang-raped at a University of Virginia fraternity house and then left to suffer the consequences without help from friends or professors.

But within days of A Rape on Campus being published in Rolling Stone magazine last November, the tale began to fall apart with huge holes unearthed in the testimony of 'Jackie', the woman whose claims formed the basis of the story.

Now, almost a year later, one of the students maligned in the article tells Daily Mail Online in an exclusive interview that he is still convinced 'something' did happen to the young woman who was once his friend.

He spoke despite Rolling Stone apologizing for getting their story so wrong and a police investigation which concluded there was no evidence to pursue,

Ryan Duffin, 21, a computer science major from Toana, VA, says that he believes to this day that some of what 'Jackie' had recounted to be true.

Duffin was dragged into the account of the gang rape in Rolling Stone as one of three friends 'Jackie' described she turned to after claiming she was violently assaulted by seven male students at a party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity on the night of September 12.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Quit: 'Jackie', seen in pictures from her social media account, has left UVA, sacrificing three years of college, in the wake of the storm created by her account of what she claimed was a brutal gang rape at a fraternity

Friends: Kathryn Hendley (left), Alex Stock (center) and Ryan Duffin (right) were dragged into the storm because the article claimed the three, who were 'Jackie's' friends, had not wanted her to report the 'rape'

Center of the storm: The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house where 'Jackie' claimed she was gang raped. The fraternity is now suing Rolling Stone for $25 million over the discredited article

'I think the best way to describe it would be that if I looked at all the facts as an outsider, the police saying they have suspended the case for lack of evidence... If I just looked at that objectively then no, I wouldn't believe her,' he told Daily Mail Online.

'But having had the experience of her telling us what happened, the way she has stuck to her guns despite what has come out since - that leaves doubt in my mind.

'I also think it's important to note that "Jackie" absolutely should not be characterized as a villain.'

In the aftermath of the scandal, Daily Mail Online can also reveal that 'Jackie,' who was due to graduate from UVA early next year, has left the school.
'JACKIE'S' DRAMATIC ACCOUNT

'There was a heavy person on top of her, spreading open her thighs, and another person kneeling on her hair, hands pinning down her arms, sharp shards digging into her back, and excited male voices rising all around her.

'When yet another hand clamped over her mouth, Jackie bit it, and the hand became a fist that punched her in the face. The men surrounding her began to laugh.

Describing the moment she supposedly passed out from pain, it continued: 'Someone handed her classmate a beer bottle. Jackie stared at the young man, silently begging him not to go through with it.

'And as he shoved the bottle into her, Jackie fell into a stupor, mentally untethering from the brutal tableau, her mind leaving behind the bleeding body under assault on the floor.'

From Rolling Stone

She is now isolated from her college friends and has even lost touch with school friends in her home town, where she is believed to have spent much of the past year.

And the now 21-year-old has already been dragged into litigation - and faces being deposed over the contentious claims which she made in the pages of Rolling Stone.

The magazine is facing three separate lawsuits. One has been filed by the fraternity where the rape was alleged to have happened. It is seeking $25 million for damages to its reputation.

Three of the fraternity members are suing separately for undefined damages, and UVA's associate dean is also filed suit for $7.5 million.

The cases are slowly unfolding in court, but each of them carries the potential for 'Jackie' to be deposed and asked to give an account of events under oath for the first time.

She is already resisting handing over her emails and texts to Rolling Stone, the Roanoke Times reported.

In Rolling Stone, 'Jackie' claimed that she called Duffin and two other friends after escaping from the fraternity house at 3am and running into the street shoeless and with her 'face beaten' and dress 'splattered with blood'. Pseudonyms were used for the three friends in the magazine.

The article's author, Sabrina Erdely, claimed that after 'Jackie' reached out to the three friends - Duffin (called Randall in the article), Alex Stock ('Andy') and Kathryn Hendley (Cindy) - 'launched into a heated discussion about the social price of reporting Jackie's rape'.

Hendley allegedly said: 'She's gonna be the girl who cried "rape", and we'll never be allowed into any frat party again.'

All three challenged Rolling Stone's accuracy.

Duffin was never even contacted by the magazine to verify any of its information about his involvement.

He tells Daily Mail Online that he was 'confused' by the reported discussion about the 'social price' of speaking up that allegedly followed.

Particularly baffling was a footnote by Erdely in which she claimed to have contacted him for comment but that 'citing his loyalty to his own frat, [he] declined to be interviewed'.

That, says Duffin, was absolutely not the case.

Contentious: The Rolling Stone article which started the storm. It has now been apologized for and investigated by Columbia University's school of journalism

Suing: Fraternity members Stephen Hadford (left) and George Elias (right) have brought their own legal case. 'Jackie' could be deposed in each case and is already fighting attempts to seize her emails and texts

'The article was written to give the impression that we had been contacted prior to its publication when, in fact, we hadn't.'

Duffin, has now lost contact with 'Jackie'. 'I haven't spoken to her since January,' he said.

'After January, her lawyers advised her not to speak to us. I don't know what she's up to now but I hope she is doing well.'

In her home town in northern Virginia, which Daily Mail Online is not identifying, 'Jackie' has been spending time with her family at their smart detached home in an affluent housing development.

Her father declined to comment on her progress, and former high school friends say they have lost touch with her. Other family members elsewhere in the United States declined to comment.

Last year her father spoke only once - to Daily Mail Online - and said he believed that his daughter.

'She told the truth. She did not know the details [of the fraternity] because she had been there [the college] for two weeks and she was 18 years old,' he said.

Instead he directed his anger at Rolling Stone, saying: ‘[The media] crushed my daughter when she is an innocent girl. [The media] crucified her.'

Because of the explosive nature of the article, his daughter became the focus of the media.

And the piece seemed so credible, university authorities ordered a suspension of Greek life at UVA. But after widespread examination of Rolling Stone's account it quickly became apparent that its version of events had significant inaccuracies.

'Jackie' said she recognized one of the fraternity members as a worker at the UVA leisure center. But that element of the story fell apart when the frat proved none of the brothers were employed there.

Alarmingly, the fraternity did not have even a party on that date. Then even more damaging, the three friends went public with their concerns.

Affected: In the immediate aftermath of the story being published, the fraternity house was vandalized and all Greek life was suspended by the university. The fraternity is now suing and demanding 'Jackie's' texts and emails

Personally sued: This is one of the three cases being brought against Rolling Stone and the article's author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely. She still boasts on LinkedIn of her 'armful of awards' but has not been published in a year

Duffin, Alex Stock, 21, from Great Falls, Virginia and Kathryn Hendley, 21, from Alexandria, Virginia, all challenged Rolling Stone's accuracy.

Stock told the Associated Press that while 'Jackie' had appeared 'really upset, really shaken up' on the night in question, she did not look beaten up and was not wearing a bloodied dress as described in Rolling Stone.

He denied that she had named a specific frat house and also said that the allegations that he, Hendley and Duffin had debated the social cost of reporting the rape were completely untrue.

The trio also questioned the existence of 'Drew', the student who allegedly lured 'Jackie' to the frat house that night. They had been unable to find him on social media.

A photo of 'Drew' given to Duffin later turned out to be a classmate from 'Jackie's' high school who 'never really spoke to her' and was away in another state on the night of the alleged assault.

Discredited: The article written by Sabrina Erdely has been withdrawn and errors at every stage before publication identified

The Rolling Stone article was the subject of investigation internally and then by Columbia University, arguably the most prestigious journalism school in the US. It found writer Erderly had failed to conform to 'basic, even routine journalistic practice' inaccuracies at every stage of her reporting.

Its report said that Duffin and his friends had not been treated with 'basic fairness' by Erderly, who did nothing to contact them to seek their side of the story - or even identify who the really were.

Rolling Stone has not dropped Erderly as a contributing editor, although the journalist, who boasts of her 'armful of awards', has not tweeted in almost a year or been published by the magazine since the UVA story.

The magazine's editor-in-chief, Will Dana, left in August as a result of the scandal. Publisher Jann Wenner told New York Times it was a 'conscious uncoupling' and that it was 'very important for us to figure out a way to move on'.

Duffin told Daily Mail Online that much of the bitterness in the wake of the article is still centered not on 'Jackie' but on Rolling Stone. He said he harbors no hard feelings himself.

'I think some students feel some animosity towards Rolling Stone,' he said. 'It's become a bit of a running joke around Grounds [campus] - some people lump Rolling Stone in with other UVA rivals.'

He also said that he was supportive of how the university has reacted to the scandal.

'They introduced a mandatory course on how to help and deal with the victims of sexual assault - that was something the whole school had to do,' he said.

In the aftermath of the publication of Rolling Stone article, pictures from 'Jackie's' past have surfaced,

Police: No evidence to support UVA Rolling Stone rape story

Move on: Ryan Duffin does not want 'Jackie' blamed. 'The investigation conducted by Columbia University makes it pretty clear that the blame for the story should fall squarely on Rolling Stone,' he says

Duffin said he was surprised when reports that Jackie was 'obsessed' with rape emerged, as a result of her extensive postings on social media about sexual assault.

'I never really got that impression,' he said. 'It came as a surprise. There was nothing to indicate she had any sort of obsession.

'However, I also recognize that I don't know much about her life prior to college - I only knew her for a small portion of her life.'

'Jackie's' future life has yet to play out, but Duffin said he hopes she will be able to overcome what happened to her and move on.

He also said she should not be blamed for the furor that ensued after the Rolling Stone piece was published and places the responsibility for any upset squarely at the feet of the magazine.

'The investigation conducted by Columbia University makes it pretty clear that the blame for the story should fall squarely on Rolling Stone,' he said.

'There were so many opportunities during the fact-checking process to realize that the claims made in the article weren't substantiated, and every single one of those opportunities was squandered.

'Many people worry that the backlash from this article will make survivors of sexual assault less likely to seek help when they need it for fear of not being believed.

'The story of the Rolling Stone article is an outlier in what remains a very real, very serious issue, and people still need to treat it as such.'
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These people always have a friend who believe them. No different than VP believing CGM got boinked at a frat party....or was it the baseball team? Someone with a mustache?
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https://reason.com/blog/2015/12/01/one-year-after-rolling-stones-uva-rape-d?utm_campaign=naytev&utm_content=565dbdd9e4b0e9e970230b5b


One Year After Rolling Stone’s UVA Rape Debacle, Fabulists Still Fool the Media
Members of the media were wrong to believe Jackie. They're wrong to believe The Hunting Ground, too.

Robby Soave|Dec. 1, 2015 10:30 am

UVAUVAIt has now been a little more than a year since Rolling Stone published Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s infamous, false story about a horrific gang rape at the University of Virginia. Rolling Stone is being sued by characters who were misrepresented in the story, Erdely has ceased writing, and the source of all the trouble, UVA student “Jackie,” has joined the ranks of Crystal Mangum and Tawana Brawley as a known fabricator of rape accusations.

Jackie’s story is routinely cited as one of the most spectacular failures of journalism in the last decade—it’s a veritable what-not-to-do-guide for reporters covering sensitive subjects, according to the Columbia University School of Journalism.

But if anti-rape activists, politicians, and media figures are aware of the enormity of Jackie’s lies, they show no signs that they have absorbed the right lessons. In fact, the movement to curb sexual assault on college campuses is still beholden to fabulists—fabulists whose lies may be less obvious than Jackie’s, but are equally damaging to the ultimate cause of reducing rape on campus while safeguarding students’ due process rights.

Exactly one year ago today, I penned an article, “Is the UVA Rape Story a Gigantic Hoax?” It was my third attempt to grapple with Rolling Stone’s then-recently published expose on a culture of indifference toward rape at UVA; my first two articles had presumed the central accusation—a woman named Jackie had been gang raped by seven members of the Phi Psi fraternity during a fall 2012 party—was true, and focused on ways to reduce campus violence. My third article expressed misgivings about the veracity of Jackie’s claims, citing Worth editor Richard Bradley, another early skeptic. This article was initially criticized for bluntly questioning a self-described survivor of sexual assault, but was almost immediately vindicated as Jackie’s credibility collapsed over the next several days. (I eventually won a 2014 Southern California Journalism Award for my commentary on the subject.)

It’s difficult to overstate the extent to which Rolling Stone’s preferred narrative about campus rape took precedence over the actual facts. Erdely’s expose was intended as an exploration of the kinds of violence and institutional failures college-aged women are forced to deal with incessantly, but the author found a wholly unrepresentative story—Jackie’s—and made it the centerpiece of the article.

Indeed, one of the first details in Jackie’s recounting of her ordeal is the thing that instantly struck me as false: Jackie claimed that she had not been drinking at the time of the attack. According to the version of events she recounted to Erdely, Jackie dumped her drink before letting her date—a lifeguard named Haven Monahan—lure her to an upstairs bedroom at the Phi Psi house, where half a dozen brothers waited to rape her. Most college sexual assault disputes take place against a backdrop of incapacitation-inducing alcohol and/or drug abuse; fully lucid victims are an incredible rarity. Equally astonishing was the notion that Phi Psi’s vicious assault was elaborately premeditated, ritualistic in nature, and involved numerous co-conspirators—young sociopaths who would perpetrate such horrific crimes over and over again, until they were caught.

We now know, of course, that Jackie’s story as depicted in the pages of Rolling Stone is a lie. There was no party on the night in question. Haven Monahan does not exist. Jackie created him out of thin air presumably to trick her friends into thinking she had a boyfriend, and went to elaborate lengths to maintain the deception. As Cathy Young wrote in Reason:

It's not simply that there was no party at Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity named by Jackie, anywhere near the time when she said she was attacked. It's not simply that her account changed from forced oral sex to vaginal rape and from five assailants to seven, or that her friends saw no sign of her injuries after the alleged assault. What clinches the case is the overwhelming proof that "Drew," Jackie's date who supposedly orchestrated her rape, was Jackie's own invention.

Is it possible that someone sexually assaulted Jackie on the night when she claimed to be going out with her fictional suitor? Theoretically, yes. But it's also clear that her credibility is as non-existent as "Haven Monahan."

But the problem is not merely that Jackie lied. By allowing herself to be duped, Erdely gave readers the false impression that Jackie’s rape was emblematic of the situation faced by young women on college campuses. But the vast majority of campus sexual assaults do not involve villains as obvious and psychopathically depraved as Jackie’s rapists.

That’s why it has been so disheartening to see activists and media fully embrace The Hunting Ground, a purported documentary on campus sexual assault that embraces many of the core tenets of Erdely’s erroneous reporting. For one thing, filmmakers significantly distorted the cases of accused rapists Brandon Winston and Jameis Winston, whose alleged victims provide much of the film’s substance. For another, the movie commits to the idea that most campus rapists are, like the monsters in Jackie’s story, serial predators. But the integrity of the science behind the serial predator theory has been fundamentally misrepresented by its most important devotee, Dr. David Lisak, according to a detailed investigation conducted by Reason contributor Linda LeFauve.

Indeed, both Winstons are implied to be serial predators who drug their victims—even though no evidence that the accusers were actually drugged has ever surfaced. It’s not even totally clear, upon careful review of the facts, that the two men are guilty of anything other than ill-advised, drunken sex.

Are campuses home to some serial predators? Certainly. But they are also home to a great many young men and women who don’t practice good consent norms, drink recklessly, and have sex under confusing circumstances. There are a great many victims of sexual assault on college campuses (though not as many as is commonly believed), and yet activists and government policymakers keep giving a platform to the serial exaggerators and outright liars.

A movement that wants to promote safe, consensual sex on college campuses simply must do a better job weeding out fabulists if it hopes to inspire support for its cause. Unfortunately, the activists’ call to “believe all victims”—a sentiment recently echoed by Hillary Clinton of all people—is clearly getting in the way.

Those who believed Jackie were wrong to do so, and a year later, they are still fooling themselves.

(I reached out to Erdely through a mutual contact. She declined to be interviewed for this article.)
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http://www.roanoke.com/news/education/higher_education/motion-in-uva-dean-s-lawsuit-concerning-rolling-stone-article/article_6919cb95-351f-5b78-a2bd-2803f6aad239.html


Motion in UVa dean's lawsuit concerning Rolling Stone article to be heard in Charlottesville, judge rules

By Dean Seal The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress | Posted: Friday, December 4, 2015 9:33 pm

Nicole Eramo

ALEXANDRIA — A motion to force a former University of Virginia student to comply with requests in a nearly $8 million defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone will be taken up in Charlottesville, a federal judge in Alexandria ruled Friday.

Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis said matters in the suit brought by Nicole Eramo, the UVa associate dean alleging she was painted as the “villain” of the magazine’s now-retracted story “A Rape on Campus,” should be heard by the presiding judge in the jurisdiction handling the majority of the suit.

Thereby, Davis deferred a ruling on the motion to compel “Jackie,” the anonymous student whose heavily scrutinized account of a 2012 gang rape at a UVa fraternity house party served as the centerpiece for the story, to turn over her correspondence with the story’s author and the magazine to Eramo’s attorneys.

Eramo’s attorneys also seek emails and social media postings Jackie made in reference to being a victim of sexual assault at the university, as well as communications about the alleged assault between Jackie, her friends and members of a support group for survivors of sexual assault.

In May, Eramo filed a $7.5 million suit against the magazine and the story’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, saying that the debunked story portrayed her, an associate dean of students in charge of aiding sexual assault survivors, as uncaring and ineffective in helping Jackie pursue justice against her alleged attackers.

The original complaint said the story and subsequent statements made by Erdely and the magazine are “defamatory per se because they attribute to Dean Eramo unfitness to perform the duties of her profession, and foreseeably would hurt Dean Eramo in her profession.”

UVa has expressed support for Eramo’s suit, which is one of three filed against Rolling Stone and Erdely this year in the wake of the article’s retraction.

In July, Eramo’s attorneys asked Jackie to turn over her correspondence related to the story, but Jackie’s attorney, Palma Pustilnik, responded in an opposing motion that the requests were overly broad, and that disclosing the communications would violate Jackie’s “privacy and dignity.”

But none of those matters were taken up in court Friday. Davis agreed with a motion by Jackie’s attorneys to have the matter taken up in federal court in Charlottesville, where the rest of the case is being tried. While Eramo’s attorneys tried to argue the point, Davis responded that having the matter taken up in a jurisdiction closer to Jackie was intended to “not unduly burden” her by taking it up in Charlottesville. Because she moved to have it transferred to Charlottesville, it was clear Jackie “didn’t care about that burden.”

Davis added that he had “absolutely no clue” about the case outside of its news coverage, that it was “more appropriate” for a Charlottesville judge to rule on it, and that the matter was the most “hotly contested” motion to compel he had ever seen.

A date has not yet been set for when the motion will be taken up .
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis said matters in the suit brought by Nicole Eramo, the UVa associate dean alleging she was painted as the “villain” of the magazine’s now-retracted story “A Rape on Campus,” should be heard by the presiding judge in the jurisdiction handling the majority of the suit.


For some odd reason (can't imagine why) I now tend to smell a rat when judges combine issues or force the venue
to be in one jurisdiction.

Probably there are reasons for this; but once burned, twice shy...


(And if my confidence in the judicial system has been lowered, the judiciary have only themselves to blame...)

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Quasimodo
Dec 5 2015, 09:14 AM
Quote:
 
Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis said matters in the suit brought by Nicole Eramo, the UVa associate dean alleging she was painted as the “villain” of the magazine’s now-retracted story “A Rape on Campus,” should be heard by the presiding judge in the jurisdiction handling the majority of the suit.


For some odd reason (can't imagine why) I now tend to smell a rat when judges combine issues or force the venue
to be in one jurisdiction.

Probably there are reasons for this; but once burned, twice shy...


(And if my confidence in the judicial system has been lowered, the judiciary have only themselves to blame...)

I've seen in person a couple of "judicial economy" rulings. Basically, they are mechanisms for lazy judges and prosecutors to move cases through the system faster. Got to keep the money machine turning over, doncha know.
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http://www.c-ville.com/privileged-privacy-rolling-stone-lawsuits-continue-jackie-remains-unnamed/#.Vmqc279Ni7Q

Privileged to privacy?: As Rolling Stone lawsuits continue, ‘Jackie’ remains unnamed
Cara Salpini
12/09/15 at 7:00 AM

In the aftermath of a discredited Rolling Stone story about a gang rape that shook UVA students and faculty and spawned three lawsuits against the magazine and the author of the article, the woman at the center of the controversy, “Jackie,” remains unnamed in the media and in legal documents.

University of Virginia Associate Dean of Students Nicole Eramo, who says the piece cast her as the “chief villain” of the story and accused her of discouraging sexual assault victims from reporting rape, filed a $7.5 million defamation suit against Rolling Stone and reporter Sabrina Erdely in May, and has reportedly waited four months for Jackie, the alleged victim of the story, to turn over communications records.

Eramo’s lawyers requested access to several of Jackie’s communications in July, including all of those that make reference to herself as a sexual assault victim at UVA, as well as her correspondence with Rolling Stone and Erdely. After Jackie didn’t comply, Eramo filed a motion to compel her to turn over the communications.

In a hearing over the motion held in Alexandria December 4, the judge deferred a decision on the motion until it could be taken up in Charlottesville by the presiding judge on the case. Jackie’s lawyer, Palma Pustilnik, fought disclosing this information, saying that turning over these communications would be a breach of her client’s privacy. She is also filing a motion opposing the subpoena on the grounds that Jackie was not a named party in the lawsuit.

According to legal expert David Heilberg, though, the subpoena is valid whether Jackie is a party in the lawsuit. “Any third party that has relevant records to the case, you can get,” he says. Heilberg also disagrees with Pustilnik’s claim to privacy, saying neither Jackie nor Erdely has the right to privacy where this information is concerned.

“I don’t think there’s any claim to privacy in a civil suit of this kind,” Heilberg says. “Neither right to privacy nor journalistic privilege are strong enough to keep [Eramo’s lawyers] from getting the information they need.”

Communications between Jackie and her lawyer are private, says Heilberg. However, because the requested communications are primarily between Jackie and the magazine, this same privacy does not apply. “With a reporter,” he explains, “there is no such privilege.”

In a case with so many claiming harm from Jackie’s account, the question remains why she continues to go unnamed in legal procedures and the media. Edward Wasserman, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and a media ethics expert, says it is a “tradition” of media organizations to leave out the names of sexual assault victims whether their account has been proven accurate.

“The standards that courts use in determining guilt or innocence are not the same as finding out whether or not someone was treated to degrading behavior,” Wasserman explains. “Behavior that, if her name was revealed, she may receive harm or shame from.”

Rolling Stone’s failure to adequately scrutinize Jackie’s allegations was “the most egregious misconduct” in the case, not Jackie’s partial or complete fabrication of the events, says Wasserman.

“In a perverse way, Rolling Stone was the enabler of this,” Wasserman says. “If they had done their job, we wouldn’t be having this conversation of whether or not to expose the woman.”

While from a legal standpoint Wasserman believes there is not much reason to conceal Jackie’s identity, especially considering the misinformation she gave to Rolling Stone, he raises the question of what purpose exposing her would serve.

“There is a context here; we don’t really know how much of what this woman told the reporter was true,” Wasserman says. “But there’s something about it that suggests that this is a very troubled person who’s probably been victimized at some point who stands to be harmed, perhaps needlessly, by exposure.”

C-VILLE Weekly has chosen not to release Jackie’s name at this time because we do not name victims of sexual assault.
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Dec 11 2015, 04:56 AM
http://www.c-ville.com/privileged-privacy-rolling-stone-lawsuits-continue-jackie-remains-unnamed/#.Vmqc279Ni7Q

Privileged to privacy?: As Rolling Stone lawsuits continue, ‘Jackie’ remains unnamed
Cara Salpini
12/09/15 at 7:00 AM

[...] In a case with so many claiming harm from Jackie’s account, the question remains why she continues to go unnamed in legal procedures and the media. Edward Wasserman, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and a media ethics expert, says it is a “tradition” of media organizations to leave out the names of sexual assault victims whether their account has been proven accurate.

“The standards that courts use in determining guilt or innocence are not the same as finding out whether or not someone was treated to degrading behavior,” Wasserman explains. “Behavior that, if her name was revealed, she may receive harm or shame from.”
Yeah "someone was treated to degrading behavior” that created "harm or shame.”
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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rolling-stone-asks-judge-dismiss-lawsuit-over-debunked-uva-rape-n485401

Rolling Stone Asks Judge to Dismiss Lawsuit Over Debunked UVA Rape Article
by Phil Helsel

Attorneys representing Rolling Stone magazine on Wednesday filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought over a since-retracted article that alleged a sexual assault at a University of Virginia frat house.

The motion seeks to dismiss a suit brought by three graduates of the university who claim the article resulted in them being identified in online posts as the attackers detailed in the story and damaged their reputations.

The magazine's attorneys argued in court documents that the article, titled "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA," didn't identify anyone portrayed in the alleged assault by name or describe them physically, and that they can't claim to have been identified just by their affiliation with the frat.

"No reasonable reader would understand from the article and the proffered extrinsic evidence that plaintiffs are identified as the perpetrators," the attorneys wrote.

The Rolling Stone article published in November of 2014 detailed an alleged brutal gang rape of a UVA student named "Jackie" at a fraternity house, and sparked widespread outrage.

But questions were quickly raised about the validity of the account, and Rolling Stone eventually retracted the article by April. Charlottesville police also said they found no evidence that the attack described occurred.

In their lawsuit, the three graduates say that details of the account given by "Jackie" could lead a reader to narrow down the graduation years of those allegedly involved, and other details could lead one to surmise they were among the alleged attackers.

The suit says they were humiliated and mocked after they were presumed to be among those involved in the purported assault, and that their names "will forever be associated with the alleged gang rape."

The fraternity has sued Rolling Stone for $25 million. University of Virginia Associate Dean of Students Nicole Eramo, who was portrayed in the article, has also filed a $7.8 million lawsuit.
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