{"id":104020,"date":"2016-08-21T18:22:31","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T02:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=104020"},"modified":"2016-09-02T20:17:18","modified_gmt":"2016-09-03T04:17:18","slug":"a-rape-on-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=104020","title":{"rendered":"A Rape On Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wikipedia<\/a>: “A Rape on Campus<\/b>” is a now-retracted<\/a> Rolling Stone<\/a><\/i> article by Sabrina Erdely<\/a> originally published on November 19, 2014, which claimed to describe a group sexual assault at the University of Virginia<\/a> (UVA). It has since been discredited and was retracted by the publisher on April 5, 2015. The article claimed that several members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity<\/a> at UVA had raped a woman, identified only as Jackie in the article, during a chapter house party as part of an initiation rite. After other journalists investigated the article’s claims and found significant discrepancies, Rolling Stone<\/i> issued multiple apologies for the story. Subsequent investigation prompted by lawsuits surrounding the story revealed that the entire ‘rape’ was a fabrication made by Jackie who created the identity of the alleged UVA attacker “Haven Monahan”.<\/p>\n

The Columbia Journalism Review<\/a><\/i> called the story “this year’s media-fail sweepstakes”[1]<\/a><\/sup> and the Poynter Institute<\/a> named it as the “Error of the Year” in journalism.[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

At the request of Rolling Stone<\/i> publisher Jann S. Wenner<\/a>, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism<\/a> agreed to audit the editorial processes that led up to the publication of the story.[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

On January 12, 2015, Charlottesville Police Department officials told the University that “their investigation has not revealed any substantive basis to confirm that the allegations raised in the Rolling Stone article occurred at Phi Kappa Psi…so there’s no reason to keep [the students] suspended.”[4]<\/a><\/sup>[5]<\/a><\/sup>[6]<\/a><\/sup> On January 30, 2015, UVA President Teresa Sullivan<\/a> acknowledged that the Rolling Stone<\/i> story was discredited.[7]<\/a><\/sup> Charlottesville Police officially suspended their four-month investigation on March 23, 2015, stating, “there is no substantive basis to support the account alleged in the Rolling Stone article.”[8]<\/a><\/sup> In light of the findings, Erik Wemple<\/a> of The Washington Post<\/a><\/i> pronounced the story “a complete crock”.[9]<\/a><\/sup> In the Columbia Journalism Review<\/a><\/i>, Bill Grueskin called the story “a mess \u2014 thinly sourced, full of erroneous assumptions, and plagued by gaping holes in the reporting.”[10]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

On April 5, 2015, Rolling Stone<\/i> retracted the article and published the independent report by the Columbia University School of Journalism on the publication’s history.[11]<\/a><\/sup>[12]<\/a><\/sup> The report determined that the magazine exhibited confirmation bias<\/a> and failed to perform basic fact checking by relying excessively on the accuser’s account without verifying it through other means.[11]<\/a><\/sup>[12]<\/a><\/sup> It also found a failure in journalistic standards by either not making contact with the people they were publishing derogatory information about, or when they did, by not providing enough context for people to be able to offer a meaningful response.[12]<\/a><\/sup> The report also states that the article misled readers with quotes where attribution was unclear and used pseudonyms<\/a> inappropriately as a way to address these shortcomings.[12]<\/a><\/sup> The report also points out that Rolling Stone<\/i> staff were initially unwilling to recognize these deficiencies and denied a need for policy changes.[12]<\/a><\/sup> UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo<\/a>, the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, and several fraternity members filed lawsuits<\/a> against Erdely and Rolling Stone<\/i>.<\/p>\n

On November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone<\/a><\/i> published the now retracted article by Sabrina Rubin Erdely<\/a> entitled, “A Rape on Campus,” about an alleged gang rape of a University of Virginia<\/a> (UVA) student, identified only as Jackie in the article, by members of the UVA Phi Kappa Psi fraternity<\/a> during a chapter house party in 2012 as part of a hazing<\/a> ritual.[13]<\/a><\/sup> For anonymity, Erdely only used Jackie’s first name and gave pseudonyms to other students discussed in the story.[14]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

According to Los Angeles Times<\/i> columnist Jonah Goldberg’s summary of the story, on September 28, 2012, Jackie, a freshman at UVA, went to a party at the Phi Kappa Psi house after a dinner date with a member of the fraternity, “Drew,” a junior at UVA. He brought her to a dark bedroom upstairs where allegedly, “a heavy person jumps on top of her. A hand covers her mouth. Someone gets between her legs. Someone else kneels on her hair. And for the next three hours she’s brutally raped and beaten, with Drew and another upperclassman supposedly shouting out instructions to the pledges, referring to Jackie as ‘it.'” According to Goldberg, “It is an account of a sober, well-planned gang rape by seven fraternity pledges at the direction of two members.”[15]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

After leaving the party around 3 AM, allegedly with bruises and blood stained clothes, Jackie called her three best friends, “Andy,” “Randall” and “Cindy,” for support.[16]<\/a><\/sup> In Rolling Stone’<\/i>s version, Jackie’s friends discouraged her from going to the hospital to protect her reputation and because Andy and Randall planned to rush fraternities and worried their association with Jackie might hurt their chances if she reported it.[15]<\/a><\/sup> Erdely wrote that Randall wasn’t friends with Jackie anymore and, “citing his loyalty to his own frat, declined to be interviewed.”[14]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Jackie’s academic performance reportedly declined and she became socially withdrawn due to emotional distress. In May 2013, Jackie reported a sexual assault to dean and head of UVA’s Sexual Misconduct Board, Nicole Eramo, who, according to a recap in New York Magazine<\/i>, offered three options: “file a criminal complaint with the police, file a complaint with the school, or face her attackers with Eramo present to tell them how she feels.”[14]<\/a><\/sup> The university would not take further action unless Jackie disclosed the names of the individuals or the fraternity involved. In September 2013, Eramo connected Jackie with Emily Renda, a UVA staff member, recent graduate and leader in the college’s sexual assault support group One Less.[17]<\/a><\/sup> Two years later, in search of a college student to feature in a story about sexual assaults at an elite university, Erdely interviewed Renda who suggested Jackie for the story and made the introduction.[18]<\/a><\/sup>[15]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

>Within hours of the article’s publication, UVA president Teresa Sullivan had called the governor’s chief of staff and the Charlottesville police chief to start preparing a response. She said her initial reaction was surprise and “a certain air of disbelief” because during her 44-minute interview for the story, Erdely never brought up Jackie or asked about any of the allegations made in the article. Sullivan said, “I was plainly not prepared for what the story looked like. Nor do I think her characterization of my interview was fair.”[19]<\/a><\/sup>[20]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The next day, Phi Kappa Psi voluntarily suspended chapter activities at UVA for the duration of the investigation.[21]<\/a><\/sup>[22]<\/a><\/sup> A few days later, the university president Sullivan suspended all Greek organisations until January 9, 2015.[23]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

UVA’s student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily<\/a><\/i>, described mixed reactions from the student body, stating, “For some, the piece is an unfounded attack on our school; for others, it is a recognition of a harsh reality; and for what I suspect is a large majority of us, it falls somewhere in between.” The Cavalier<\/i> columnist rejected Erdely’s portrayal of UVA’s student body as sharing equal blame with the administration, but said that regardless of its veracity, the Rolling Stone<\/i> article underscored preexisting and recurrent complaints about the school’s inadequate handling of sexual assault and their “deference to Greek life,” highlighting the fact that “the school has been unbelievably slow to investigate Phi Kappa Psi despite many allegations of sexual assault.”[24]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Also within the first day following publication, Phi Kappa Psi’s fraternity house at UVA was vandalized with spray-painted graffiti that read “suspend us,” “UVA Center for Rape Studies,” and “Stop raping people.” In addition, several windows were broken with bottles and cinder blocks and police officials said the group received “disparaging messages” via social media.[25]<\/a><\/sup> A few hours after the incident, several news groups received an anonymous letter claiming responsibility for the vandalism and demanding that the university implement harsher consequences for sexual assault (mandatory expulsion), conduct a review all of all fraternities on campus, the resignation of Nicole Eramo, and the implementation of harm reduction policies at fraternity parties.[22]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

A few days later, hundreds of people participated in a protest and march organized by UVA faculty as “part of a series of responses to the recently published Rolling Stone<\/i> article.”[26]<\/a><\/sup> A student quoted in the The Daily Progress<\/a><\/i> said that men at a nearby bar were “quick to yell ‘insults and slurs’ at the protestors as they walked by.”[27]<\/a><\/sup> A local business owner expressed support of non-violent demonstrations and told The Cavalier Daily<\/i> that “The only way thing[s] change is if you talk about what’s happening.”[26]<\/a><\/sup> The march ended outside of the Phi Kappa Psi house where protestors challenged a perceived “culture of sexual assault at the University.”[27]<\/a><\/sup> Community members offered suggestions for immediate steps administration could take to implement preventative measures and address safety concerns regarding sexual assault. One student protestor told The Cavalier Daily<\/i>, “I really hope the University takes this article and the protest movement as a sign that they need to be more transparent about the way they deal with sexual assault.”[26]<\/a><\/sup> Four participants who were sitting on the steps to the Phi Kappa Psi house were arrested on trespassing charges for refusing to move when police officers asked them to leave.[27]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The Interfraternity Council<\/a> (IFC) at UVA released a statement on its website in response to the article that said, “an IFC officer was interviewed by Rolling Stone<\/i> regarding the culture of sexual violence at the University. Although the discussion was lengthy, the reporter elected not to include any of the information from the interview in her article.”[28]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Story’s veracity<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

Questions emerge<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Richard Bradley<\/a>, editor-in-chief of Worth<\/a><\/i> magazine, was the first mainstream journalist[29]<\/a><\/sup> to question the Rolling Stone<\/i> article, in a blog entry written on November 24, 2014.[30]<\/a><\/sup> The entry began drawing national media attention in the days after paleoconservative<\/a> pundit Steve Sailer<\/a> made an entry on his own blog at the Unz<\/a> Review<\/i> on November 29 in which he discussed and linked to Bradley’s piece.[31]<\/a><\/sup> After an interview Erdely gave to Slate<\/a>,<\/i> in which she appeared to offer evasive responses about the way in which she investigated the piece, some commentators escalated their questioning of the veracity of the article. It was later revealed Erdely had not interviewed any of the men accused of the rape.[32]<\/a><\/sup>[33]<\/a><\/sup>[34]<\/a><\/sup> Erdely defended her decision not to interview the accused by saying that the contact page<\/a> on the fraternity’s website “was pretty outdated”.[35]<\/a><\/sup> Washington Post<\/i> media critic Erik Wemple rejected Erdely’s statement, saying that the severity of the accusations she was reporting required “every possible step to reach out and interview them, including e-mails, phone calls, certified letters, FedEx letters, UPS letters and, if all of that fails, a knock on the door. No effort short of all that qualifies as journalism.”[36]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Fraternity officials, who rejected the published allegations, noted a number of discrepancies in the story: there was no party held on the night of the alleged rape, no fraternity member matched the description in the story of the “ringleader” of the rape, and details about the layout of the fraternity house provided by the accuser were wrong. Fraternity officials also noted that, prior to the Rolling Stone<\/i> story, there had never been a criminal investigation or allegation of sexual assault against an undergraduate member of the chapter.[37]<\/a><\/sup> Fraternity officials further disputed a claim in Erdely’s piece that said the rape had occurred as part of a pledging ritual by observing that pledging on the UVa campus occurs in spring, not autumn as the story stated. They said that no pledges were resident in the fraternity at the time Erdely claimed.[38]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Washington Post<\/a><\/i> reporters later interviewed the accuser at the center of Erdely’s story and two of the friends that Rolling Stone<\/i> said she had met on the night of the incident. The accuser told the Post<\/i> that she had felt “manipulated” by Erdely, and claimed she asked Erdely to be taken out of the article, a request refused by the journalist.[32]<\/a><\/sup> Jackie requested that her assailants not be contacted, and Rolling Stone<\/i> agreed.[39]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Bruce Shapiro of Columbia University said that an engaged and empathetic reporter will be concerned about inflicting new trauma on the victim: “I do think that when the emotional valence of a story is this high, you really have to verify it.” He also explained that experienced reporters often work only with women who feel strong enough to deal with the due diligence required to bring the article to publication.[40]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The two friends confirmed to the Post<\/i> that they remembered meeting Jackie on the night of the incident, that she was distraught but not visibly injured or bloodied, and that details she provided then were different from those in the Rolling Stone<\/i> article. One friend, Ryan Duffin (called “Randall” in the Rolling Stone<\/i> article), told the Washington Post<\/i> that he had never spoken to any reporter from Rolling Stone,<\/i> although Erdely had claimed him as a source to corroborate the accuser’s story.[32]<\/a><\/sup>[41]<\/a><\/sup>[42]<\/a><\/sup>[43]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Another questionable passage about “Cindy”, whom Erdely characterizes (without attribution) as a promiscuous “self-declared hookup queen”, quotes her as saying that the described assault could have been “fun,” and shows her as having instigated Jackie’s abandonment by her friends.[44]<\/a><\/sup> In the aftermath, “Cindy” told ABC News a different story, and states no effort was made by Rolling Stone<\/i> to interview her, despite her being a central witness.[45]<\/a><\/sup> Sandra Menendez, another student who claimed to have been interviewed by Erdely but who was not directly quoted in the article, told CNN<\/a> that she and others became uncomfortable after speaking with Erdely, concluding she had “an agenda”.[46]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Existence of “Drew”<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

The article uses the pseudonym “Drew” to refer to a third-year student at the University of Virginia who takes Jackie to the fraternity party where the alleged rape takes place. “Drew” gives “instruction and encouragement” to the seven rapists. Jackie’s friends in the story have provided evidence since then that the man Rolling Stone<\/i> calls “Drew” was electronically introduced to them as “Haven Monahan.”[47]<\/a><\/sup> Jackie forwarded messages from “Monahan” and “Monahan” exchanged messages with Jackie’s friends, including sending a picture of “himself” directly to Ryan Duffin.[48]<\/a><\/sup> But, media investigations have determined that no student named “Haven Monahan” has attended the University of Virginia;[49]<\/a><\/sup> the portrait of “Haven Monahan” is an image of a classmate of Jackie’s in high school, who has never attended the University of Virginia;[50]<\/a><\/sup> the three telephone numbers through which “Haven Monahan” contacted Jackie’s friends are registered “internet telephone numbers” that “enable the user to make calls or send SMS text messages to telephones from a computer or iPad while creating the appearance that they are coming from a real phone”;[51]<\/a><\/sup> and love letters written by Jackie and forwarded by “Haven Monahan” to Ryan Duffin are largely plagiarized from scripts of the TV series Dawson’s Creek<\/a><\/i> and Scrubs<\/a><\/i>.[52]<\/a><\/sup>[53]<\/a><\/sup>[54]<\/a><\/sup>[55]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Per records released by Yahoo under subpoena in 2016, Haven Monahan’s e-mail account was created from inside the University of Virginia “only one day before that same account sent an email to Jackie’s friend Ryan Duffin” in 2012. The same account was accessed on 18 March 2016 from inside ALTG, Stein, Mitchell, Muse & Cipollone LLP, Jackie’s legal firm.[56]<\/a><\/sup>[57]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

“Haven Monahan”, as reported by T. Rees Shapiro, “ultimately appeared to be a combination of names belonging to people Jackie interacted with while in high school in Northern Virginia. Both of those people \u2014 who attend different colleges and bear no resemblance to the description Jackie gave of her attacker \u2014 said in interviews that they knew of Jackie but did not know her well and did not have contact with her after she left for the University of Virginia.”[58]<\/a><\/sup> According to news articles covering lawsuits resulting from the Rolling Stone article, Jackie concocted the Haven Monahan persona in a catfishing<\/a> scheme directed at a UVA classmate, Ryan Duffin. Duffin was a friend of Jackie’s who had not responded to romantic overtures that Jackie had directed at him.[59]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Rolling Stone<\/i> apologizes<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Initially, Erdely stood by her story, stating, “I am convinced that it could not have been done any other way, or any better.”[60]<\/a><\/sup> But on December 5, 2014, Rolling Stone<\/i> published an online apology stating there appeared to be “discrepancies” in the accounts of Erdely’s sources and that their trust in the accuser was misplaced.[61]<\/a><\/sup> A subsequent tweet sent by Rolling Stone<\/i> managing editor Will Dana offered further comment on Erdely’s story: “[W]e made a judgement \u2014 the kind of judgement reporters and editors make every day. And in this case, our judgement was wrong.”[62]<\/a><\/sup> On December 6, Rolling Stone<\/i> updated the apology to say the mistakes in the article were the fault of Rolling Stone<\/i> and not of its source, while noting that “there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account.”[63]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The New York Observer<\/i> stated that Rolling Stone<\/i> deputy managing editor Sean Woods (the editor directly responsible for the article)[11]<\/a><\/sup> tendered his resignation to the magazine’s owner, Jann Wenner<\/a>. Wenner, who was reportedly “furious” at Erdely’s story, declined to accept the resignation.[64]<\/a><\/sup> In the aftermath of the collapse of the story, managing editor Dana revealed, “Right now, we’re picking up the pieces.”[65]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Erdely apologizes<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Erdely publicly apologized for the article on April 5, 2015,[66]<\/a><\/sup> though her apology did not include any mention of the fraternity, or the members of the fraternity who were accused.[67]<\/a><\/sup> The Columbia Journalism Review<\/a><\/i> called the apology “a grudging act of contrition.”[68]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Spokesmen for both publisher Wenner[69]<\/a><\/sup> and Will Dana, managing editor, said that Erdely would continue to write articles for Rolling Stone<\/i>.[70]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Debate<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

Media reaction<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Washington Post<\/i> journalist, Erik Wemple<\/a>, criticized the story’s graphic details of the alleged crime and said it was hard to believe due to the “diabolical” description. A number of commentators accused the magazine of setting rape victims “back decades”, while the Washington Post<\/a><\/i> described the Rolling Stone<\/i> story as a “catastrophe for journalism.”[34]<\/a><\/sup>[71]<\/a><\/sup>[72]<\/a><\/sup> Natasha Vargas-Cooper, a columnist at The Intercept<\/a>,<\/i> said that Erdely’s decision not to interview the accused fraternity members showed “a horrendous, hidden bias … the premise that none of these guys would tell the truth if asked,” while a staff editorial in the Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/i> charged that “Ms. Erdely did not construct a story based on facts, but went looking for facts to fit her theory.”[73]<\/a><\/sup>[74]<\/a><\/sup> Lauren Kling of the Poynter Institute<\/a> criticized Rolling Stone<\/i> for “blaming [the] source” instead of taking ownership of their own errors.[75]<\/a><\/sup> Anna Merlan, a writer for Jezebel<\/a><\/i> who had earlier called Reason<\/a><\/i> columnist Robby Soave an “idiot” for expressing skepticism of the Rolling Stone<\/i> story, declared “I was dead fucking wrong, and for that I sincerely apologize.”[76]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Fellow Jezebel<\/i> writer Jia Tolentino wrote an analysis of Erdely’s story and reported on fraternity rush after the Rolling Stone<\/i> article was discredited. In her article Tolentino stated, “Five years after I’d left the UVA Greek system, I read ‘A Rape on Campus’ as an outsider account about a true problem, written by someone good at cherry-picking…So it took me a day or two to admit that I found many of Erdely’s details unrecognizable. No one says ‘UVrApe’; no one I know has ever heard the Rugby Road-themed ‘traditional fight song’ that poetically (‘fuck for 50 cents’\/’panties on the fence’) separated the article’s sections… Jackie was lying, and railroaded into the spotlight on a story that now appears to be a PTSD-laced delusional flashback.”[77]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

On December 6, the Washington Post’<\/i>s media critic Erik Wemple called for all Rolling Stone<\/i> staff who were involved with the story to be fired. Wemple posited that the claims presented by the magazine were so incredible that editors should have called for further inquiry before publication. “Under the scenario cited by Erdely”, Erik Wemple wrote, “the Phi Kappa Psi members are not just criminal sexual-assault offenders, they’re criminal sexual-assault conspiracists, planners, long-range schemers. If this allegation alone hadn’t triggered an all-out scramble at Rolling Stone<\/i> for more corroboration, nothing would have.”[78]<\/a><\/sup> An editorial in the Boston Herald<\/a><\/i> declared “a fifth-grader would’ve done some basic fact-checking before potentially ruining men’s lives” before repeating the call for the firing of Rolling Stone<\/i> staff involved in the story.[79]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Journalist Caitlin Flanagan<\/a>, who wrote an expos\u00e9 in Atlantic<\/i> Magazine<\/a> titled “The Dark Power of Fraternities: A yearlong investigation of Greek houses”, told On the Media<\/a><\/i> she was concerned that Erdely’s article could inhibit reforms of the Greek system. She said, “I think we’ve gone backwards 30 years. And I think the level of devastation that this Rolling Stone<\/i> report that’s now looking to go from a misremembered event to perhaps an actual hoax.” Flanagan noted that “what Rolling Stone<\/i> has pushed me into is that I have now become someone who is on the side of fraternities and defending fraternities.”[80]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Columnist Cathy Young<\/a> said that the unraveling of Erdely’s article “exposed the troubling zealotry of advocates for whom believing rape claims is somewhat akin to a matter of religious faith.”[81]<\/a><\/sup> Christina Hoff Sommers<\/a>, being interviewed by John Stossel<\/a> for Reason,<\/i> commented that the story “proved to be a sort of gothic fantasy, a male-demonizing fantasy. It was absurd.”[82]<\/a><\/sup> The Daily Caller<\/i> published an article…with examples that took place at several other schools, such as Princeton University<\/a>, Oberlin College<\/a>, and George Washington University<\/a>. “In each case, the cruel hoaxes were initially accepted as true. In some cases, real lives were ruined.”[83]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

After two Vanderbilt University<\/a> football players were convicted of rape on January 27, 2015, Richard Bradley<\/a>, who was the first mainstream journalist to question the Rolling Stone<\/i> story, wrote a blogpost titled, “Why Didn’t Sabrina Rubin Erdely Write about Vanderbilt?” In the post, he asked, “Is Vanderbilt just not as sexy a story as UVA?”[84]<\/a><\/sup>[85]<\/a><\/sup> Robby Soave in Reason’s Hit & Run Blog<\/i> answered Bradley’s query about why Erdely chose UVA over Vanderbilt. He wrote,<\/p>\n

\n

“At the end of the day, UVA’s incredible story fit Erdely’s narrative better than Vanderbilt’s credible one. Erdely wanted to tell the story of a campus body and university administration behaving indifferently to an unspeakable crime.” He further added, “What distinguished the UVA story from anything else ever reported was that the assault did not involve drugs or alcohol, required elaborate planning, and involved so many people that the perps could not have reasonably expected to get away with it\u2014a confluence of factors that caused the allegations to have substantially more in common with ones that ultimately proved to be false, like the Duke lacrosse case<\/a> and Tawana Brawley<\/a> incident.”[86]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Local reaction<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Students at the University of Virginia expressed “bewilderment and anger” following Rolling Stone<\/i>‘<\/span>s apology for its story, with one female student declaring “Rolling Stone<\/i> threw a bomb at us.” Virginia Attorney-General Mark Herring<\/a> said he found it “deeply troubling that Rolling Stone<\/i> magazine is now publicly walking away from its central storyline in its bombshell report on the University of Virginia without correcting what errors its editors believe were made.”[87]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Emily Renda, the university’s project coordinator for sexual misconduct, policy and prevention declared that “Rolling Stone<\/i> played adjudicator, investigator and advocate and did a slipshod job at that.”[88]<\/a><\/sup> Sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox<\/a>, meanwhile, tweeted that “I was wrong to give it [the Rolling Stone<\/i> story] credence.”[89]<\/a><\/sup> Writing in Politico<\/a><\/i> two days after the “story fell apart”, Julia Horowitz, deputy editor of the university’s campus newspaper, described the feeling among students: “The campus\u2014relatively oversaturated with emotion after a semester of significant trauma\u2014feels as if it is on stand-by, poised in anticipation of where the next torrent of news will take us.”[90]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Response of fraternity and sorority groups<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Within days following the unraveling of the Rolling Stone<\/i> story, the North American Interfraternity Conference<\/a>, the National Panhellenic Council, and the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee<\/a> demanded that the University of Virginia “immediately reinstate operations for all fraternity and sorority organizations on campus” and issue an apology to Greek students.[91]<\/a><\/sup> On December 8, the University of Virginia restated their original decision that the suspensions would be lifted on the resumption of classes in the new term, on January 9.[92]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

After Phi Kappa Psi was reinstated at the start of the 2015 Spring semester, UVA Phi Psi President Stephen Scipione said, “We are pleased that the University and the Charlottesville Police Department have cleared our fraternity of any involvement in this case… In today’s 24-hour news cycle, we all have a tendency to rush to judgment without having all of the facts in front of us. As a result, our fraternity was vandalized, our members ostracized based on false information.”[93]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Accuser scrutinized<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

On December 8, 2014, ABC News reported that the person quoted by Erdely as alleging a rape at Phi Kappa Psi had retained an attorney. Quoting its legal consultant Mark Eiglarsh, the network reported that if Jackie “allegedly lied and that perpetrator suffered injury as a result, she could be sued for damages.”[45]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

On December 10, 2014, the Washington Post<\/i> published an updated account of its inquiry into the Rolling Stone<\/i> article.[50]<\/a><\/sup> Slate<\/a><\/i> reported that the Post<\/i> account strongly implied Jackie’s tale of rape had been fabricated in an attempt to win over “Randall”<\/a>, who had previously rebuffed her romantic advances. Writing in Slate<\/i>, Hannah Rosin described the new Washington Post<\/i> investigation as close “to calling the UVA gang rape story a fabrication”.[94]<\/a><\/sup>[95]<\/a><\/sup> Emily Renda, who was a University of Virginia student at the time of the alleged attack and in whom Jackie also confided, said she had become suspicious as to the veracity of Jackie’s story prior to the Rolling Stone<\/i> report, commenting to a Washington Post<\/i> editor that “I don’t even know what I believe.”.[42]<\/a><\/sup> In the aftermath, Jackie was characterized as “a really expert fabulist storyteller” by Rolling Stone<\/i> publisher Jann Wenner in an April 5, 2015 interview.[11]<\/a><\/sup>[96]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Key discrepancies according to The Washington Times<\/i><\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n