Rolling Stone Comments On UVA Rape Story

[Velvetshady]

Hmmm.

[charminglife]

I haven't seen any reports of discrepancies in her account - only about RS's decision not to contact the alleged perps.

[laurenpetro]

Woah.

[FloFTW]

WHAT.

[MrsAxilla]

Dec 5, 2014 13:58:14 GMT -5 charminglife said:

I haven't seen any reports of discrepancies in her account - only about RS's decision not to contact the alleged perps.

CNN is talking about it now.  Apparently Drew (the date) has been identified and he's not a member of the frat, there was no party on the night she describes, there's no back staircase, which she describes and has flashbacks about, the frat doesn't have any members with the nicknames she uses.  

[IIOY]

Great job, everyone. Just great.

[cville]

Holy shit. I'm agog.

In addition to the concerns generally, I cannot believe how horribly this will impact women at that school who are raped.  Leaving aside whether the issue is details about the story vs. total fabrication--now anyone else in that same community who is unfortunate enough to be raped will have that much more trouble being believed.  Because it is happening, there and at all college campuses, and those victims should be loved and trusted and fought for.

[wanderlustfoodie]

There's also this update

Can't C&P, sorry

www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-fraternity-to-rebut-claims-of-gang-rape-in-rolling-stone/2014/12/05/5fa5f7d2-7c91-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html

[Deleted]

Fuck Rolling Stone. This sucks a lot.

[memenee]

Speechless

[spidervain]

This is just terrible. I can't even. (And I never say that phrase.)

[2doxies]

This is terrible.

[Deleted]

I think now would be the prime opportunity to plan video cameras in those frat houses and see how they carry on. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a party to celebrate this latest revelation.

[Deleted]

Here's the text of the WP article:

A lawyer for the University of Virginia fraternity whose members were accused of a brutal gang rape said Friday that the organization will release a statement rebutting the claims printed in a Rolling Stone article about the incident. Several of the woman’s close friends and campus sex assault awareness advocates expressed doubt about the published account, and the magazine’s editors also apologized to readers for discrepancies in the story.

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

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

The attorney, Ben Warthen, who has represented Phi Kappa Psi, said the statement would come out Friday afternoon. He declined to comment further.

Capt. Gary Pleasants of the Charlottesville police department said that detectives are looking into the allegations at the request of the university but declined to comment on the status of that investigation.


Will Dana, Rolling Stone’s managing editor, also released a statement with new doubt. “In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced,” he said in a statement.
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A group of Jackie’s close friends, who are sex assault awareness advocates at U-Va., said they believe something traumatic happened to Jackie but have come to doubt her account. They said details have changed over time, and they have not been able to verify key points of the story in recent days. A name of an alleged attacker that Jackie provided to them for the first time this week, for example, turned out to be similar to the name of a student who belongs to a different fraternity, and no one by that name has been a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

Reached by phone, that man, a U-Va. graduate, said Friday that he did work at the Aquatic Fitness Center and was familiar with Jackie’s name. He said, however, that he had never met Jackie in person and had never taken her on a date. He also confirmed that he was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

The Washington Post has interviewed Jackie several times during the past week and has worked to corroborate her version of events, contacting dozens of current and former members of the fraternity, the fraternity’s faculty adviser, Jackie’s friends and former roommates, and others on campus. Fraternity members said anonymously that the description of the assailant doesn’t match anyone they know and have been telling others on campus that they did not have a party the night of the alleged attack.

Speaking for the first time since the details of her alleged sexual assault were published in Rolling Stone, the 20 year-old U-Va. junior told the Post that she stands by her version of the events. In lengthy in-person interviews, Jackie recounted an attack very similar to the one she presented in the magazine: She had gone on a date with a member of the house, went to a party there and ended up in a room where she was brutally attacked – seven men raping her in succession with two others watching -- leaving her bloody, permanently injured and emotionally devastated.
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“I never asked for this” attention, she said in an interview. “What bothers me is that so many people act like it didn’t happen. It’s my life. I have had to live with the fact that it happened every day for the last two years.”

A lawyer who is representing Jackie said Friday morning that she and her client are declining to comment beyond her interviews. The Post generally does not identify victims of sexual assault without their permission, and the Post is identifying Jackie by her real nickname at her request.

Alex Pinkleton, a close friend of Jackie’s who survived a rape and an attempted rape during her first two years on campus, said in an interview that she has had numerous conversations with Jackie in recent days and now feels misled.

“One of my biggest fears with these inconsistencies emerging is that people will be unwilling to believe survivors in the future,” Pinkleton said. “However, we need to remember that the majority of survivors who come forward are telling the truth.”

Pinkleton said that she is concerned that sexual assault awareness advocacy groups will suffer as a result of the conflicting details of the Rolling Stone allegations.

“While the details of this one case may have been misreported, this does not erase the somber truth this article brought to light: Rape is far more prevalent than we realize and it is often misunderstood and mishandled by peers, institutions, and society at large,” Pinkleton said. “We in the advocacy community at U-Va. will continue the work of making this issue accessible to our peers, guiding the conversation and our community into a place where sexual assaults are rare, where reporting processes are clear and adjudication is fair and compassionate.”

The fraternity’s statement will come two weeks after Rolling Stone ran a lengthy article about what it characterized as a culture of sex assault at the flagship state university, using Jackie’s story to illustrate how brazen such attacks can be and how indifferent the university is to them. The article, which said Jackie was raped repeatedly during the course of a three-hour attack in a Phi Kappa Psi bedroom that at one point involved a beer bottle, has received increasing scrutiny in recent days as major details have come into question.

The article published in the December issue of the pop culture magazine drew headlines around the world and rekindled discussion on college campuses about sexual assault, putting U-Va. at the epicenter and sending its administration scrambling to respond. The article spawned protests and vandalism, and the university quickly suspended all Greek system activities until the beginning of next semester and put out a call for zero tolerance of sex assault.

The Rolling Stone allegations shook the campus at a tumultuous moment, as the university was still mourning the death of U-Va. sophomore Hannah Graham, whose body was found five weeks after she went missing in Charlottesville. Jackie’s story empowered many women to speak publicly about their own attacks, but it also immediately raised questions about the decisions Jackie made that evening – not going to a hospital or reporting the alleged crime to police or the school – while some expressed doubt about her story altogether.

Jackie told the Post that she had not intended to share her story widely until the Rolling Stone writer contacted her.

“If she had not come to me I probably would not have gone public about my rape,” said Jackie, who added that she had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and that she is now on a regimen of anti-depressants.

Earlier this week, Jackie revealed to friends for the first time the full name of her alleged attacker, a name she had never disclosed to anyone. But after looking into that person’s background, the group that had been among her closest supporters quickly began to raise suspicions about her account. The friends determined that the student that Jackie had named was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi and that other details about his background did not match up with information Jackie had disclosed earlier about her perpetrator.

The Post determined that the student Jackie named is not a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

Emily Renda was a U-Va. senior when she first met Jackie in the fall of 2013. In an interview, Renda said that she immediately connected with Jackie as they discussed the bond they shared as rape survivors. Renda said that she was raped her freshman year after attending a fraternity party.

Jackie told the Post that she bawled as she spoke about her own sexual assault to Renda.

Renda said on Thursday that Jackie initially told her that she was attacked by five students at Phi Kappa Psi on Sept. 28, 2012. Renda said that she learned months later that Jackie had changed the number of attackers from five to seven.

“An advocate is not supposed to be an investigator, a judge or an adjudicator,” said Renda, a 2014 graduate who works for the university as a sexual violence awareness specialist. But as details emerge that cast doubt on Jackie’s account, Renda said, “I don’t even know what I believe at this point.”

“This feels like a betrayal of good advocacy if this is not true,” Renda said. “We teach people to believe the victims. We know there are false reports but those are extraordinarily low.”

Renda said that research shows between 2 to 8 percent of all rape allegations are fabricated or unfounded.

“The doubt cast on Jackie’s story has been feeding the myth that we have been combating for 40 years that women lie about rape and I feel that will put women at a disadvantage in coming forward,” Renda said.

“There’s definitely a lot of confusion and raising of a lot of questions that need answers,” Renda said.”I have faith and hope that Jackie will answer those in time.”

In July, Renda introduced Jackie to Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the Rolling Stone writer who was on assignment to write about sexual violence on college campuses. Overwhelmed from sitting through interviews with the writer, Jackie said she asked Erdely to be taken out of the article. She said Erdely refused and Jackie was told that the article would go forward regardless.

Jackie said she finally relented and agreed to participate on the condition that she be able to fact-check her parts in the story, which she said Erdely accepted. Erdely said in an e-mail message that she was not immediately available to comment Friday morning.

“I didn’t want the world to read about the worst three hours of my life, the thing I have nightmares about every night,” Jackie said.

Jackie told The Post that she felt validated that the article encouraged other female students to come forward saying that they, too, had been sexually assaulted in fraternity houses.

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

As classes resumed this week after Thanksgiving break, Jackie, whose family lives in northern Virginia, went back to the campus where her story is still a daily topic of conversation. Although anonymous for now, she said she remains afraid that fellow students and fraternity members will somehow recognize her as the victim from the Rolling Stone article.

Jackie said that she never wanted to go to U-Va. Graduating near the top of her high school senior class of 700, she had planned to attend Brown University. She dreamed of pursuing a career in medicine like her childhood hero, Patch Adams.

“I wanted to help people,” Jackie said.

She said she was disappointed when her family told her that they could not afford the Ivy League tuition. She enrolled at U-Va. without ever visiting the school.

She said that she performed well in course work that included rigorous pre-med classes in psychology, chemistry and religious anthropology. She said soon found a job as a lifeguard at a campus pool, where she said she met a charming junior who had dimples, blue eyes and dark curly hair.

Jackie told the Post that the same student later took her out for an extravagant dinner at the Boar’s Head Inn before they attended a date function on Sept. 28, 2012 at his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. Jackie said that her date appeared to have orchestrated the sexual assault by attempting to ply her with alcohol before escorting her into a darkened room on the second floor of the fraternity house. Jackie said she did not actually drink alcohol that night because she said she was on a migraine medication and said that she remembered the events that night clearly.

According to her account in Rolling Stone and in interviews, Jackie said she was thrown to a rug, breaking a low glass table in the process. She said that she did receive cuts to the back of her arm as a result but noted that her attack happened on a thick rug.

Jackie told the Post that the men pinned her down and then raped her, the trauma leaving her bleeding from between her legs.

“One of them said ‘Grab its [expletive] leg,’” she said, ler lip quivering and tears streaming down her face. “Its. I’ll never forget that. I felt like nothing, like I wasn’t even human.”

Jackie’s former roommate, Rachel Soltis, said that she noticed emotional and physical changes to her friend during the fall semester of 2012, when the two shared a suite on campus.

“She was withdrawn, depressed and couldn’t wake up in the mornings,” said Soltis, who told the Post that she was convinced that Jackie was sexually assaulted. Soltis said that Jackie did not tell her about the alleged sexual assault until January 2013. Soltis said that she did not notice any apparent wounds on Jackie’s body at the time that might have indicated a brutal attack.

The Post asked Jackie on multiple occasions for her to reveal the full name of the two attackers she said she recognized. She declined, saying that she didn’t want the perpetrator “to come back in my life.”

Jackie said numerous times that she didn’t expect that an investigation the Charlottesville Police department opened after the article’s publication to result in any charges. She said she knew there was little if any forensic evidence that could prove the allegations two years after they occurred.

“I didn’t want a trial,” Jackie said. “I can’t imagine getting up on a defense stand having them tear me apart.”

Jackie said early in the week that she felt manipulated by Erdely, the Rolling Stone reporter, saying that she “felt completely out of control over my own story.” In an in-person interview Thursday, Jackie said that Rolling Stone account of her attack was truthful but also acknowledged that some details in the article might not be accurate.

Jackie contradicted an earlier interview, saying on Thursday that she did not know if her main attacker actually was a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

“He never said he was in Phi Psi,” she said, while noting that she was positive that the date function and attack occurred at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house on Sept. 28, 2012. “I know it was Phi Psi because a year afterward my friend pointed out the building to me and said that’s where it happened.”

Tommy Reid, president of the Inter-Fraternity Council, said that all Greek organizations must register parties with the IFC. He said that the council’s records did not date back to the fall of 2012.



Jennifer Jenkins and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

[memenee]

“One of my biggest fears with these inconsistencies emerging is that people will be unwilling to believe survivors in the future,” Pinkleton said. “However, we need to remember that the majority of survivors who come forward are telling the truth.”

This is my fear as well. This is unbelievable.

[jillboston]

I can't believed they published it without speaking to even one of the attackers. This is on them.

[cville]

I don't understand how they couldn't have verified even the existence of a back staircase or the dates on which the frat did and did not throw parties. What army of half-asleep fact checkers does RS employ? Those are uncontroversial facts you could figure out in about 45 minutes if you worked at a middling pace.


I'm so upset because this issue and this story is so important--by which I mean the prevalence of rape in college and the failure at the campus level to handle claims of rape appropriately.   The author said she picked UVA because it was so "typical" of schools all over w/r/t this issue.  I don't doubt that to be true.   So why not tell a verified story from UVA or one of those other schools.  Those stories exist and they are real.  I'm furious with Rolling Stone.

[Deleted]

Dec 5, 2014 14:20:08 GMT -5 jillboston said:

I can't believed they published it without speaking to even one of the attackers. This is on them.

There wasn't even a party!

Who, what, when, where and how!

If there was a party hundreds of people would have been there.  There would also be FB posts and Twitter messages.  She could have at least confirmed there was a party that night.

[mrshandy]

Ugh...this is terrible. The information that she gave in her account means that the attacker could be easily identified. Cross checking the frat roster with an employee roster is pretty elementary.

I keep writing stuff and deleting it. I just don't know what to think. I just wish she had told the truth.

[ijack]

I didn't see the staircase info in the WP article, do we really know if that info is true? It seems like that would be a much better argument than "we didn't have a party on that date."
And can you really believe a guy who says he didn't know her? I mean I realize that she's obviously telling some lies here, but if she says she knows him and he says she doesn't, who is telling the truth?
I also realize that any lies or stretching of truth that she said is horrible for all rape victims and advocates, no matter how small they were.

[charminglife]

Dec 5, 2014 14:19:00 GMT -5 memenee said:

“One of my biggest fears with these inconsistencies emerging is that people will be unwilling to believe survivors in the future,” Pinkleton said. “However, we need to remember that the majority of survivors who come forward are telling the truth.”

This is my fear as well. This is unbelievable.

Look at how frequently the Duke lacrosse scandal is brought up when questioning the validity of campus assault.  This is just going to reinforce the idea that campus rape/sexual assault is a non-issue.  
This just sucks. 

[cville]

So help me god, if UVA's reaction to this is anything other than "regardless of the recent statements from RS and the WaPo we remain committed to fully investigating and handling every report of sexual assault involving our students and to reevaluating our guidelines for punishment, up to and including potential immediate expulsion for perpetrators" I WILL BURN SOME SHIT DOWN.

I have read every post about this issue, but I wasn't participating much because work got in the way. I'm having a lighter day at the office and have a lot of built up anger and things to say.

[downtoearth]

This is sad all around. I think it's really sad that the follow-up articles shows Pinkerton and other people who are friends/former friends of Jackie who don't believe her account, but do believe that something traumatic happened. I agree that something big like this in Rolling Stone will maybe not make most of us change our minds about rape victims' validity, but it could easily become a joke for young men and that makes me pretty sick.

[mrshandy]

Dec 5, 2014 14:35:21 GMT -5 @evelynrichards said:

I'm kind of dumbfounded that they didn't even fact-check the date of the party. Unless she provided phony documentation about it?

But ... a party date? That's kind of fact-checking 101.

I don't know about frat parties now. But when I was there. It wasn't really advertised. I mean there were parties every weekend on Rugby Road. All you would do is walk down Rugby Road and look for the crowds and the music. 

I guarantee most college kids would not remember 2 years later which frats had parties which weekend.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that RS fucked up.

[Deleted]

Dec 5, 2014 14:45:34 GMT -5 atlas said:

Didn't she say it was a date party that she was invited to? Those have set dates; not just a "Friday night let's paaaaaarrtttttty!"

Yes, date function.  I went to a small school but our frats only did those like once or twice a semester.

She and Drew had met while working lifeguard shifts together at the university pool, and Jackie had been floored by Drew's invitation to dinner, followed by a "date function" at his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. The "upper tier" frat had a reputation of tremendous wealth, and its imposingly large house overlooked a vast manicured field, giving "Phi Psi" the undisputed best real estate along UVA's fraternity row known as Rugby Road.

Read more: www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119#ixzz3L3S1332G
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[Deleted]

And this is why people question the victim instead of the rapist - because one woman lied about a rape, all women lie about rape.

[Velvetshady]

I already said what I had to say in the thread earlier this week about the "IS the Rolling Stone Story True?" thread. I'm sure as shit not going to doubt DH's gut on these types of stories again.

[mrsdewinter]

Fuck. This is so bad.

[jeaniebueller]

Jackie contradicted an earlier interview, saying on Thursday that she did not know if her main attacker actually was a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

“He never said he was in Phi Psi,” she said, while noting that she was positive that the date function and attack occurred at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house on Sept. 28, 2012. “I know it was Phi Psi because a year afterward my friend pointed out the building to me and said that’s where it happened.”

I thought that in the RS article, she never said that "Drew" was in the frat, that they were just going to a party at the frat. IDK, she asked for them not to run the story. This is totally on RS.

[ajj]

I don't really know what to say about all of this. The story was awful, the questioning of it was awful and now this is awful. It just makes me sad.