2019 University of Virginia Reunions - Beginning the Third Century

At the risk of dating myself, yesterday I attended committee meetings at the University of Virginia Alumni Association to begin planning for my 45th undergraduate reunion.  It's my first effort in such an endeavor and I was persuaded to get involved by my classmate, Ann Brown, who also graduated with me from the University's law school three years later.  As a reunion committee member, I and other committee members will be working to encourage classmates to give back to the University financially and just as importantly to come back to the Reunions Weekend next May 30-June 2, 2019.  Our reunion will be noteworthy for at least 2 reasons: our class (1974) was the first co-ed class to graduate, and 2019 marks the 200th anniversary of the University's founding by Thomas Jefferson.  

During my years at UVA, I was deep in the closet.  Interestingly, yesterday I discovered a former classmate who is serving on the committees is gay as well.  Our hope is that other classmates who are LGBT - and who may not have had the best of experiences - will consider coming back for the reunion.  Who knows, we might even be able to have an informal LGBT gathering at some point over the weekend. 

Information on the reunions can be found at this link.  And, yes, some classmates will be hearing from me. 

Lawyers in Rolling Stone Lawsuit - "Jackie" Tied to Fake Person

The Lawn at UVA

As a double alumni of the University of Virginia myself with many family members who are also alumni, I continue to be livid over Rolling Stone's utterly false campus rape story from 2014.   The story always seemed far fetched to those of us who attended UVA and frequented the fraternity row party scene (one family member had friends in wrongly slandered Phi Kappa Psi).  Thankfully, Rolling Stone is being sued for its fabricated story and as more and more information comes out, "Jackie's" entire story was a lie.   When this lying woman will be expelled from the University for an Honor Code violation remains to be scene.  The Washington Post has the latest details on the sick lies made up by this truth and veracity challenged woman which Rolling Stone ran with even though nothing was ever properly substantiated.  Here are excerpts:

Lawyers representing a University of Virginia student at the center of a debunked gang-rape allegation have acknowledged in court papers that the student has ties to a fake persona she once named as the ringleader of the alleged attack.

Filed in federal court Tuesday, the papers are part of an ongoing lawsuit a U-Va. associate dean filed against Rolling Stone magazine, arguing that the magazine published a defamatory account of how the Charlottesville school handles sexual assaults. The legal team representing “Jackie” acknowledged that they had recently accessed a Yahoo e-mail account for “Haven Monahan,” who the U-Va. student alleged had taken her on a date before leading her into a brutal gang rape in September 2012.

Lawyers representing U-Va. associate dean Nicole Eramo have described Monahan as a fictitious U-Va. junior created by Jackie to lure the romantic interest of another student, a practice known as “catfishing.”

Eramo’s lawyer, Libby Locke, told The Washington Post that the filing shows that “they admit accessing it, which means Jackie is Haven, a point they’ve refused to answer all along.”

Eramo’s legal team filed the $10 million defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone in response to a sensational account of Jackie’s alleged sexual assault detailed in a lengthy expose published by the magazine in November 2014. An investigation by The Post eventually showed significant inconsistencies in the Rolling Stone account, and the Charlottesville Police Department and a Columbia University inquiry could not substantiate the allegations; the magazine subsequently retracted the story.

Eramo then sued Rolling Stone claiming that the account protrayed Eramo as callous and indifferent to Jackie’s gang rape allegations.

Eramo’s lawyers assert that the new evidence finally proves that Jackie created Monahan and his e-mail account as part of an elaborate ruse to lure another U-Va. student into a romantic relationship. In a series of text messages, Jackie wrote to friends at U-Va. that Monahan was a junior in her chemistry class who had invited her on a date. Then one night in September of her freshman year she alleged that Monahan and a group of men sexually assaulted her after the date.

UVA Reinstates Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity

Without admitting that it may have over reacted and been duped by the now widely pilloried Rolling Stone article that claimed UVA harbored a "culture of rape," officials at the University of Virginia has reinstated Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.  As noted in several posts, the Rolling Stone article never rang true based on my years at UVA or those of one of my daughters who had friend who were members of Phi Kappa Psi.  Huffington Post looks at the reinstatement and the University's efforts to undo damage that it wrought.  Here are excerpts:

The University of Virginia reinstated the fraternity at the center of a disputed gang rape allegation following the conclusion of a police investigation into the matter, the school announced Monday.

The UVA chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, a fraternity whose party was said to be the setting for a gang rape in a bedroom of a female student named Jackie, suspended itself following a Rolling Stone article in November reporting the claim. Inaccuracies centering around Jackie's story later surfaced, and the fraternity came forward saying it had not even held a formal social event on the night the gang rape allegedly happened.

UVA requested the Charlottesville Police Department investigate the claim in Rolling Stone's story. The police said they would continue their investigation regardless of the dispute over the article's accuracy.

Charlottesville police spokesman Gary Pleasants told The Huffington Post their investigation has not yet been completed, just that so far they have "found no substantive basis that the alleged incident occurred at that fraternity."

In a statement, Stephen Scipione, president of the UVA Alpha Chapter Phi Kappa Psi, said, "In today's 24-hour news cycle, we must guard against a rush to judgment as we often don’t have all of the facts in front of us."

Last week, the university announced new rules for parties under an addendum to an annual agreement all fraternities must sign. One of the included rules says a sober fraternity member must monitor all the bedrooms in the fraternity house during parties.

The university heaped praise on Phi Kappa Psi, noting the fraternity was the first to sign on to the new, stricter party rules, and pointed out its members helped draft the addendum.

Rolling Stone UVA Rape Story Unravels Further

According to a new Washington Post story, the claims of an alleged rape victim as recounted in a Rolling Stone article last month seemingly have unraveled further as students (and friends) of the alleged victim raise additional doubts.  The story increasingly looks like another hoax like the Duke lacrosse fiasco some years back.  Here are some excerpts from this latest story:

[T]hree students —“Randall,” “Andy” and “Cindy,” as they were identified in an explosive Rolling Stone account — told The Washington Post that they found their friend in tears. Jackie appeared traumatized, saying her date ended horrifically, with the older student parking his car at his fraternity, asking her to come inside and then forcing her to perform oral sex on five men.

In their first interviews about the events of that September 2012 night, the three friends separately told The Post that their recollections of the encounter diverge from how Rolling Stone portrayed the incident in a story about Jackie’s alleged gang rape at a U-Va. fraternity. The interviews also provide a richer account of Jackie’s interactions immediately after the alleged attack and suggest that the friends are skeptical of her account.

The scene with her friends was pivotal in the article, as it alleged that the friends were callously apathetic about a beaten, bloodied, injured classmate reporting a brutal gang rape at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.  . . . . “It didn’t happen that way at all,” Andy said.

[T]he friends remember being shocked. Although they did not notice any blood or visible injuries, they said they immediately urged Jackie to speak to police and insisted that they find her help. Instead, they said, Jackie declined and asked to be taken back to her dorm room. 

They said there are mounting inconsistencies with the original narrative in the magazine. The students also expressed suspicions about Jackie’s allegations from that night. They said the name she provided as that of her date did not match anyone at the university, and U-Va. officials confirmed to The Post that no one by that name has attended the school.

Also, photographs that were texted to one of the friends showing her date that night were actually pictures depicting one of Jackie’s high school classmates in Northern Virginia. That man, now a junior at a university in another state, confirmed that the photographs were of him and said he barely knew Jackie and hasn’t been to Charlottesville for at least six years.

The friends said they were never contacted or interviewed by the pop culture magazine’s reporters or editors.

The article’s writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, did not respond to requests for comment this week.  Rolling Stone also declined to comment, citing an internal review of the story. The magazine has apologized for inaccuracies and discrepancies in the published report.

Curious about Jackie’s date, the friends said that they tried to find the student on a U-Va. database and social media but failed. Andy, Cindy and Randall all said they never met the student in person. Before Jackie’s date, the friends became suspicious that perhaps they hadn’t really been in contact with the chemistry student at all, they said.

U-Va. officials told The Post that no student with the name Jackie provided to her friends as her date and attacker in 2012 had ever enrolled at the university.

Whatever the agenda of "Jackie" and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, they have done nothing to help legitimate victims f sexual assault. 

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Apparent UVA Rape Hoax

At a family gathering yesterday - my granddaughter's birthday - with a number of UVA alumni in attendance, not surprisingly the Rolling Stone hit piece on UVA came up.  Equally unsurprising was the anger at Rolling Stone's irresponsible (and apparently false) story and horrific journalism - if one can even call the piece journalism.  The question was how did such a terribly wrong story get published.  Andrew Sullivan perhaps sums it up:

So why did an inflammatory, lurid, and apparently fallacious story get into print – with only one source and no corroboration – breaking most basic journalistic rules in a serious publication? Rich Bradley is surely right: it was a too-good-to-check story that echoed what many truly wanted to hear. It managed to suggest that the “rape culture” we are now told is endemic is even worse than you could possibly imagine, and ignored in plain sight. It implicated individuals in various stigmatized groups (among many journalists and activists) – i.e. the dreaded evil trifecta of “white”, “men” and “Southern”. Its details – from the shattered glass and the beer bottle sodomy – had an irresistible allure. Questioning it was like questioning whether Saddam Hussein actually did have WMDs – it seems as if you are excusing an evil figure, or being terminally naïve, or minimizing the danger. We believe what we want to believe – and, in our public debates, we also keep searching for the perfect anecdote or fact or story to refute our opponents for good and all.

Rolling Stone vs. UVA

The seemingly much deserved trashing of Rolling Stone continues after its story of an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity began to unravel and headed toward being categorized as either a fabricate lie or the fantasy of a emotionally disturbed young woman who has admitted that she never wanted to attend UVA.  Now, Politico joins the fray and beings its piece by calling the Rolling Stone story "journalistic malpractice."  Meanwhile, as noted before, the would be heroines of women's rights have done huge harm to the cause they claim to support.  The lesson is that just because you'd like a story to be true because it furthers one's agenda, doesn't mean you don't still have to diligently fact check it.  Here are excerpts from Politico:

The Rolling Stone story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia has, in the eyes of many in the media, gone from bombshell reporting to journalistic malpractice in the bat of an eye.

The details of this crime are practically unspeakable. The shock of it led many people to recoil in horror upon the article’s release and ask, “How could this have happened at such a respectable school?” Upon further reflection, and after a skeptical blog post by Worth Editor Richard Bradley, people began to ask, “Could this really have happened?”

First, there’s the scale of the crime. No one doubts the existence of sociopaths on campus, but nine of them conspiring together at one fraternity in an act so depraved it could be something out of a West African civil war?

Then, there are the details. If the gang rape was premeditated, why did the fraternity brothers leave a glass table in the room, which Jackie was smashed through in the initial attack, with the subsequent assaults taking place on the shards?

Would Jackie’s friends, seeing her bruised, cut and traumatized, really have stood around debating how it would affect their social status if she dared report the crime?

In fact, even the writer of the article doesn’t seem to know if the story is true.  Sabrina Rubin Erdely has said she found Jackie credible. But she didn’t talk to the accused students. She explained in a Slate podcast that she couldn’t get in touch with the alleged perpetrators “because [the fraternity’s] contact page was pretty outdated.” She wouldn’t tell the Washington Post whether she even knew their names, and retreated to the argument that the real point of the story wasn’t the violent incident itself, but the culture of UVA.

Almost as shocking as the original incident is the fact that Jackie never reported it to the police. If Rolling Stone is to be believed, the UVA administration didn’t really encourage her to do so, and even as she was talking to the magazine for a report that would make national waves, she still hadn’t reported her tormentors to law enforcement.

Even considering her trauma and fragile psychological state, this is an extraordinary lapse. By her account, Phi Kappa Psi isn’t a fraternity so much as a criminal gang committed to sexual violence.

Bizarrely, prosecution of rapists isn’t particularly high on the list of priorities of many of the same feminists who reflexively credit the UVA story. The feminist agenda on campus rape has two elements. It aims to define ambiguous sexual encounters as rape at the same time it seeks to empower college administrations, instead of the criminal justice system, to handle sexual assault allegations.

In a compelling piece for the New York Times a couple of weeks ago, Jed Rubenfeld of Yale Law School explained why both ends of this equation are wrong. The new standard for sexual consent — spelled out in elaborate campus rules governing every step of a sexual encounter — “encourages people to think of themselves as sexual assault victims when there was no assault.”

Schools should be encouraging victims to go to the police, as befits any other crime. No one would ever think to handle an armed robbery with a campus hearing and a disciplinary slap on the wrist. Rapists are violent criminals, and if victims are understandably reluctant to report them to the police, colleges and local police forces should be doing everything they reasonably can to make it easier for them to do so.

The other campus imperative should be better controlling the alcohol-fueled party scene that has become an entitlement of young adulthood in America. Much of what feminists call rape culture is what Heather Mac Donald, in a characteristically brilliant essay for The Weekly Standard, deems “a squalid hook-up scene, the result of jettisoning all normative checks on promiscuous behavior.”

At UVA, the priority should be getting to the truth of Jackie’s story, and either holding accountable the guilty parties, or debunking a calumny.

For the record and in the interest of full disclosure, I was in a fraternity at UVA (pictured below) and had many friends at the nearby Kappa Sigma house.

My former fraternity at UVA - across Rugby Road from Phi Kappa Psi

How a Victim Culture Gone Mad Harms Real Victims

Not to beat a dead horse, but in follow up to the last post, a piece in The Daily Beast - authored by a woman - looks at the risks of jumping on the band wagon of every self-professed victim without at least pausing to make sure the alleged facts and the story line match up with objective facts.  With two daughters and a grand daughter, I am certainly sensitive to women's issues and hold a deep disgust for those (typically heterosexual males) who physically and/or sexually abuse woman. But, perhaps due to the attorney in me, I know that it is critical to check out the facts.  Blindly believing your client without asking hard questions can leave one to find themselves ambushed in court or torn apart in an opposing counsel's brief.  The same holds true in journalism (which, by the way, I believe includes blogging - especially since readers will quickly tell me when I'm wrong) and is something Rolling Stone and Fox News need to learn.  Here are highlights from The Daily Beast article:

When Rolling Stone first published its explosive story detailing UVA student Jackie’s alleged gang-rape by seven fraternity brothers, few in the mainstream media doubted its veracity.

And by giving blind faith to Jackie’s story, Erdely obfuscated some of the truth, leading Rolling Stone to acknowledge “discrepancies in Jackie’s account” on Friday.

[I]n valorizing Jackie’s trauma as a victim of rape (never mind that she was and remains an alleged victim), Rolling Stone ignored glaring holes in a story that was too good to check.

Erdely’s story did damage to University of Virginia’s reputation, but more importantly, the story has done a tragic disservice to other victims of sexual violence who might be prevented from coming forward out of fear that their stories will have to withstand the scrutiny and default skepticism of police, university officials, and reporters.

Rolling Stone should be shamed for egregiously poor reporting, failing to fact-check important details like the date of the night Jackie claimed she was violently raped for three hours in a Phi Kappa Psi frat house (the fraternity did not, in fact, host a party that evening).

But of the hundreds of thousands, including journalists, who read the Rolling Stone story, few noticed Erdely’s failure to interview any of the seven men who participated in the attack on Jackie or corroborate many of the other easily corroborated details she reported.

When journalists did scrutinize what they viewed as weak and one-sided reporting, they were met with accusations of victim-blaming.
When Worth magazine editor-in-chief Richard Bradley voiced his skepticism in a blogpost, he was immediately declared a “UVA truther” by New York magazine contributing writer Marin Cogan, who compared him to 9/11 conspiracy theorists for even questioning Erdely’s story, despite including plenty of caveats that she might be telling the truth.

Cogan has since apologized for using the term and acknowledged she was wrong about the UVA story.

Jezebel’s Anna Marian attacked Reason writer Robby Soave for taking a similar stance as Bradley (in Marian’s words, Coave “takes Bradley’s giant ball of shit and runs with it.”) Marian too has since apologized, acknowledging that she was “dead fucking wrong.”

But others, like feminist writer Amanda Marcotte, have merely shifted focus to how “rape apologists” will greet the news of Rolling Stone’s admission of their report’s shortcomings, while still believing Jackie’s story . . . 

The lesson Marcotte drew from the magazine’s climbdown was that it was “interesting that rape apologists think that if they can ‘discredit’ one rape story, that means no other rape stories can be true, either.” She cited no examples. While others were debating the failings of Rolling Stone’s process, Marcotte was railing against “rape apologists [who] are so sure rapes are hoaxes...”

Still others attempted to turn the focus away from Jackie onto the magazine that credulously told her story. 

Of course Rolling Stone’s reputation should—and has—suffered from the Jackie debacle. And it will likely have a disastrous effect on Erdely’s career.

But writers like Marcotte and Valenti still cast Jackie as a victim, despite the growing evidence casting serious doubt on her story.

We live in a culture that valorizes victims—where to question one woman’s claims of sexual abuse is to be a “rape apologist,” someone who effectively dismisses heinous crime under any and all circumstances. If Jackie is lying, she will likely—and sadly—suffer for it. And she has already put herself in an unenviable position by reaffirming her version of events as described to Rolling Stone in a subsequent interview with the Washington Post.

The problem with valorizing the victim, as a “victim culture” does, is that anything that runs contrary to the victim’s narrative is cast as an attack on that person.

Question them, and you are colluding in exacerbating the awful effects of their trauma. Question their actions or motives and you are “victim shaming” and “victim blaming.” Of course, the flip-side of a victim is a bully, and it is notable that today, everyone rushes to be a victim—the right wing under attack from the left, the left under attack from the right, bigots still seeking to attack gay people, and claiming they cannot voice their bigotry.

The sad consequence of a culture of victimhood is that it obscures real victims and obscures the genuinely felt experiences of those victims, whatever they have endured.

I often bemoan the fact that we have so little good investigative reporting nowadays.  Perhaps, that is what Erdely thought she was doing.  But by not doing her fact checking and corroborating statements easily verifiable, she ended up acting no better than Fox News and pushing the story she perhaps wished was true and most certainly wanted readers to believe was true.  She did a huge disservice to everyone.

Gay Acceptance and Diversity at UVA

Students in front of UVA's main library

From time to time my Alma mater does me proud.  It has changed greatly since I first started at the University of Virginia ("UVA") more than 40 years ago and by some estimations is among Virginia's most progressive universities despite its often preppy image.  Even back in my day there was an LGBT student group not that I ever had the courage to admit to myself that I was gay much less attend a meeting.  Now, a story in Out Sports underscores just how far things have come - it's a message that the Virginia GOP needs to wake up to.  Here are highlights and some photos:

What is diversity? Students at the University of Virginia wanted to show that it is more than a buzzword and to make the campus more inclusive. Along those lines, three students created an awesome Tumblr, "We Are All UVa," where students took photos holding placards talking about their experiences, good or bad.

Parker Camp, a varsity swimmer who told his coming out story on Outsports last month, saw the Tumblr and got inspired. He got four teammates to come up with this terrific photo:

 

 

The other gay swimmer is open and comfortable on the team but did not want publicity, so we are not identifying him. Nor are we going to tell you who is gay or straight, since not caring is the whole point of what the athletes did with the photo. Swimmer Brad Phillips said this to Outsports:

"Taking the photo with them was the least I could do to prove to them that our friendships are unaffected by their coming out.  But I'm pretty sure the only reason Parker asked to hold the sign was to hide how fat he's become since our season ended!"

"We Are All UVa," modeled after a similar project at Harvard, is really wonderful and worth your time. As one of the creators told the campus newspaper: "Diversity includes the differences we can't see. It's more than race and ethnicity. ... Diversity is meant to be [an] inclusive concept; the point of challenging it is that it can be a very polarizing conversation."

No doubt, if Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation, Christofascist dominatrix to the Virginia GOP, has gotten wind of this effort she will be acting as if someone peed (or worse) in her Cheerios!  I also enjoyed these photos:

Click image to enlarge

Kudos to these students at UVA!!

Suspected Anti-Gay Hate Crime at UVA

In many ways Charlottesville, Virginia is one of the most progressive communities in Virginia.  But unfortunately, between some of the rednecks from the surrounding area and homophobes encouraged to display hate and bigotry towards LGBT Virginians by the incessant anti-gay propaganda of The Family Foundation, the Republican Party of Virginia, and far too many churches in Virginia, one is virtually never completely safe even in a liberal haven like Charlottesville as one UVA student learned the hard way. As a University of Virginia Police Department release indicates, a student was assaulted right on the University grounds:

The University of Virginia Police Department is investigating an assault that occurred near Brooks Hall on Nov. 15, at approximately 10:15 p.m. This crime appears to have been motivated by bias based on slurs spoken by the suspect to the victim regarding the victim's sexual orientation just moments before the assault.

The suspect, who was walking with a group of people, struck the victim in the face and then continued on foot towards the Corner. The victim was treated for injuries at Elson Student Health.

The suspect is described as a white male with light, dirty blond hair and facial hair, possibly a goatee. He is approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs between 150 and 160 lbs. At the time of the incident he was wearing a t-shirt with a UVA logo and possibly a hoodie.

As NBC29.com is reporting the incident has riled LGBT students at the University some of whom are considering self-defense training:

A group of students at the University of Virginia is demanding an end to anti-gay violence on grounds. The reaction comes after university police say a student was hit in the face Thursday night near Brooks Hall in what investigators suspect was an anti-gay hate crime. 

The students we talked to Sunday all agreed that UVA is overall an accepting community but they say it only takes one incident like this to threaten their sense of security. UVA Queer Student Union members say they are done tolerating hateful attacks on grounds.

Wo Chan, a member of the UVA Queer Student Union said, "I'm just outraged that this could still happen, that there are people out there that think it's OK to just assault someone because of their sexual identity."

Thursday's attack was not the first of its kind at UVA. In 2009, a student was attacked on Stadium Road by five young men who were yelling homosexual slurs. 

Representatives from the UVA Queer Student Union say that this time education is key to keeping these events from happening in the future.  Katie Mayfield, a member of the queer student union stated, "We're actually planning self-defense training at an upcoming workshop for the Queer Student Union."

Continued Turmoil at UVA and in Charlottesville

The backlash against the coup lead by Helen Dragas to fire University of Virginia president Teresa Sulliavn continues to roil the University and the City of Charlottesville which is dominated by the University.  Faced with Gov. Bob McDonnell's ultimatum that they fix the mess by Tuesday or be removed the members of the Board of Visitors who thought so highly of themselves have certainly reaped a well deserved whirlwind.  While state financial support of the University of Virginia has dwindled to a pittance give the GOP controlled Virginia General Assembly's anti-tax and ant-knowledge agenda, Ms. Dragas and her fellow conspirators forgot that UVA is still nevertheless a PUBLIC university.  Actions that one can get away with in a privately owned corporation - like the one Dragas inherited from her far more diplomatic father - simply do not fly in a public university context.  Adding to the uproar is the Richmond Times-Dispatch report that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges will be contacting the University to ensure that it is in compliance and can remain accredited.  Ms. Dragas and her henchmen truly need to go NOW.  An article in the Washington Post looks at the continued controversy.  Here are highlights:

While the leadership limbo continues at the University of Virginia, the verdict from students on the ouster of President Teresa A. Sullivan is clear: They feel angry, bewildered and betrayed.

Most of the university’s 21,000-plus students have dispersed across the state and the globe for summer break. But they have made their collective frustrations heard here loud and clear. What’s driving them is more than just admiration for a popular president.

News of Sullivan’s ouster, which reached most students via mass e-mail nearly two weeks ago, has prompted strongly worded Facebook posts, chiding tweets, trips back to campus to protest and lobbying campaigns.

A student-led “Rally for Honor” is scheduled for Sunday afternoon on the university’s iconic Lawn.

Why such intensity?  .   .   .   .  the actions this month of the governing Board of Visitors don’t square with how decisions are typically made at U-Va., several student leaders said. They say they are not accustomed to being caught off guard by major university changes. This is a school where admissions tour guides rave about the “community of trust,” where students refer to founder Thomas Jefferson as if the third U.S. president were a close friend and where those caught cheating on homework face the judgment of their peers, not administrators.

“It seemed that almost everyone kept going back to this notion that what had unfolded just doesn’t happen at U-Va.,” said Stephen Nash, chairman of the Honor Committee, a 170-year-old student-run judiciary system that upholds the university’s code of honor. All students pledge not to lie, cheat or steal, and the committee holds them to that.

The Honor Committee issued a statement last Sunday that chastised the governing board for creating “an environment that is inconsistent with the value of trust that runs through the very fabric of our University.”

The words “trust,” “integrity,” “honor” and “community” have been used repeatedly as students have tried to pinpoint why this situation has struck a nerve.

At other times when controversy has struck at U-Va. — such as the case of former student George Huguely V, convicted this year of murder in the death of his ex-girlfriend, classmate Yeardley Love — most students and faculty have refused to talk to reporters.  Not this time.

“When there’s one entity that isn’t part of the community of trust, that hurts that community. People begin to talk about it,” Vroom said. “It’s logical to me that there would be such an outcry.”

McDonnell Gives Ultimatum to UVA Rector and Board of Visitors

For the better part of the nine months, Virginia Governor Bob "Taliban Bob" "Governor Ultrasound" McDonnell has been more busy trying to posture himself for a vice presidential nomination on Mitt "Let them Eat Cake" Romney's ticket than he has been minding Virginia's business.  Initially, McDonnell seemed to want to avoid any involvement with the disaster created by University of Virginia ("UVA") Rector Helen Dragas and her co-conspirators/henchmen on the UVA Board of Visitors.  There was even conjecture that McDonnell would simply slip out of town to head to a Romney event in Utah while leaving the Commonwealth's flagship university in complete chaos.  Apparently, the realization finally hit McDonnell that doing nothing of substance was about to bite him in the ass big time.  Hence his ultimatum the the UVA Board of Visitors: "fix the problem by Tuesday or resign."  

While the UVA disaster has its own unique characteristics, it is symptomatic of a larger problem in Virginia: state boards and other positions are typically awarded as political plums for supporters.  The bigger ones monetary contributions, the higher the profile of one's appointment.  Years ago I was appointed to the Virginia College Building Authority (which issues tax-exempt bonds for the Virginia's public colleges and universities) and I actually had bond law experience.  That's not often the case. Of course, I had really wanted a slot on the Virginia Board of Education.  But that went to a friend who gave much more money even though the individual had little background in educational issues compared to me since I had been an education activist for some years already.  

But I digress.  Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot on Taliban Bob's message to Ms. Dragas and company:

Gov. Bob McDonnell gave an ultimatum Friday to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors: Resolve the school's presidency crisis at your meeting Tuesday, or you'll be replaced the next day.

The governor delivered that message in a letter to the board, which has been embroiled in controversy since the June 10 decision to oust President Teresa Sullivan from her post after two years on the job.

The board is to meet Tuesday to consider reinstating Sullivan, whose removal sparked an outcry among students, faculty and alumni and has stained the reputation of one of Virginia's most prestigious schools.
"Let me be absolutely clear: I want final action by the Board on Tuesday," McDonnell wrote. "If you fail to do so, I will ask for the resignation of the entire Board on Wednesday."

He told board members that regardless of the outcome, he expects them "to make a clear, detailed and unified statement on the future leadership of the University."

The governor's letter followed a decision by the man tapped as interim president, Carl Zeithaml, to step aside while Sullivan's fate remains unclear.

The governor's latest message drew praise on Twitter from university political science professor Larry Sabato, who said it put the board "on notice to clean up its mess."  The only way forward is to reinstate Sullivan, wrote Sabato, who later advised fellow Wahoos not to gloat or seek reprisal after the fact, but to work to "reunify quickly & repair damage."

McDonnell's letter can be viewed at the Virginian Pilot link.

 

Virginian Pilot: University of Virginia Rector Helen Dragas Should Resign

As a double alumnus of the University of Virginia (The College as undergrad and Law) I've been holding my tongue at first on the machinations and behind closed doors intrigue that led to the ouster of the University's first woman president.  Ironically, the ouster was engineered by another woman, Helen Dragas (pictured at right), the daughter of wealthy Virginia Beach developer George Dragas.  While her defenders argue that Dragas is a bright and astute business woman, the truth is she inherited a thriving business from her family - i.e., construction company, real estate development company and a mortgage company division. And, in my opinion, like many other state board and board of visitors appointees, she basically bought her position as Rector of UVA by making the right (and large) political contributions. Sadly, that's the way things work in Virginia. Money ALWAYS trumps credentials, skills and true talent. Now, even the Virginian Pilot is calling for her resignation from the UVA Board of Visitors.  Here are highlights:

Helen Dragas, rector of the University of Virginia, has failed repeatedly to explain why President Teresa Sullivan was forced out a week ago. Dragas has, however, built a convincing case for another departure - her own.

The Virginia Beach developer and 1984 U.Va. grad was the architect of Sullivan's ouster. She is also the board's spokeswoman, a strange post for someone who has failed so utterly to communicate with everyone.

The resulting chaos has caused substantial damage to the commonwealth's premier institution of higher education. That, as much as anything, brought 2,000 to the Lawn on Monday afternoon for an unprecedented protest against the school's leaders.

At a special Board of Visitors meeting, Dragas continued to dodge demands - from students, faculty, lawmakers, taxpayers - for more details about the drastic differences between the board and Sullivan.  Instead, Dragas doubled down on her initial generalities and platitudes. Worse, her efforts to strike a conciliatory tone devolved into parody.

Dragas refused to address what happened or how. She was silent on reports that at least three board members knew nothing of efforts to remove Sullivan almost until a deal was struck. She declined to comment after one board member publicly opposed a motion to promote Carl Zeithaml, the dean of the McIntire School of Commerce, as interim president, effective Aug. 16.

She failed to address the resignation of Peter Kiernan, chairman of the Darden School Foundation's board of trustees, just days after he sent an email saying he had worked for weeks with Dragas, at the behest of two "important Virginia alums," on a new presidential search.

Sullivan addressed board members in private Monday. Her remarks, made public afterward, suggested she was unwilling to go along with demands for "corporate-style, top-down leadership." She talked about the culture of U.Va., and the need to protect and nurture it. She highlighted the administrative changes she had made, which provided a foundation for more significant change to come.  It was a comprehensive defense of her tenure, and the contrast with the inadequate indictment by the board could not have been clearer.

The Board of Visitors has the legal right to hire and fire the president. But it has a responsibility to explain its actions to the school's constituents.  Dragas and other board members have failed to even try. The result is tumult, the likes of which U.Va. has never seen.  She has shredded her credibility as a leader of the board, and so diminished the campus community's faith in her judgment that she is now simply ineffective.  

Dragas' term ends July 1, although she is eligible for reappointment by Gov. Bob McDonnell.  In the best interests of herself, the governor and the university she professes to love, Dragas and her collaborators should resign, as the Faculty Senate's executive council demanded Monday.

If Dragas does not, McDonnell should refuse to reappoint her. Otherwise he is signaling his support for what she and the board have done and how they've handled it.

A tremendous amount of work must be done at U.Va. to quell the suspicion, the anger and the distrust that have roiled the campus. That work cannot be done if the person responsible for it remains there.

In my view, Ms. Dragas is way over her head.  She's not her father who likely would have known better than to engage in such tactics and would have avoided seriously wounding UVA.  She needs to resign NOW.

Charlottesville Weekend - Possible Reduced Posting

This evening we are headed to Charlottesville - the boyfriend is doing hair for a client's wedding and I'll get to visit family too. The bride is putting us up at a hotel near the UVA grounds (Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda is pictured above)and the black tie reception will be at the very upscale Farmington Country Club on the west side of town - all in all we should have a great time at the wedding. While the boyfriend does hair tomorrow, I will get to visit my mom, sister and brother.

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Depending on how crazy things get, I may be posting less often until we return Sunday evening. As is the norm, we have someone house sitting our home in Hampton.

Washington Post Picks Up UVA Study Upholding Gay Parenting

UPDATED: The New York Times has also run a story on this study and its findings that should, but probably won't end the Christianist attacks on gay adoption.
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I previously looked at a study conducted by the University of Virginia that found that children of gay parents thrive and succeed just as well as those raised in heterosexual headed families. The story I quoted was from a newspaper in Staunton, Virginia, a mere 30 miles from Charlottesville. I welcome the study results because it will be one more piece of objective proof that the Christianist lament that children need a mother and a father to develop is, well is bullshit - like just about all of the other Christianist religious based bigotry directed at gays. The Washington Post story has more details on the study and here are some highlights:
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A groundbreaking study by researchers at the University of Virginia and George Washington University finds that children adopted by lesbian and gay male couples develop just as well as those adopted by heterosexual parents.
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Same-sex couples are barred from adopting children in Florida, Mississippi and Utah. A similar case is in the Arkansas courts. All this is rooted in "the deeply entrenched belief that children need one male and one female parent for optimal development," the authors write. Numerous studies have affirmed the parenting skills of lesbian parents -- less is known about the capabilities of gay male parents -- but the studies have been criticized for using self-reported data or for lacking comparison groups of heterosexual couples.
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There are no such deficiencies in the current study, titled "Parenting and Child Development in Adoptive Families: Does Parental Sexual Orientation Matter?" It was penned by U-Va. researchers Rachel Farr and Charlotte Patterson and GWU scholar Stephen Forssell.
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The researchers gathered data on child development from parents, teachers and care-givers. Their hypothesis: The development of both child and adult would hinge more on each couple's parenting abilities -- stress, cooperation, laundry skills -- than on their sexual orientation.
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And that is what they found. Same-sex parents, and their adoptive children, fared just as well as heterosexual families. It's worth noting that this study apparently represents the first time that independent reports from teachers on children's development and behavior have been considered alongside the self-reported data from the parents themselves.
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Even the gender development of children adopted by same-sex couples -- perhaps the greatest concern of some critics -- mirrored that of children adopted by heterosexual couples. "Regardless of whether their parents were lesbian, gay or heterosexual, most boys exhibited behavior typical of other same-aged boys, and most girls exhibited behavior typical of other same-aged girls," the authors write.
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The implication: From a public policy stance, the study suggests there is "no justification for denying lesbian and gay prospective adoptive parents the opportunity to adopt children," Patterson, the lead researcher, said.
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I'm sure this study will not be welcomed by Christianists who increasingly have no credible experts to back up their claims against gay parenting and who are now haunted by the specter of George "Rent Boy" Rekers. I am pleased that my Alma mater produced this significant report. Hope is still alive in Virginia - and I hope Ken Kookinelli doesn't decide to investigate Ms. Patterson since she has burst one of his anti-gay bubbles.

University of Virginia Study Debunks Christianist Lies About Gay Parenting

In addition to a number of embarrassingly low attendance events on its cross-country bus trip campaign against gay marriage - several events, including the event in Indianapolis where the photo above was taken by a Bilerico Project contributor, have had less than a dozen or so pro-NOM attendees - the National Association for Marriage ("NOM") just suffered another humiliation. A new University of Virginia study has determined that children adopted and raised by lesbian and gay couples are thriving and progressing just as well as children being raised by heterosexual couples. So much for the constantly repeated disingenuous Christianist canard that children must have a "mother and father" in order to develop properly and thrive. Like just about everything else that spews from the mouth of Maggie Gallagher and her self-enriching cohorts at NOM, one of NOM's main platforms for opposing same sex marriage has once again proven to be a total lie. Oh, I forgot: Christianists deem themselves to be exempt from the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness. In any event, here are some highlights from the Staunton News Leader:
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Should the sexual orientation of prospective adoptive parents be considered when placing children in adoptive homes? . . . In a sample of 106 adoptive children living in different parts of the United States, youngsters were developing well regardless of whether they were living with lesbian, gay or heterosexual parenting couples. The study found that whether or not adoptive children were developing in positive ways was unrelated to the sexual orientation of their adoptive parents.
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"We found that children adopted by lesbian and gay couples are thriving," said U.Va. psychology professor Charlotte J. Patterson, who led the study. "Our results provide no justification for denying lesbian or gay prospective adoptive parents the opportunity to adopt children. With thousands of children in need of permanent homes in the United States alone, our findings suggest that outreach to lesbian and gay prospective adoptive parents might benefit children who are in need."
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Using standardized assessment procedures, researchers found that parents and teachers agreed, on average, that the children were developing in typical ways. Measures of children's adjustment, as well as parenting practices and stress, were found to be unassociated with the parents' sexual orientation. And, regardless of their parents' sexual orientation, how well children were adjusted was significantly associated with how warmly their parents were oriented to them.

Putting Thurgood Marshall On Trial

One of the more insane things that happened so far during the confirmation hears for Elena Kagan - and there have been a number generated by the GOP and it's untethered witnesses - has been the attack made on former Justice Thurgood Marshall. Marshall - considered an icon by many - was depicted as an activist if not a radical. Marshall's son - a classmate of my late sister at UVA - has an op-ed in today's Washington Post that takes these accusations head on. The true activists and radicals are the members of the increasingly sectarian GOP, not Marshall who simply wanted the U.S. Constitution to be applied literally as written and applicable to all citizens. Once again, it is the Republicans and that party's Christianist masters that want special rights for themselves based on race, religious belief, and national origin. Here are highlights from Thurgood Marshall, Jr.'s op-ed:
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I believe that this spectacle is partly a result of my father having lived a life of consequence as a practicing attorney and as a jurist. The rhetoric serves as a reminder that President Lyndon Johnson displayed wisdom and great courage in nominating my father to the Supreme Court. Yes, he had served as solicitor general of the United States and as a federal appellate judge who authored more than 90 opinions without a single reversal, but as notable is what he did before holding those positions.
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When my father was confirmed 69 to 11, more than four decades ago, that historic act came after he worked for years in private practice drafting wills, trying murder cases and engaging in all legal issues in between; after working in the courts to bring long-overdue voting rights to the disenfranchised and to desegregate schools.
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If there is to be a new round of battles on those issues, then I suspect that the victory margin would be far greater since legions of Americans of every stripe regard the resolutions of those issues as achievements that make our union more perfect. If there is to be a new round of battles over my father's jurisprudence, his vision of the role of the courts or his belief in the 14th Amendment, then I like those odds, too.
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A debate this week about judicial activism seems to have revealed only one thing: One person's activism is another's adherence to constitutional principle. And to my ear, a progressive jurist sounds far more desirable than a regressive one.
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Justice Marshall spent much of his life striving to make the USA a more just nation. His latter day GOP critics have a totally opposite goal Their vision of this nation ought to scare the Hell out of thinking Americans.

Ken Cuccinelli versus the University of Virginia

The ongoing battle between Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a/k/a Cooch, a/k/a Ken Kookinelli, appears to be heating up. As readers may recall, Kookinelli is demanding that UVA turn over documentation on climate change and global warming that doesn't comport with Kookinelli's delusional views. The Washington Post in its May 13th editorial has encouraged UVA to fight back and now it appears the University may be about to do just that. As Rosalind Helderman at the Post is reporting, UVA has hired legal counsel to assist it in responding to Kookinelli's attempts to intimidate the university and researchers at other state affiliated colleges and universities. As a long time Virginia resident, from the beginning I have thought Kookinelli an idiot for taking on UVA. With its huge alumni base and influence throughout the state it is definitely a risky political move and one that will come back to bite Kookinelli sharply in the ass. First, some highlights from the Post's editorial:
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VIRGINIA ATTORNEY General Ken Cuccinelli II has decided to misuse state funds in his personal war against climate science. But that doesn't mean anyone else should cooperate.
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The University of Virginia has until next week to challenge the attorney general's demand that it turn over vast numbers of documents written by or relating to Michael Mann, one of the most famous American climate scientists, who worked at U-Va. from 1999 to 2005. The attorney general wants the university to hand over practically every document Mr. Mann touched during his years at U-Va., including correspondence between him and a long list of other prominent climate scientists.
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Mr. Cuccinelli, apparently, speculates that Mr. Mann defrauded taxpayers by obtaining research grants to study global temperatures. It's clear from his statements that the "Climategate" controversy -- in which hackers stole records of e-mails between climate researchers that global warming skeptics then distorted -- inspired his witch hunt. Is there any doubt that the attorney general is trying to restoke that row with a fresh batch of e-mails?
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In the process, he would deal grave harm to scientific inquiry throughout Virginia's public higher education system. Science progresses when researchers can propose ideas freely, differ in their methods and argue about the interpretations of their results. The commonwealth should nurture that process, not make scientists fear that they will be subject to investigation if a politician dislikes their conclusions.
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But it [UVA] must file a challenge. Moreover, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell should join the dozens of others -- including some of Mr. Mann's harshest critics -- in condemning Mr. Cuccinelli, lest he be implicated in this assault on reason.

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Kookinelli is a buffoon, but a very dangerous buffoon since he will not hesitate to misuse the power of his office to further his own delusional and warped views. He is untethered from reality and he views everything through a crazy and theocratic perspective. It is a huge embarrassment that he was elected to state wide office. I sincerely hope that he will find that he challenged the wrong foe in this fight. Here are highlights on UVA's engagement of legal counsel in this dispute:
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The University of Virginia has hired the big law firm Hogan Lovells to help the school evaluate its options in responding to a civil subpoena from the state attorney general seeking documents related to the work of a former professor. It's the strongest indication yet that the school is seriously considering fighting the subpoena in court, as various academic groups have urged.

"The University and its Board of Visitors believe it is important to respond to this [civil information demand]," said John O. Wynne, the Rector of the university, in his first statement on the issue. "Research universities must defend the privilege of academic freedom in the creation of new knowledge. Hogan Lovells will help us to explore the appropriate options for a response."
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Dealing with the legal issues is tricky for the university's own general counsel's office, because its members are formally employees of the attorney general's office. In the university's most lengthy statement to date on the issue, U.Va. president John T. Casteen III referred to a statement issued by the faculty senate criticizing Cuccinelli's Civil Investigative Demand as an attack on academic freedom.
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Personally, I continue to believe that a psychological assessment of Kookinelli would conclude that the man is NOT sane and hence ought to be removed from office. Meanwhile, Bob McDonnell should be forced to take a position on Kookinelli's misguided jihad against the university and academic freedom.