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. 

Account of Gang Rape on University of Virginia Campus Comes Under Scrutiny

I've tried to keep an open mind about the claims put forth by a Rolling Stone article last month which, if believed, makes the University of Virginia look like a safe haven for rapists and misogynists.  The University of Virginia has understandably cried foul and now, journalists are beginning to question the account and quality of reporting done by the articles author who seemed to only want to hear things that furthered her agenda of writing a sensational story.  The New York Times looks at the rising scrutiny the story and reporter are facing.  Here are excerpts:

An article in Rolling Stone magazine about an alleged gang rape on the campus of the University of Virginia has come under scrutiny for its reporting methods, even as the university and the local police investigate the events the article described.

After the article’s publication last month, the case was handed to the Charlottesville, Va., police; the university vowed to update its policies; and the fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, suspended its operations.

But some have also raised questions about the article. Its writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, has faced criticism because she has acknowledged in interviews that she did not contact or interview the men accused of the rape. News organizations, seeking to be fair, usually seek comment from those suspected of criminal conduct.  In an interview Tuesday, Ms. Erdely said that she stood by her reporting.

[S]ome journalists have raised questions about the story. Richard Bradley, who as an editor at George magazine was duped by the former New Republic writer and fabulist Stephen Glass, said in an essay that he had since learned to be skeptical of articles that confirm existing public narratives. “This story contains a lot of apocryphal tropes,” he wrote. Others, including Jonah Goldberg, a Los Angeles Times columnist, compared the case to rape accusations in 2006 against three lacrosse players at Duke University who were subsequently cleared and speculated that the Virginia story might be a hoax.

News media critics questioned the article’s reliance on a single source. “For the sake of Rolling Stone’s reputation,” said Erik Wemple, The Washington Post’s media critic, “Sabrina Rubin Erdely had better be the country’s greatest judge of character.”

Further details of the episode, beyond what was in the article, have not yet emerged, and the man accused of orchestrating the alleged assault has not been publicly identified. The identities of the other men accused of the rape were not known to Rolling Stone, beyond nicknames, and it is not clear whether they are known to the authorities.

A piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch also steps into the controversy and cites a troubling mindset:

An interesting meme is beginning to evolve around the Rolling Stone story. Here and there, mainly on social media, we’re beginning to read that it doesn’t really matter if the story’s completely true, that it has revealed a culture among elite fraternities that not only accepts but celebrates the sexual abuse of women. The story has, therefore, performed an invaluable public service. Furthermore, those who question the details of the story give cover to an unforgivable culture of rape. This is journalism as fable, as purveyor of morality tales designed to reveal large truths. Small facts are for small minds, or worse.

It is certainly true that sexual abuse in colleges and elsewhere merits serious attention, analysis and correction. It’s a problem with many sources and few simple solutions. So what better than a clarifying narrative of monsters loose at an elite university, preying on innocent freshmen women? It happens. But is the rape at Phi Psi in 2012 real? Did it happen? Oddly, those in positions of authority seem afraid to even ask, at least publicly. They’re too busy reacting.

Allegations are easy to make and more than one individual's story line should be consulted before attacking an institution or individuals.  The Duke University hoax does demonstrate how easy it is to provide lies to only too willing journalists.  I'd also note that if there is a culture in American society that sees women as objects, let's place the blame where it belongs:  Macho males indoctrinated in the belief that women are subordinate to men and/or willing temptresses.  Where do they get such indoctrination?  From their churches.