What initially started as claims that the author had never attempted to contact the accused (which I still think there is no need for- they’re going to deny it, and in this case no one was named so no one could claim harm) despite the fact that she had, has now morphed into an overall question as to whether any of the story is true:
To Our Readers:
Last month, Rolling Stone published a story titled “A Rape on Campus” by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, which described a brutal gang rape of a woman named Jackie at a University of Virginia fraternity house; the university’s failure to respond to this alleged assault – and the school’s troubling history of indifference to many other instances of alleged sexual assaults. The story generated worldwide headlines and much soul-searching at UVA. University president Teresa Sullivan promised a full investigation and also to examine the way the school responds to sexual assault allegations.
Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie’s story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her. In the months Erdely spent reporting the story, Jackie neither said nor did anything that made Erdely, or Rolling Stone’s editors and fact-checkers, question Jackie’s credibility. Her friends and rape activists on campus strongly supported Jackie’s account. She had spoken of the assault in campus forums. We reached out to both the local branch and the national leadership of the fraternity where Jackie said she was attacked. They responded that they couldn’t confirm or deny her story but had concerns about the evidence.
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. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.
Will Dana
Managing Editor
And please spare me the “if this is a hoax, no one will take rape seriously” nonsense. The only people who won’t take rape seriously because of a case of a hoax were not predisposed to take rape seriously in the first place. We’ll see where it goes from here.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
Based on the thread from the other night, I can’t wait for Tissue and Suzanne to go at it today. Please proceed.
Occasional Reader
This is a complete and utter disaster. No good will come of this.
carbon dated
‘Our trust in “Jackie” was misplaced.’ What about in Ederley?
Gin & Tonic
We can haz 300-comment thread, plz?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: I’m waiting for a response.
And Cole, you fucked this up. That you still persist in thinking that they didn’t need to contact the accused is pathetic. Had Erdely seriously tried to do that, she would have figured out that the guy didn’t exist. Had she engaged in basic journalistic principles, she wouldn’t have libeled the fraternity and she wouldn’t have played right into the arguments of the people who don’t take the rape crisis seriously.
And if you think that this won’t negatively impact the efforts to take it seriously, you’re denial. Just admit that you fucked up and stop trying to reach for any lame excuse you can find.
trollhattan
@Occasional Reader:
Yup. We now have our “Duke lacrosse team” for the newish decade.
While I really hope the woman didn’t manufacture this as some kind of attention-getting device [wait, am I hoping she’s actually a victim?] either way, she needs help of some sort. RS will just have to bootstrap it WRT the damage control. And good luck with that.
soonergrunt (mobile)
Did “Jackie” name specific people?
Belafon
@Gin & Tonic: If it doesn’t reach a TBogg unit, no ones trying.
trollhattan
@Occasional Reader:
Yup. We now have our “Duke lacrosse team” for the newish decade.
While I really hope the woman didn’t manufacture this as some kind of attention-getting device [wait, am I hoping she’s actually a victim?] either way, she needs help of some sort. RS will just have to bootstrap it WRT the damage control. And good luck with that.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@soonergrunt (mobile): she named a specific fraternity on campus and a member named “Drew” there who orchestrated the alleged gang rape. In the story, it comes across that “Drew” appears to have been an alias.
MikeJake
Well, you say the reporter attempted to contact the person accused, but the fraternity claims they don’t know anyone matching the description provided. So somebody’s full of shit.
That’s a pretty convenient standard. “I know my story is right, so I don’t have to bother with basic journalistic formalities.” Sounds like a RW media type of justification.
SatanicPanic
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I thought the accuser pointed him out to the author (?)
Another Holocene Human
Like with the Duke case, it seems like a good dramatic fake or at least exaggerated rape case is better for the media than real rape cases which they care nothing about until there are dozens of victims of the same man.
And given the nature of personality disorders, it’s much more likely for a disturbed or unscrupulous person to flog a fake story than for an actual victim who is suffering trauma to want to come forward … at least not before they’ve had time, often years, to heal and build strength.
It’s kind of like how narcissists can be trailblazers across gender or racial lines, because in their case the characteristic of feeling entitled to special treatment is just being treated equally instead of as a member of their subject class. Johnny Cochran was diagnosed as having NPD. (He all but tormented his female partners and children according to his ex-wife and his long-time mistress, the two of them actually became friends.)
Although, NPD people are often not the first. That takes courage, and NPD people doubt themselves even if they hide that from others. Somebody like Jackie Robinson had two adamantine inches of thick skin an NPD person will never have. They’re there in the next wave. Cornell West. There is a man obsessed with how he is perceived–and a childhood history of bullying–key indicators of a narcissistic personality disorder.
Not fact checking a story? I think it would be fine for the confessional-anonymous front page story for a finer urban weekly (more RIP the Phoenix or the Stranger than Washington City Paper, though), but not Rolling Stone. They’ve had higher standards than this.
I’ve done the steward thing, grievance investigations. You feel bad for your grievant, and you don’t want to talk to the other side and hear what they have to say … but you’re going to find out quick, you have to do that. Or you damage the whole organization. The first people to step up and demand a grievance are people who are in denial, liars, love attention, or have a persecution complex. Often the last are those who feel like they got caught even if the rules or circumstance were unfair. The ones you take are the ones who can see they were treated unjustly and just want their hearing. But you gotta interview the other side. It’s not like they’re going to be surprised to see you coming. Come on. They know you’re coming.
brantl
When did it become “assaulters”? That’s assailants, dumbass.
Another Holocene Human
Like with the Duke case, it seems like a good dramatic fake or at least exaggerated rape case is better for the media than real rape cases which they care nothing about until there are dozens of victims of the same man.
And given the nature of personality disorders, it’s much more likely for a disturbed or unscrupulous person to flog a fake story than for an actual victim who is suffering trauma to want to come forward … at least not before they’ve had time, often years, to heal and build strength.
It’s kind of like how narcissists can be trailblazers across gender or racial lines, because in their case the characteristic of feeling entitled to special treatment is just being treated equally instead of as a member of their subject class. Johnny Cochran was diagnosed as having NPD. (He all but tormented his female partners and children according to his ex-wife and his long-time mistress, the two of them actually became friends.)
Although, NPD people are often not the first. That takes courage, and NPD people doubt themselves even if they hide that from others. Somebody like Jackie Robinson had two adamantine inches of thick skin an NPD person will never have. They’re there in the next wave. Cornell West. There is a man obsessed with how he is perceived–and a childhood history of bullying–key indicators of a narcissistic personality disorder.
Not fact checking a story? I think it would be fine for the confessional-anonymous front page story for a finer urban weekly (more RIP the Phoenix or the Stranger than Washington City Paper, though), but not Rolling Stone. They’ve had higher standards than this.
I’ve done the steward thing, grievance investigations. You feel bad for your grievant, and you don’t want to talk to the other side and hear what they have to say … but you’re going to find out quick, you have to do that. Or you damage the whole organization. The first people to step up and demand a grievance are people who are in denial, liars, love attention, or have a persecution complex. Often the last are humble people who feel like they got caught even if the rules or circumstance were unfair. The ones you take are the ones who can see they were treated unjustly and just want their hearing. But you gotta interview the other side. It’s not like they’re going to be surprised to see you coming. Come on. They know you’re coming.
Another Holocene Human
FYWP!!!
Another Holocene Human
Not fact checking a story? I think it would be fine for the confessional-anonymous front page story for a finer urban weekly (more RIP the Phoenix or the Stranger than Washington City Paper, though), but not Rolling Stone. They’ve had higher standards than this.
Amir Khalid
@carbon dated:
At any publication it is editors, not reporters, who decide what stories to run. The decision to pursue this story, given the apparently reasonable constraints imposed by the source, probably came after consultation between the reporter and her editor(s). If the magazine weren’t entirely sure of its legal position, it might have consulted its lawyers too. At any competent news organisation, and I’m not entirely Rolling Stone isn’t one, this would have been a collective decision. One shouldn’t be quick to single out the reporter for blame.
ETA: That is to say, the blame for journalistic error here belongs to Rolling Stone collectively, not just to any one person.
Paul in KY
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): The main thing (I guess) would be to figure out if a perp does exist or not. Then if one or more existed, why is she mis-identifying.
Kay eye
See Mother Jones on the Jamie Leigh Jones rape case. Ugly story which resulted in significant legislation thanks to Al Franken. But her story did not hold up under scrutiny. Only Mother Jones dared to tell that unpopular truth.
SatanicPanic
@Occasional Reader: hard to imagine what they were thinking here. I don’t get it
dickbutt
John Cole, December 2nd:
How many times can you fall for the same gimmick? The parallels to Duke Lacrosse are breathtaking.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@SatanicPanic: No. It’s unclear whether she actually gave a real name to Erdely. When asked about it as suspicions were raised about the story she wouldn’t give a straight answer to that question; she claimed that the victim (and when you read what her friends have to say, it’s pretty clear that she was the victim of something) didn’t want her to know, though it’s become clear that she was a lot less beholden to the victim’s wishes whenever they didn’t suit her. And given that the real name, when Jackie did give one, belongs to someone who isn’t a member of that fraternity and hadn’t ever met her, it wouldn’t have taken much checking up to have the story fall through.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
By the way, I am a uva grad from the early 90s and was active in Greek life (not at the house in question although I went to several pArties there over the years). Couple of random thoughts:
That song in the original RS piece? I had never heard of it until I read the story. Nor had any of my fraternity brothers who I exchanged messages with. Not saying that it was made up for the story at all but I never heard it sung at football games back then.
The parts in the story about fraternities dominating the social scene? 100 pct true. With a drinking age of 21 there is little recourse for underage kids to let loose. Very difficult to get into bars underage and there really are not that many bars by the campus anyway.
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Maybe Cole doesn’t get it.
I had to do investigations when I was doing the steward thing for my union. It shattered a lot of my preconceived layman’s notions about that kind of thing.
Yeah, you gotta talk to the other side. Usually they’re happy to see you. Also, when you get a grievance program going you will have a lot of people afraid to file but you will have the attention-seekers, complainers, in denial, persecution complex, confabulators knocking on your door to file a grievance every time they get written up. Annnnnnd you gotta talk to management before you file and make the whole Union look like jackasses for taking a bogus case.
People who’ve actually been punished in some way feel afraid. Only sometimes does the anger of injustice overcome the fear that’s instilled by punishment. It’s those who are quite wingnutty in some way (not about politics, about personality/the place they’re at in life) who are eager to “defend” themselves.
I really wouldn’t be surprised if rape victims have a similar psychology, taken to 11.
moderateindy
So I’m pretty sure this means Cosby is innocent
drkrick
If they had the brains you expect from a gnat, or anything like competent legal counsel, they wouldn’t have talked to the reporter. That much is correct. But if the reporter had made the effort, and if it’s true that the fraternity hadn’t even hosted party the night this was supposed to have happened, that fact might have surfaced and saved everyone, including “Jackie”, a lot of trouble.
Agree that this is the latest Duke Lacrosse Incident – meaning that it’s the latest excuse for people who were always going to have an excuse to refuse to take this issue seriously. I very much doubt it will affect people who are genuinely interested in trying to make progress on the issue. As a matter of fact, I’d be willing to use willingness to be distracted by this as a litmus test of genuine interest in making progress on the issue.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Amir Khalid:
I’m going to heap all sorts of blame on Erdely here, though there is also plenty to go around for the editorial staff. For one thing, it’s evident that she misled Jackie about whether identifying details would be publicly released and I think that’s unconscionable. She’s also been extremely evasive in interviews since suspicions started to be raised, indicating that she knew something hinky was going on.
But, yeah, the editors fucked up, big time, too.
Another Holocene Human
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: Good point. That 21 drinking age bullshit actually gave the dying frats new life. I know there was a story about how they shield themselves from liability.
I feel like the 21 law has many more negative consequences than positive. And if you don’t want kids to drink and drive give them a bus pass and an actual functional transit system. Problem solved. (Well, mitigated, but hey.)
Liberty60
The police accused a black man of a violent crime, who was later cleared.
Now no one will ever believe the police again.
carbon dated
@Amir Khalid: I’m not singling out Erdley so much as wondering why RS puts the blame on the source. (The editors too, should be blamed (possibly) for trusting Erdley.)
(P.S. I know how magazines work–having worked in editorial for about 20 years. RS lawyers were almost certainly aware of the story long before publication.)
skerry
@moderateindy: Navy Pulls Bill Cosby’s Honorary Chief Title as Allegations Swirl
drkrick
@Another Holocene Human:
Which isn’t journalism. You were taking part in a quasi-judicial process. Reporting a magazine piece isn’t the same task and doesn’t follow the same rules.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@drkrick:
You seem to think that everyone falls into one of the two camps at the extreme, as if there is no one who is unsure of how to deal with this or whether it’s serious. Sure, the people who are already convinced one way or the other on this issue won’t be affected by this, but there are tons of people in the middle and a significant number of them will be.
geg6
Oh, well, if the local and national frat people say Jackie is a liar, we must, obviously, agree.
Fuck frats. Fuck ’em all.
Another Holocene Human
@drkrick: I wish that were so. I think it does hurt a lot of people. It hurts college rape victims who have literally had to sue under Title IX to get some modicum of justice. It’s not their fault they will be hurt by this, but they will.
Fake ass shit? Always hurts a movement. (That’s why the white supremacists construct these edifices of fake counter facts to try to discredit every time the denial-veil of white supremacy gets peeled back and exposed to white people who’d rather not believe what is going on is going on. Because if the mushy middle thinks they’ve been lied to, their counter reaction nudges them closer to the extremists.)
I refused to have anything to do with feminism for years because of Patricia Ireland at NOW and the whole “domestic violence during the Super Bowl” nonsense. Oh, it’s not true but it’s truthy, once shown not to be true. Go piss up a rope. Took me years to realize feminism didn’t have to be according to its so-called leaders.
kc
@SatanicPanic:
Turns out he was never in that frat.
John Cole +0
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Slow down there, hero. How did I fuck up? All I did was have a different opinion than you about whether or not getting both sides of a rape are important before reporting it. That has ZERO impact on whether the story is true or not. She attempted to contact them and they didn’t talk to her. If she had talked to them and they said “It’s not true,” it would have had no impact on the story being true or not. Not sure if you are aware of this, but our jails are filled with innocent rapists who did nothing and will tell you all about it.
Get off your high horse.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@drkrick:
True, but this demonstrates exactly why your carefree attitude to doing journalism right is so dangerous. Following basic procedures here would have collapsed the story, hopefully inducing Erdely to using a case that was more solid to build her piece around.
Cacti
So, does this mean our esteemed front pagers have changed their mind about accused rapists being guilty until proven innocent?
As for Rolling Stone…enjoy 7-8 figure libel settlement you’ll be paying out.
Another Holocene Human
@drkrick: No, but my point is that no matter how sympathetic a grievant may seem (or contrawise, how credible management’s story may seem at first blush), you’re going to steer the organization wrong by jumping on one side’s story and telling yourself you don’t have to investigate further.
Journalism is different but both are human endeavors and subject to the same set of forces. I’ve found that some of the basics of investigation actually aren’t that dissimilar between cops, reporters, and stewards.
kindness
Even Rolling Stone now? One of the few magazines I subscribe to.
I’d have more respect for Rolling Stone if they told all the doubters to go fuck themselves.
SatanicPanic
@kc: well that seems like a pretty important detail. I can see what Cole is saying- maybe if you have an airtight case against someone you don’t need to contact them. But uh, this case looks to be not to airtight.
kc
What do you mean, “despite the fact that she had?” Did you read your own link? If Erdely has ever given a straightforward answer to the question whether she tried to contact the alleged rapists, I haven’t seen it.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@John Cole +0:
Define “them.” She talked to people in the fraternity hierarchy, who said that they couldn’t substantiate the claims. She never tried to contact the actual accused. How do we know that? Because he doesn’t actually exist, at least not in any form that resembles the story.
And that’s a part of why it’s important, and you going around screaming that she doesn’t need to do the basic legwork of journalism is a fuck up. It turns out that, had she done what you ridiculed, we would have been spared this. Instead, you participated in the hysteria and attacked the very people who were pointing out the flaws in the story.
Confronted with that basic fact, your response is to double down rather than admit that, hey, maybe there are reasons why those basic rules of journalism apply.
Another Holocene Human
@John Cole +0: Yeah, about that Cole …
Out of the 3% of reported rapes that get prosecuted …
they tend to be stranger on stranger
and often across racial lines
and the victims have some trouble identifying a total stranger of another race
so before DNA … or sometimes, forensic evidence having been suppressed by the DA
a great number of innocent Black men went to prison for decades for rapes they did not commit
You’re welcome.
soonergrunt (mobile)
@Cacti: at least one of us never had that attitude.
kc
Well, if Rolling Stone’s aim was to get people talking about the broad issue of how colleges handle rape allegations, they sure fucked that up.
moderateindy
@skerry: Did you actually think I was being serious? If so , Yikes, you need to get a new sarcasm alarm cause your’s is badly busted.
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Erdely strikes me as shockingly naive for a reporter. Maybe she’d be better suited for a celebrity puff piece rag.
Being a reporter means dealing with the dregs of humanity and guess what, they will try to manipulate you all day long.
Bullshit stories about why you can’t verify anything in the story independently is like hello, red flag that something ain’t right.
While Erdely may have been pre-disposed to have been taken advantage of, it just goes to show that the job of editor is a lost art. What editor rubber stamps this nonsense, I wonder?
Paul in KY
@kc: Doesn’t mean he (the real perp, if existing) didn’t have access to house, know people in frat, etc.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: the reporter’s aim was to go viral, and she succeeded
maybe she will fail upwards like so many plagiarists in the profession
skerry
@moderateindy: No. I didn’t think you were being serious. Settle down.
Cacti
Usually when writing a story alleging felony criminal activity by an individual or organization, you have your fact-checkers do the due-dilligence BEFORE publication.
Heckuva job, RS.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@kc: I hadn’t seen this. Has it come out that “Drew” was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi?
Paul in KY
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I don’t think Ms. Erdely ever tried to contact the supposed perps herself. I don’t think she ever really knew who they were anyway.
skerry
@Occasional Reader: Somehow, this will be good news for George Will and his campus speaking engagements.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
I’ll repeat something I said the other night: a lot of my anger at Erdely is that she used and then betrayed Jackie. If you read the Washington Post on this, who has had a couple of interviews with her, it becomes clear that, while Jackie may have been extremely eager to share her story, as Erdely says early in the piece, she was never eager for it to be published in a way that could identify her or anyone else. That only reinforces the opinion I had when I first read it, because as the story goes on, Jackie seems less and less like someone interested in going public. If she’s reluctant to report it to the administration or the police, why would anyone think she was eager to have splashed across the pages of Rolling Stone.
Further, as the Post piece makes clear in conversations with Jackie’s friends (and why didn’t Erdely do a bit more of that) it looks very much as if something traumatic happened around that time. It just looks like it wasn’t the traumatic event described. Erdely took advantage of a damaged person who rather clearly is struggling and then puts her out there so that she’s going to be subject to even more ridicule. Erdely didn’t just libel the frat and maybe the guy; she deepened the trauma of the person she was claiming to help, all because she just had to run with the most sensational accusation on her list so badly that she didn’t look to see if it was true.
kc
I can see a lot of people really wanted to believe that gang rape story. It was so . . . truthy.
I myself really wanted to believe a major national publication wouldn’t print something like that without diligently fact-checking it.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Well, at least you’re willing to concede that much. Last time we had a conversation about a similar case, you insisted that the girl lied about being raped all the way to the Supreme Court. Hell, people still insist that the woman in the Duke lacrosse case lied about everything even though it was the rape kit that was done at the emergency room that eventually freed the guys who were falsely accused.
So I really do appreciate that you did not leap straight from she may have lied about who attacked her to she made the whole thing up. Sadly, you will be one of the few, even here.
chopper
so tissue’s whole point in the earlier thread, that the RS story was piss-poorly done, was pretty spot on.
elmo
@Another Holocene Human:
I’m in labor relations on the management side, in an industry that’s about 80-90% organized. Can you come do “Steward 101” presentations for my peeps? Pretty please?
kindness
I’ve been to college. I’ve known frat brothers that would screw anything that wasn’t fast enough to get away. I’ve know frats that went out of their way to get the ladies shitfaced so that they could take advantage of them.
I dare anyone here with college experience to say they never heard a story not far removed from this on that college. Shit like this happens.
I thing Rolling Stone can justifiably run a story like this without naming names. It is an issue that needs addressing which is why they ran the story I suspect.
Those of you who are now trying to say the story is false or never happened…..go fuck yourself. It happens every year probably at almost every college.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
You’re not any more honest now than you were then. The sentence you quote is almost a verbatim repeat of something I said at least once in that thread. But I suppose continuing to lie about what I say is an alternative to apologizing for lying about what I said then.
kc
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
This WaPo article says he wasn’t.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@kindness: Go fuck yourself. The problem with the story is that it undercuts the very true claims that there is an epidemic of this. I don’t think anyone here has made the claim that there isn’t.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
So which part of her rape accusation wasn’t a lie?
Another Holocene Human
@Kay eye: You know that’s not really as explosive as you think it is.
So they found the DNA of a guy with a history of domestic violence and he admits having sex with her. She admits probably drinking too much and blacking out. They did find signs of physical trauma, but the whole argument is, “Oh, it’s date rape, nothing to see here.”
AN UNCONSCIOUS PERSON CANNOT CONSENT. EVEN IF SHE WAS FLIRTING EARLIER.
Oh, she got a degree. Was that in person or online? Usually getting multiple degrees quickly means online which hardly excludes agoraphobia.
Oh, her new lawyer brought up the false imprisonment allegations? Maybe that actually happened (I heard her talk about it on radio) but she and first lawyer didn’t really break down significance because she was more worried about the fact she’d been raped?
Acquaintance rape is rape. Dead drunk rape is rape. I’m sorry but no.
lol
@kc:
WHOOPS
The point of the piece seems to be if the frat and the accused say they didn’t do it then obviously she’s a lying attention whore.
tam1MI
I sure hope people remember how people are lynching a rape victim under the guise of “journalistic ethics” the next time Chuck Todd says that journalists are under no obligation to determine the truth of a matter.
Why is it that journalistic “ethics” are only a concern when it comes to enabling rape?
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: As for Rolling Stone…enjoy 7-8 figure libel settlement you’ll be paying out.
I thought only an individual can be libeled. If the accusation was against a pseudonym, where is the libel?
Cacti
@tam1MI:
What rape victim?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Cacti:
The part where she was actually raped. She did not accurately identify who had raped her, but the fact that she was taken to the emergency room, said she had been raped, and a rape kit found semen from a man or men who have still not been identified tends to lead one to the conclusion that she actually was raped by a person or persons unknown, unless you think “Gone Girl” was a documentary.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@tam1MI:
The last time I checked my driver’s license it didn’t say “Chuck Todd” or any derivatives thereof anywhere on it. So the fact that she isn’t any more interested in the truth than Sabrina Erdely is doesn’t count as any sort of exoneration of Rolling Stone.
eemom
Yeah, but fuck the presumption of innocence, right?
Fucking idiots.
Cacti
@kindness:
Righteousness is not a substitute for dilligence.
Rolling Stone blew it.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Gin & Tonic: The fraternity is likely to sue for some sort of defamation. So “libel” might not be the precise word to use, the same general thing is going to happen.
Another Holocene Human
@elmo:
It’s obviously not hurting them with their membership to take bogus cases and even waste their dues taking hopeless cases to arbitration. They’re obviously doing too well.
I’m in RTW, we are starved for cash. We have to weigh the financial impact of taking stuff we know is right. It is very painful and makes us angry. We can’t afford to get several steps into a shit case.
I think, in all seriousness, that prior generations when they legalized unions in the US and then traded grievance & arbitration for strikes and contracts for strikes and set up the quasi-legal framework and also when they set up the tax structure of unions and so on, they just really screwed up. It’s a big failure in multiple ways. Unions don’t succeed at what they’re intended to do under current rules but they do provide an opportunity for very selfish people to pay their own bills out of union members’ pockets and if they can run a distraction campaign acting like an asshole to convince the rubes they’re on their side, they can keep that going for years. The antagonistic stance actually hurts both union and management because it hurts the company. A lot of problems come from management in the first place–I don’t blame UAW for GM’s problems, GM fucking did it and needs to own it–but the law mandates that unions act like asshats every time there is a change because labor law in the US is a one-way ratchet. Change becomes leverage. It’s the law, not the existence of the union, that makes union hidebound organizations that can in some ways hurt the companies they’re in (not necessarily, but it can happen). JM2C
Cacti
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Or it proves she had sex with someone.
FYI, Ms. Mangum now sits in North Carolina state prison for second degree murder of her boyfriend. Are you sure this is the hill you want to die on?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
That part is only conjecture. She clearly had had sex but the circumstances of it remain unknown and she has muddied the story so badly that there isn’t any way to know whether she was raped. It’s certainly possible that she was raped and just misidentified the perpetrators. It’s also possible that something else happened and she created the whole story. We don’t know.
Another Holocene Human
elmo, there are retired arbitrators that do grievance and arbitration training. Also, some employers do joint union management training on discipline and so on. Might be something to look into. The more employees do this training, the less power the stewards will have (wrong kind of power, profiting off ignorance of rank and file). Something to think about.
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Could be emergent mental illness.
I had a friend with psychosis. Off his meds he once had everyone believing for months that his mother had died. Actually they had a big argument and weren’t speaking. He was very convincing because he was delusional and that was his reality.
skerry
You know someone who has been raped. They may not have told you. They may not have told anyone. This is why.
kc
@lol:
I didn’t read it that way, but opinions can vary.
I saw the bit about the edit – agree that was sloppy and stupid. If you’re running a long article criticizing another pub for screwing up facts, you should get your own facts straight before you publish.
eemom
An actual informative account of where the matter stands.
Howlin Wolfe
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: Oh, so you guys just need to drink yourselves stupid, why should the drinking age matter? How else ya gonna “let loose?” Poor frat boys!
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Yeah, don’t reporters check facebook? That would have cleared up a few things.
skerry
@eemom: link failed
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human: I had an acquaintance (not really a friend, but definitely a friend of a couple of friends) who claimed for 18 months to have brain cancer. She went the whole nine yards: took time off from work when she said she needed chemo; cut off all of her hair to go bald from the effects of radiation; you name it. It all fell apart when she was in a car accident and friends tried to visit her in the hospital. I never found out all of what was going on and I’m not sure anyone else did, either, because she disappeared as soon as she checked out.
So, yeah, it could be mental illness. It could be she was raped and got the details wrong, though a lot of her behavior suggests that she knew the story was bogus and didn’t want Erdely checking on it. So, who knows.
chopper
@eemom:
link is borked.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): The problem is, this is the exact desire of someone who’s been victimized horribly, and also the exact desire of a sociopathic liar. The reporter needed to do a lot more digging at that point. The reporter did not do so.
That’s become cruelly obvious.
@kindness: I can truthfully say this only because I have an interesting educational background. My college flat-out banned frats. Spent the money to defend that in court for years. I bet our date-rape numbers were less than a tenth of any other UC school, simply because of that alone.
kc
@skerry:
I think she meant to link to this WaPo article.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@skerry: Try here. It’s also worth noting that eemom knew a couple of those tidbits two night ago, before the latest round of publicly acknowledged problems. So I’d give at least some credence to her claims that her daughter is an acquaintance of the victim even if she is a random internet stranger.
tam1MI
Also, I note that this touching concern for the rights of the accused in rape cases only seems to manifest when the accused is impeccably white, rich, and privileged. But that’s just a coinkydink, I’m sure…
Another Holocene Human
@Howlin Wolfe: I don’t think there would be as much drinking-self-stupid with more humane drinking age laws and reasonable restrictions.
If 18-20 could drink in a restaurant but only beer and wine under certain ABV and cut off at a certain # of drinks, I think a lot of young people would gladly drink in that controlled environment and not at semi-illicit parties where there is peer pressure — and really, no countervailing force stopping them — for everyone to get as toasted as possible. And no real reason to stop drinking at any point. If you can go out and “act grownup” a lot of people would do that instead.
Prohibition doesn’t work, but mitigation just might. Not every country has a giant youth binge drinking problem. And we only raised the age from 18 to 21 because of drunk driving, which was a judicial issue not a youth issue. Judges refused to send grown people to prison even when they killed somebody on their 5th DUI.
eemom
@kc:
Yeah, thanks.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@kc: wow. I didn’t think about this when I read the original piece, but it probably would not have been that hard to confirm if a party occurred at that house on that date AND now that I am thinking about this, I thought UVA many years ago moved all rush activities to the spring for fraternities which would sync up with the house’s contention that they don’t have pledges during the Fall semester. Another detail that would have been easy to verify.
Another Holocene Human
@tam1MI: If the frat had nothing to do with the alleged assault that’s pretty damn shitty to throw them in there.
At this point, even if they did have something to do with an assault the whole thing was handled so badly that they’ll convince most people that they’re innocence abused and in fact mark my words the next time something happens at that fucking house and somebody complains they’re going to release we’re so persecuted press releases and call the accuser a liar and a fabulist who is copycatting Rolling Stone.
Emma
I just love the righteous stench of the “winners” in this thread.
Do you know why women tend to immediately believe a rape claim? Because so many of us have been and so many have been failed by the society you’re running to protect. A few years ago there was a story about a forensics lab that was sitting on hundred of rape kits because they weren’t high priority. Women who press charges are emotionally battered again for their trouble. Or, much more fun, their reputation are dragged through the mud. All the arguments seem to turn on was she sober, or awake, or did she say no but mean yes. Even family members attack her, because it’s easier to believe she lied than like a family member or friend or colleague or boyfriend (“but he’s so nice!”) has raped her.
In spite of all your coy protestations that it’s about “doing it right” or “making sure the law is followed” it’s all about “see? one of them lied so all the others have to go through shit to prove themselves.”
Friends like you, women don’t need.
Another Holocene Human
This kind of shit hurts people who actually HAVE been wronged. Erdely doesn’t care, though, because her skin in the game is of an entirely different sort.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Her friends describe a rather sudden behavior change, from upbeat to sullen and withdrawn, so I doubt that it’s just that she’s a sociopathic liar. Something happened, but whether it was a rape, the onset of mental illness, or any one of a couple of dozen other possibilities, we don’t know.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Cacti:
If she had consensual sex with multiple unknown men (IIRC, her boyfriend’s semen was NOT found by the rape kit, or at least was only one of several that was found) and then went to the ER afterwards to deliberately create a false rape report, you are seeing a level of cooly rational and logical thinking that no one else ever saw in her. Every account I’ve seen said she was a bipolar drug addict, which tends not to allow a person to make logical and rational plans. Being in jail for killing her boyfriend would also tend to make me think she’s not someone who thinks things through logically and rationally that would be able to carry out a plan like that. YMMV, of course.
Rafer Janders
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
No, all the conclusion that leads one to is that she had some sort of sexual contact with a man. Whether rape or consensual is entirely un-established by the evidence.
chopper
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
that sounds like it should be basic journalism 101.
Another Holocene Human
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: That’s pretty crazy.
Sounds like this whole story was done from afar on internet and phone.
Why didn’t she call the local student paper for some background? Afraid they’d scoop her? Or afraid they’d take the air out of her tires?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@tam1MI:
You’ll have to talk to someone else about that. Mnemosyne and others have called me all sorts of evil names for expressing skepticism about accusations that resulted in court acquittals of black accused rapists, too.
Another Holocene Human
When Pastor Terry Jones was threatening to burn Korans in Gainesville, the Alligator (independent UF paper) had done the best reporting on him by far.
Turned out he was running a business on church property and evading taxes. His “staff” were Germans on refugee visas who were not being paid. But the county, thanks in part to Alligator reporting, decided that they would not go unpaid in this little enterprise.
He moved.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Or you’re seeing the behavior of an unstable, bipolar drug addict. I have no idea whether or not she deliberately told a false story about being raped by the Duke lacrosse team or being raped at all. Based upon the entire case history, it seems like someone who is perfectly capable of believing something that didn’t actually happen.
John Cole +0
@eemom:
I’m not sure what the presumption of innocence has to do with anything. That’s a legal term of art, and has nothing to do with every day life. People are afforded the presumption of innocence in a court of law, but that doesn’t mean I have to run around presuming everyone is innocent 24/7.
I don’t have to run around pretending Dick Cheney is innocent just because he hasn’t been convicted. He’s guilty as fuck of all manner of things.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human: My hunch is that she didn’t want to look to closely at the story Jackie told her because she already suspected that it wouldn’t hold up. I have no idea why she thought it would withstand scrutiny after being published if she was already suspicious, but I can’t come up with any explanation of what happened here that involves Erdely rationally thinking through future consequences.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Completely agree.
I get pretty ragey when people say a woman who isn’t covered in bruises wasn’t raped. Therefore must be consensual or maybe we can never know. Bullshit. There’s a witness. The victim.
It’s funny how if a dead body is turned up by police and there’s sexual contact and they find the guy, they charge him with aggravated murder. EVERY TIME.
Those are dumb criminals, if they just rape via coercion and then leave no jury will ever convict.
ETA: mentally ill people and people wiyh below average intelligence not only get raped, they’re MORE LIKELY to get raped!!
Rafer Janders
I don’t know that I’d call having consensual sex with multiple unknown men and then going to the ER afterwards to deliberately create a false rape report an example of “cooly rational and logical thinking” so much as I’d call it insane, delusional, and/or malicious thinking. But then again, your understanding of what constitutes rational and logical thinking may vary quite widely from my own….
Gopher2b
@Emma:
I have two friends who were (demonstrably) falsely accused of rape. Both times the girl was pissed at them for something. One guy was arrested in front of his parents, handcuffed, and booked before it was resolved.
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I come back to naivete, inexperience, and/or personal issues.
Experience runs a dear school and all that.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@John Cole +0:
It does help if you don’t just run off and become certain of something just because of a pretty clearly researched piece.
And FWIW, my skepticism didn’t start with the reports that she hadn’t tried to contact the supposed accused; I thought it was shaky from the first time I read it. Aside from picking up that Erdely bum rushed Jackie into going public, there are several points in that story where it’s difficult to tell whether Erdely is quoting Jackie’s friends or quoting Jackie describing what her friends had said. That sort of vagueness is bad writing and raised red flags, too.
skerry
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): @kc: Thanks
Heliopause
Hoo-boy.
Is it really necessary to explain to you that there may be reasons, other than eliciting a rote denial, to interview an alleged perpetrator?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human:
In the Duke lacrosse case, we’re talking about someone with known mental instability who has already falsely described the events. So, while I agree with your larger point that there doesn’t have to be force to be rape, and in fact that a large majority of rape cases involve no force, that specific case involves a witness that is demonstrably unreliable, thus calling into question whether there was any rape.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Howlin Wolfe: boy is that stupid. The point I and AHH were making is that a lower drinking age would probably disperse the weekend social scene more and have it be less focused on fraternity parties. Take you misplaced hang ups about fraternities somewhere else.
Fact: most college kids are under the legal drinking age.
You may not believe it but here’s another fact: when kids go away from home to college, some of them, dare I say, a majority of them like go out and half fun and maybe even partake in some adult beverages.
Combine those two facts with a third: it is really hard in college towns to get into bars if you are underage, especially if some you or one of underage friends looks like Doogie Howser.
So fraternities or off campus house parties provide a venue for blowing off steam and socializing. In a small college town like Charlottesville, Rugby Road is the social hub for a large number of students. Another fact: over half of the undergraduate student body at UVA belonged to the Greek system when I was there. The school is bigger but I bet the dynamic is still more or less the same.
Yatsuno
@Gin & Tonic: TBogg unit or GTFO.
Another Holocene Human
@Gopher2b: Sometimes men are the victims of patriarchy.
Let me break that down.
Patriarchy creates systems and structures to keep women down.
One of these systems were the old marriage and divorce laws. They made it almost impossible for a woman to get out of a bad marriage. They also created an adversarial process for obtaining child custody and/or support and/or share of marital property.
Patriarchy fought like hell to keep no-fault divorce from coming through because they knew, and this was true, that more women would leave their husbands.
But a funny thing happened when no-fault divorce came to the courtroom. Divorces happened much more quickly and with a lot less accusations of child abuse, rape, spousal abuse, etc.
When an animal is put in a corner, it may bite. And when women as a class are given no tools to defend themselves and their children BUT accusations of serious abuse, sometimes the process seem to generate accusations of serious abuse. And these are coming from people who are not Gone-Girl sociopaths.
How many Black men were lynched following false rape allegations because white women in that time were not allowed to have consensual sex with men of their choosing and so chose to “save themselves”?
How many lawyers have bought yachts off the back of men in states without no-fault divorce laws?
Systems of repression help only sociopaths, whether we’re talking about men who are obsessed with controlling and torturing women and children and want to bar all avenues for them to leave, or women who manipulate a crooked system to “destroy” anyone who has crossed them. These people are very evil people. And patriarchy enables them.
Only in a free and just and equal society do we take away these tools of harm, and also remove the complicity of otherwise good people who have been unable to either resist the temptation to use what was at their disposal (men or women) or who were forced to participate in something not right just because it was the only way to get justice in a matter where justice was impossible. By making large numbers of people complicit the sociopath or malignant narcissist can dance uninterrupted.
Don’t be complicit with the sociopaths. Don’t enable them. Do recognize that patriarchy hurts men too. Tear it down.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: One of the most sensible things that I’ve ever seen was a bar about two blocks from my dorm when I came up here in 1986. The place served nothing but 3.2 beer and I swear to god they must have had an agreement with the Minneapolis PD that they’d never be raided because 95% of their clientele would have been busted. That’s a great thing to have around for your college freshmen and sophomores to get used to drinking by. It’s possible to get really shit-faced on 3.2 beer but it takes a lot more work and by the end you’re just standing by the urinal with your glass in your hand, pouring it out as fast as you’re pouring it in.
Once everyone got really uptight about underage drinking, of course, the place shut down. So, in the interests of responsibility, we forced all underage drinking back into private establishments where no one could monitor it.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Actually, our last argument about this is very relevant here, because it was a court case where a cheerleader was kicked off the squad because she refused to cheer for an athlete she said had raped her, but who ended up pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault instead. At some point, despite the fact that the guy had pled out, you decided that the cheerleader must have lied about the entire thing and let her parents take the case all the way to the Supreme Court out of spite.
This is why I do not trust your lip service about how something must have happened to Jackie but now we’ll never know
Link to the case: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/06/164194/scotus-texas-cheerleader/
The fact that you remember it as “innocent man” rather than “guy who pled to a lesser charge” says a lot.
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): When the British police investigated false rape claims they found out that many of the accusers actually had been sexually assaulted or traumatized in some other way, but because of mental illness or cognitive disability they weren’t able to communicate what had happened to them.
But that took a lot of patience and humanity to suss out.
In dog eats dog America, as soon as you hear a whiff of mental illness, dump that whore on the side the road and pull off.
Mandalay
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I’m with you on that point. Consider her vague and waffling response when asked whether she had attempted to contact the alleged attackers:
And yet RS is asserting that
Cole is 100% correct that none of that BS changes what actually happened. But when Erdely and her employer can’t even present a single version of the truth their credibility is swirling around the bowl.
dubo
I’m still waiting for anyone to show me where there was previously any understood journalistic standard in place anywhere where you can’t write about a crime ( be it rape, murder, or robbery) without printing the accused’s side of the story
Another Holocene Human
I do think it’s possibly that the US has more totally false and made up rape accusations in the system than GB because we are just a bit more criminal, more prone to serious personality disorders. It’s still less than 10% of all accusations brought to police, and less than 10% of all rapes are brought to police.
And apparently some Americans threshold of “fake” is that it was acquaintance rape and/or unconscious and drunk rape, not “legitimate rape” whatever the fuck that means. If it’s unprosecutable rape, because we’re all assholes, then it’s not rape rape and she’s a liar who should set her ass down.
J
@Emma: This is monstrously unfair to many commentators here. I don’t know what the facts in the case are, but it is simply not true that the difficulties in establishing the truth of a charge diminish in proportion to the heinousness of the offense charged.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Mmm, the lies just flow thick with you. Have you ever considered that honesty is the best policy? Or are you really convinced that expressing uncertainty about something must equate to absolute certainty about the opposite of what you think is true?
Gopher2b
@Another Holocene Human:
“And apparently some Americans threshold of “fake” is that it was acquaintance rape and/or unconscious and drunk rape, not “legitimate rape”
Source?
Another Holocene Human
@dubo: Nobody said she had to cover the other side of the story, but she ought to have fact checked some basic fucking details.
There’s a place for confessional pieces, especially in shittier more disposable rags, but this wasn’t that kind of story. This was supposedly an indictment of the COLLEGE. Wouldn’t you want to find out in detail what happened in the student proceeding, if there was one?
The reporter went after the college and the frat. It wasn’t all “how my life has changed after I’ve been raped anonymous pen letter”. I think there’s a responsibility to verify the details of the college and the frat’s involvement.
Elizabelle
What a mess. I thought UVa kids were supposed to be the brightest of the bright. With friends like these:
I don’t know that I believe any of this.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Meh. Deleted because I misread something. Sorry about that, Mnemosyne.
cthulhu
It still bothers me that Jonah Goldberg seemed to have the air of “I know something you don’t” rather than the standard right wing dismissal of events and/or the truth. I think it a bit paranoid to think it was a set up but then again you have people like James O’Keefe running around.
kc
Lot of people saying UVA mishandled Jackie’s report of being raped.
Does anyone who actually read the entire RS story have an opinion about what UVA should have done in response to the report? Serious question.
Another Holocene Human
@Gopher2b: This thread. The Mother Jones article. It wasn’t linked but I found it and read it.
She flirted with the accused while still conscious and apparently blacked out following overconsuming alcohol alone. And somebody right here on Balloon Juice (bookmark it!) as well as whoever wrote the MJ article thinks that getting raped while dead drunk by somebody you shared a joke and a smile with isn’t legitimate rape.
And that makes her a liar that harms the movement.
Again. Dead drunk. Blacked out. And she’s now a liar who should be sat down.
PEOPLE. STOP RAPING UNCONSCIOUS PEOPLE. IT IS RAPE. Rape does not mean a fist fight. Rape doesn’t mean a knife. Rape is the lack of consent. Passed out and intoxicated cannot consent. Just no.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): not to mention rough on one’s meager student budget!
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle: It reads like fanfic.
Gopher2b
@Elizabelle:
When I read the story I believed it until I got to that exact point. Right there I did a complete 180. Even Millenials aren’t that callous.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
So you’re going to claim now that you don’t remember calling that victim a liar?
Tell you what. I can’t do the search from my phone, so I will do the search when I get home from work tonight. We’ll see whose memory is more accurate, yours or mine.
eemom
@John Cole +0:
Cole, the point is that taking all rape accusations seriously and demanding justice for all victims does not mean that you assume guilt of the accused without proof. That’s just wrong, inside a courtroom or out.
The attitude on display here the other night was that once a rape accusation is made, guilt should be presumed — and that you’re some kind of rape apologist if you don’t presume it. That’s fucked up.
louc
A few random thoughts:
Erdeley was a well-respected journalist. She wrote this piece on bullying of gay students that was just devastating.
IIRC from the RS article, Jackie never had a rape kit done.
The reporter should have checked with the fraternity on whether they had any events that weekend. I didn’t see a problem with not reaching out to the “rapists” because she wasn’t pointing the finger at someone identifiable. I could have sworn that she did talk to at least one of the supposed friends that picked up Jackie from the party. But now it sounds like she didn’t.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@kc:
When UVa gets that accusation, they need to go straight to the police. It doesn’t matter if the victim doesn’t want to, they’re under a serious moral (and sometimes legal) responsibility to take such issues to the authorities.
One of the things that pissed me off about the story from the very beginning is that it purported that there were a number of other cases that were much better sourced (though I don’t know that I believe anything Erdely write at this point) and in which the administration had been much more negligent. While they had an obligation to go to the police, Erdely used as the core of her piece a case in which, even had it been absolutely true, their refusal to do what they were supposed to comes off not as monstrous but as a legitimate attempt to do what the victim wanted.
All around a bad story.
Gopher2b
@Another Holocene Human:
You’re conflating two different things. Has anyone on here ever said that you can have sex with an unconscious person and it’s not rape? I doubt it.
Black out is different. I’ve black out before and people didn’t know I was that drunk. Are you saying an intoxicated woman can never consent? I really don’t understand your position (though we can all agree having sex with someone who is unconscious is rape).
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Another Holocene Human:
The college is pretty much a mess. Here’s another case from June that they mishandled:
http://tinyurl.com/mrbznt4
IIRC, they are one of about a dozen colleges that are currently under serious scrutiny by the Justice Department for mishandling sexual assault cases. So, yes, even beyond Jackie’s story, there does seem to be an institutional problem here.
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Human:
I posted details on prosecutions for rape vs. prosecutions for false rape allegations in the UK the other day. For each prosecution for a false rape allegation there are about fifty prosecutions for rape.
Of course those numbers say nothing about who is guilty or innocent in any specific case, but in general if person A claims they were raped by person B, the allegation is far more likely to be true than false. That is why Cosby’s situation is so serious; the probability that all the women alleging rape by Cosby are independently lying is minute.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I didn’t see the deleted comment but, although I applied extra snark, my original comment was actually that I thought you had evolved and grown in your thinking since the last time we fought over this with the cheerleader’s case. FWIW.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Do you really not understand the difference between saying that it’s a possibility that she was lying and just saying that she was a liar?
I’ll save you the trouble. From that thread:
At no point did I say that she is a liar. I said that we don’t know what actually happened. Yes, that leaves open the possibility that she’s a liar. Again, do you not understand the distinction between those?
kc
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Thank you. That was my impression as well. I’ve been seeing all these tweets about UVA was callously indifferent to Jackie’s report, when my impression was that the dean was trying to honor her wishes. Jackie did NOT want it reported to the police, and she didn’t want UVA to do anything in-house. She didn’t want to ID the rapists. I just don’t know what some of these people expect to happen in a case like this.
The Dangerman
Wow. That’s about all I have; Wow.
I think my one contribution to this topic was decrying her decision not to report immediately so there would be evidence of any crime; at the time, I didn’t know she was lying (still don’t, given RS is only questioning her credibility, not calling her a liar)…
…but I do think there is a lesson here. People need to wait for all the evidence to come in to decide guilt (see Cosby, Bill).
ETA: Not saying Cosby is innocent; just that I’m not ready to fry the guy.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@louc:
Right. That’s one of the things in the original story that, if you read closely, you realize is actually quite vague. Erdely clearly wants you to believe that she talked to the friends but, on close examination, you realize that she doesn’t quite say that she is quoting them.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Okay, I’m going to stand down for now, because I’m having a hard time following the flow from my phone and the cross-cross-cross commentary is just going to confuse and anger everyone involved. Later, gators.
MomSense
So both my college age sons texted me about the RS article today since they had initially told me to read it. They both reacted in a similar way saying that this sucks because college rape is a serious problem that needs attention and doesn’t need any reason for people to discount it more than they already do.
Omnes Omnibus
Most of my knowledge of journalistic ethics comes from seeing Jason Robards asking Redford and Hoffman if they had confirmation of facts during the course of All the President’s Men. Are journalists required to confirm facts any more? Isn’t that part of what editors do?
myiq2xu
I gotta give John Cole credit for consistency.
He’s been consistently wrong about everything for years.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@The Dangerman:
I’m actually fairly comfortable with assuming Cosby is guilty as hell. I won’t go on a rampage about it without something more resembling a judicial proceeding, but the evidence against him is stacked a lot taller than in either this case or the cheerleader case Mnemosyne and I are discussing.
I also find it amusing that her response to RS basically confirming that I was right to be skeptical is to continue attacking without ever even acknowledging that point.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Funny how that happened just as soon as I produced a quote from the thread we were discussing.
geg6
@skerry:
Yup. I know that’s true in my own rape. What would have been the point of coming forward? This exact comment thread shows that it’s useless. All rapes are fake, apparently.
geg6
@Emma:
This, a thousand times.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6:
Not one person on this thread has said anything that can be interpreted in that way.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Gopher2b: I have been personally acquainted with three women who, over the years, have filed false reports of sexual abuse and/or assault against various folks.
It does happen. And the response, instead of nailing them to a wall, is to tut-tut over how sad and unstable they are and turn them loose to do it again. And every one of them has.
Society gives people who falsely accuse others of crimes a free pass, in general. And it’s so rare, and the people who do it so disturbed, that it’s tempting to do nothing to them. But these folks ruin lives. Permanently. If we’re going to start treating sexual assault/abuse with the severity it merits, we have to treat those who lie about such incidents just as harshly.
geg6
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Forget it, Mnem. It’s Rapeytown. There is no such thing as rape. Them bitches all lie.
Keith G
Rape (and other such assaults) is beyond being horrible. Yet I am amazed at the convention being forwarded by a few here that essentially anything goes in confronting such terrible behavior – and even more seemed to have that attitude on that previous thread. Stories about morally corrupt hierarchies enabling savagery need to be shouted from on high, but only after they have been vetted to the last comma and can with stand necessary scrutiny.
I thought the notion that “the ends justify the means” was a only wingnut conceit.
dubo
So now the WaPo has apparently edited out claims it initially made it its critical article, without a correction notification. Tell me again about ethics
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
Maybe not you. But I see a lot of it. But then, I’ve been raped. And not believed. Have you?
The Dangerman
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
If I had to put money on it, I’d say guilty, too; still, I’ll reserve final judgement until we get further down the proceedings where we have people under oath, evidence, etc.
A few of the Cosby stories are pretty weird. 15 year olds in the Playboy Mansion? I strongly doubt it. There are others that don’t pass the smell test. That said, the numbers are too great to just ignore outright.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6: No, I have not.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@geg6: Yes, but you have accused people in this thread:
As pretty clearly the person you are referring to, put up or retract.
kc
@geg6:
.
Look. I was raped, and I’m not getting that message from this thread.
Gopher2b
@The Dangerman:
And the MO is the same each time. He’s guilty as hell.
Seth Owen
I worked as a reporter and copy editor for more than two decades at four different small- to medium-sized dailies.
In that time I either worked on or knew of a fair number of really juicy stories that never saw the light of day because they could not be sufficiently corroborated to reach publication standards. This doesn’t imply that those juicy allegations didn’t actually have merit. Maybe they did, but basic journalistic standards require a minimum level of fact-checking and that doesn’t seem to have happened here.
For those going on about rape. Yes, it happens. It’s also irrelevant. Corruption happens, too, but that doesn’t mean you can run a poorly sourced story saying the mayor is a crook. Police brutality happens. You still need more than some dude’s say so that a specific incident of police brutality occurred. Journalism isn’t fiction. You can take poetic license to write a very powerful novel about rape, but you can’t do it at a newspaper or magazine. Period. Every paper I worked at had very strict rules about quotes (exact or don’t use), photos (no photoshop except for purely technical purposes like contrast or brightness), no anonymous sources unless approved by the top editor (and they almost never approved).
Now, undoubtedly these standards have eroded due to new media, partisan media and Beltway media influences but they exist for the very good reason that a century of newspaper experience has shown that adhering to those standards saves you a lot of embarrassment and legal vulnerability.
Maybe there was a gang rape. This woman has the First Amendment right to tell her story as she sees fit (subject to libel and slander). But to be proper journalism there simply has to be fact-checking, corroboration of those elements that can be corroborated (such as whether the alleged perp was ever in the frat) and an attempt to get the o their side’s view. (There are always at least two sides to every story). Sorry, John, you are wrong on this one. The fact they will deny it is absolutely no reason to avoid contacting them. So they give you a ‘no comment. So what? You gave them the chance.
I can’t tell you how many times I had to revise a story once I got the other side’s version of events. That is just the nature of humanity.
Kay
@MomSense:
I wouldn’t necessarily conclude that. We’ll have to see what happens. There were coached victims and absolutely insane and tragic prosecutions for child abuse in the 1980’s and it genuinely led to much better practice. It didn’t automatically result in all child abuse allegations being discredited, forever. It’s not perfect by any means but we no longer have court cases predicated on children who have been coached saying they traveled in a space ship with the alleged perpetrator.
When they started down the road of making an arrest in domestic violence cases if there was an admission of any kind of aggressive physical contact, arrest one or both, very little discussion, a lot of people thought victims wouldn’t report because if they did someone would get arrested, but they did report.
kwAwk
I still think you need to check with the accused. I started to read the story after this was put out and I was struck by something.
This girl calls her friends to tell them what happened and she said, her friends’ first reaction to her being forcibly gang raped by multiple men was, hey, we can’t tell anybody because we’ll never get invited to a frat party again. Ummm….who the fuck thinks that way and what the hell kind of friends are those? Why in the world would a woman who has just been gang raped by 7 men at a frat party ever want to go to another frat party?
Rafer Janders
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Well, that’s an awfully convenient time to leave, right after TTP produced the quote in question showing you were lying about what he or she had said….
Tenar Darell
@The Dangerman: The Roman Polanski indictment took place in 1977, and the girl was 13. I’m going to guess that Playboy has a history of centerfolds who may not have been “of age” when their pictures were taken back then, in the late 60’s early 70’s.
Ha Nguyen
From the level of compassion exhibited in this thread and the previous one, all I think about a future story is that it must be from the viewpoint of the accused rapist rather than the victim.
Which means I will never buy nor read it.
MomSense
@Kay:
As poorly as we treat children in our society in some ways (see underfunding, de-funding, testing, and education policy in general) I think there is also a strong desire by lawmakers, the legal system, and the general public to protect children.
Yes, there are deficiencies in the legal system but my experience with the GAL process as well as attempts by our state to collect on child support, etc. tell me that children are valued to the extent that we have agreed as a society to try to attend to their safety and support.
I don’t see the same attitude towards rape and especially campus rape. Part of the problem is just that there is sooooo much money spent on higher education that there is a strong desire by colleges and universities to minimize and hide this problem. About a month ago we stumbled upon a movie on cable called At Middleton. There is a scene near the beginning of the movie of a college tour. One of the moms asks the tour guide about how many rapes happen on campus each year. The tour guide’s response is ‘Tons of rapes but that’s pretty typical of college. That’s what you’re signing up for.’
It was a bit shocking at first but we all ended up nodding that it was refreshing to hear it just acknowledged.
Keith G
@geg6: Some of us who have been raped might well feel that OO’s comment is okay (I was, 33 years ago) and does not require a personal experience to be valid.
Being victimized in such a way is rough beyond any measure. Being not believed, or in my case feeling unable to report the assault at all adds more rot to an already menacing wound.
IMO, it is so essential that discussions about this be as simple, as fact-based, and as free of emotional charge as humanly possible.
skerry
@kc: I stand by my statement at 81.
This thread shows why.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Ha Nguyen: Really? What lack of compassion are you sarcastically referring? Maybe this?
Jackie has nothing but my sympathy, even if the story is a stone cold lie, because she is pretty clearly badly traumatized by something. But sometimes showing compassion to someone in her position involves showing sufficient skepticism towards her story to check it out before you publish it with her real name attached to it. My anger is directed entirely at the author and at her editors, because they took advantage of someone in order to generate clicks. And now, whatever Jackie’s problems were before are multiplied by the fact that someone exposed them before the whole world.
Elizabelle
Here’s an op ed from UVa’s Cavalier Daily, with links to several other stories about the RS rape article.
I would guess both of these statements could be true (from quick skim of the RS article, which is painful to read):
Jackie’s account is embellished. There was not a gang rape at a fraternity, as she alleges, but she very possibly did experience some nature of sexual assault by a person or persons. Who may or may not have been a member of the fraternity house.
AND
UVa has a problem with rape and its treatment of same, even if this particular account cannot be verified in its entirety.
I didn’t read the RS article very closely, but started wondering (being a Law and Order viewer and reader of whodunits): is there any evidence to support Jackie’s allegations? What did she do with the red dress or any other clothing she was wearing that night? Did the RS reporter scrutinize her claims for evidence?
The fraternity’s lawyer has stated there is no side staircase in the house, as Jackie said she escaped down after the attack.
None of this says Jackie was not raped. It just says the story does not add up, but was published in a national magazine.
Suzanne
@Emma: Everything Emma said. I don’t have time to get wrapped up in this today, but I concur 110%. We still have to take women at face value about rape.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
From the RS article:
(Emphasis added.)
We’ll see how things turn out, but I wouldn’t be so sure that Erdely got it wrong. I’m waiting to see the result of the independent investigation started by the Virginia AG Herring before throwing her or the RS piece under the bus.
YMMV.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: This is what Soltis says now:
No, I don’t trust Erdely’s story. At all.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne: Convenient. Apparently no one who was so sure two nights ago actually wants to acknowledge what has happened.
Elizabelle
@kwAwk:
Yuppers. I had problems with that, and it was early in the story.
I didn’t read the story carefully, but was wondering if some of Jackie’s trauma was that she, by her own account, was an overachiever whose parents expected a lot, and from a small town yet. She was struggling in school fairly early on — and UVa is a competitive school, and perhaps having to struggle academically was as hard a blow to her self-image as dealing with the aftermath of being assaulted. She started skipping classes. I know from experience that is hard to undo.
And so the story grew, because it had to account for even more despair in her young life.
I don’t understand why someone would not report such a traumatic attack at the time. These are allegedly bright young students. Were they never exposed to great literature regarding the aftermath of violence and lies? I know I read a fair piece of those kinds of novels and plays in high school, and I was never even UVa material. I wouldn’t think you can just ignore this and it goes away. Would such a young person realize that?
Wouldn’t you want to protect some other student from being preyed upon? It takes courage to come forth. Perhaps she regrets not doing more.
Keith G
@Suzanne: You are right. Victims need to to be treated as truth tellers and even as they are given all benefits of doubt, their claims must be thoroughly scrutinized.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Your dozens of posts in these couple of threads have made your position clear, thanks. Not everyone has to agree with you.
As I said, I’ll wait for the independent investigation before throwing the story or Erdely under the bus.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Felonius Monk
@Cacti:
To whom, exactly? The perp who doesn’t exist?
Villago Delenda Est
@kc:
The two Pravdas (one on the Hudson, the other on the Potomac) didn’t bother to fact check any of the claims of the deserting coward that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Iraq.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Look, for the essence of Jackie’s story to be true, one of these two things must be true:
1) The two people she says she recognized during the rape were not actually involved, including the person she said had taken her on a date or
2) Someone who was not a member of the frat in question felt confident enough to organize the violent gang rape of someone he knew inside the house of a frat he didn’t belong to.
Given all of the author’s inconsistencies and evasions when discussing this article, I’m not really inclined to believe #2; that’s piling too many oddball things on top of each other. As for #1, if that’s the case, I’m a little bit wary of Jackie’s reliability.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Yes, I suppose it’s convenient that my job doesn’t leave me much time during the week to comment on blogs.
@Keith G: Yes. I also think it’s important to note that believing someone when they say they were a victim of a crime is not exactly the same as believing that whomever they accuse is guilty–especially in this case, in which a perpetrator is never named. I tried to make this point the other night. I can believe Jackie, and yet not aim an evil death ray of suspicion at anyone.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Elizabelle: I was a TA for freshman at my grad school (UT Austin) and now handle undergrad recruiting for my office (not what I get paid for by my firm but something that is fun to do and who doesn’t like a free trip to Austin every year). In both the TA position and in recruiting, I was/am around incredibly bright students from diverse and varied backgrounds – objectively intelligent people. I have never ceased being amazed at how poorly read so many of them are and how ignorant they are of world history. It is shocking really…
J
@Suzanne: Suppose I say ‘I accuse you of crime Y’. If Y = theft or murder or arson there is a possibility that I am not telling the truth. Before your are punished, or your reputation blackened, my assertion should be supported by evidence; you should be given a chance to defend yourself, but if Y = rape, there can be no question as my assertion is guaranteed to be true? I’m not denying that there are special features belonging to cases where Y = rape; the reluctance of victims to come forward; the shame that has been attached to being a victim of rape; the ease with which those guilty of rape can accuse their victims of lying and be believed. But there there is nothing terrible that human beings can do that they can’t be falsely accused of doing.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne:
Man, the obfuscation here is tremendous. A perpetrator is described in detail sufficient to identify (had he, you know, been real) but because no one was ever actually named, except to the Washington Post, he, it’s all good. Believing someone shouldn’t be subjected to, you know, actual facts.
Pogonip
Seems to me that Jackie and Erdeley can silence their critics simply by releasing photos of the scars on Jackie’s back.
Suzanne
@J: Yes, false accusations are possible and happen, albeit rarely. But the consequence of not giving victims the basic benefit of the doubt when they say that something happened means that the women who are telling the truth (which is to say, most of them) is to contribute to a culture that accepts a premise of Bitches Lie, aka rape culture. And rape is a far worse crime than lying, and happens far more often. So as a matter of course, I take people at their word.
LT
@John Cole +0: “She attempted to contact them and they didn’t talk to her.”
This is not true. WaPo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/12/05/rolling-stone-needs-to-come-clean-about-its-campus-rape-story/?hpid=z2
chopper
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
the perpetrators may not have been named in the story but the frat house sure was.
believing jackie in this case means believing a bunch of the guys at that frat are guilty of rape, even if you don’t have their names.
YellowJournalism
@MomSense: I basically look at it like this:
Victim of any other crime gets believes from the start and a breakdown of facts begins from there to see if the story holds up as true.
Victim of rape (esp non-violent) gets treated as a liar, mistaken, or confused and has to work up from there.
We need to let the accused have a chance to prove their innocence, but we need to start with belief in the victim until that happens.
This article is doing a greater disservice to this particular woman and other victims of rape and sexual assault. We don’t even know if there is any “lying” on the part of the victim because the journalism by RS was so shitty, and WaPo didn’t help much either with its retraction about the lifeguard not knowing her.
Don’t forget the university and others were being investigated long before this article came out. The reason so many of us believed this story and didn’t even question details like the friends’ reactions is because we have been or have witnessed almost the exact same thing in real life.
kc
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Why doesn’t Ms. Soltis identify the person(s) who did this?
I’m not sure how UVA is protecting them, when (a) Jackie did not ID them to the dean and (b) the dean offered to help Jackie report it to the police or have UVA handle it, and Jackie chose to do neither.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Do you just automatically assume that everyone is full of shit all the time when you meet them, or just rape victims? I’m asking, because our culture reserves that hell just for them.
Omnes Omnibus
@YellowJournalism:
No, in our system it is not up to the accused to prove his or her innocence; it is up to the state to prove that the accused is guilty. Aside from that, I pretty much agree with your take.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne: I’ve repeated over and over what I do. That you refuse to process what I say is no longer my problem. As for this particular case, I expressed skepticism about it and today’s developments indicate that I was correct to do so. I’m still waiting for some sort of acknowledgement that I was, you know, right. That you continue to make accusations with no regards whatsoever to your position having fallen out from under you is pretty impressive, in a Wile E. Coyote kind of way.
kc
Re-reading that RS article. The whole thing is a mess.
kc
@kc:
From the RS article:
Just putting that out there.
Mandalay
@J:
Perhaps you went a bit too too far. Try this:
It takes time to amass evidence, so if someone alleges “I was raped five minutes ago” there is unlikely to be any immediate evidence available. And I don’t think anyone here is arguing that such an allegation should be “guaranteed to be true”. But treating the assertion as credible (until proven otherwise) from the outset, and very serious, is vital for resolving what happened.
That is a lot more respect than victims of rape may get now. As an example, someone in this thread is doubting the woman’s credibility because she didn’t immediately report the attack. Treat rape allegations as credible and serious by default.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@kc: Right. As I said above, that was the wrong response by the administration. They have an obligation to take that accusation right to the police and have it investigated. But Erdely chose to use the case where the administration’s fuckups could be presented in the most sympathetic possible light.
A lot of her defenders have argued that we shouldn’t worry about whether Jackie’s accusations are true, or that Erdely didn’t try to contact the accused because the story wasn’t about her gang rape; it was about the way that the UVa administration snuffs out rape investigations on campus. I think that that’s an entirely specious argument given the way that the incident plays a central role in the story, but even if you accept that, Erdely used a terrible case to make her argument when, if you believe her about having other cases, she had much better ones to hand with which to crucify the administration. (I crucifixion that I think is almost certainly deserved.)
Even if you let her define the playing field, she still fucked up the article.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): You weren’t right. And I haven’t accused you of anything.
My position is that we live in a rape culture, and that treating rape victims (but not victims of other crimes) with skepticism at best contributes to that. Rape culture is a systemic form of violence against women that prevents us from reaching full equality or achieving meaningful freedom. Jackie individually could be completely full of shit, but assuming so before the facts were out is harmful to other women. So I won’t.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mandalay:
I absolutely agree with this but there is a difference between accepting an assertion as credible until proven otherwise and just going ahead and believing it. And, in case anyone is wondering, no, I wouldn’t put skepticism first and foremost and a friend came to me saying that she’d been raped. That’s because the role of friend is categorically different than that of outside observer. As a friend, it really isn’t my job to ascertain the truth; my job is to provide support.
But here, and in other cases discussed to date on Balloon Juice, I am an outside observer. As such, I define my role as trying to figure out the truth and a part of that is treating accusations made as credible but not certain when they are based upon nothing more than one person’s accounting. And in a case like this, where alarm bells started going off when I first read the story more than a week ago, my skepticism is heightened.
Elizabelle
@kc:
Slate: The Missing Men
Why didn’t a Rolling Stone writer talk to the alleged perpetrators of a gang rape at the University of Virginia?
Their point: the victims advocates Jackie was dealing with wanted to support her, and didn’t necessarily think she should be further stressed by reporting the rapists. UVa did not press the case either. But how can a justice system function like that?
Allison Benedikt and Hannah Rosin, writing in Slate:
And that’s an interesting problem. Because how do you stop rapists if supporting the rape victim begins with deferring to her wishes not to come forward? And so you lose your opportunity to prove your case and pursue justice?
Is that how you deal with domestic violence cases?
kc
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I agree. What’s peculiar to me is that no one is doing that. Almost all of the comments I have read about UVA’s response take the position that UVA really mistreated Jackie.
kc
@Elizabelle:
Yep, yep.
These are things that are worth talking about, but by focusing on a sensational allegation, and failing to fact-check it, RS completely obscured them.
MomSense
@YellowJournalism:
I completely agree with you. I am in no way judging the veracity of the UVA student’s account. I am saying that even the perception that the story is inaccurate does a disservice to rape victims.
I found her story believable, as did my boys, because stories like this are all too common.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@kc: Mostly I think a lot of people bought into the rationale for the story completely and never bothered to read it critically. My guess is that a lot of the people hammering UVa over their specific response to this specific case couldn’t tell you that Jackie didn’t want to take it to the police; they just assume she did because that’s clearly what Erdely wants you to believe, that the administration just steamrolled over the victim, and never really read the story.
Mandalay
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Well I think you mostly agree with the posters you are arguing with in that case:
– Rape is a very serious crime, and the majority of rape allegations are true.
– Some rape allegations are false, but they are far fewer than accurate rape allegations.
– Therefore, it is appropriate for rape allegations to be treated as credible and serious by default (by the law, the media and the public). Other posters are correctly pointing out that this does not happen right now, and I have not seen anyone here asserting that a person alleging rape must automatically be telling the truth.
– You have repeatedly pointed out that none of us know what (if anything) actually happened during the alleged attack.
– Although the odds are in favor of rape allegations being true, a specific rape allegation (such as this one) may not stand up well under close scrutiny, and you have done a masterful job of shredding Erdely’s article.
It is entirely possible for you and Suzanne (et al) to both be right. I agree with you in your objective comments on RS, yet also agree with Suzanne on the larger issue of how (alleged) rape victims are treated.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
Good catch. I missed that in an otherwise excellent comment. It is the up to the state to prove guilt.
J
@Mandalay: In the main I agree. I don’t think anything I said is conflict with what you say, however, though the emphasis is different. I take what you’re saying to apply first and foremost to how the police should behave when a rape is reported, how testimony by women leveling accusations of rape should be treated in the courtroom and how finally we, members of the broader public should treat accusations of rape and those who bring them. To be sure, one might say the same is true of every crime, but it deserves special emphasis in the case of rape because of the way in which historically (and not just historically) accusations of rape have been treated as less serious or more open to doubt than accusations of other crimes. Suzanne, and more still Emma whose earlier post she endorses, do sound to me as if they are saying that an accusation of rape should be treated as guaranteed to be true. (Suzanne has now clarified.) If the accusation made in the RS article turn out to be untrue in whole or in part–and I haven’t a clue what the upshot of further investigations will be–it won’t because ‘Bitches Lie’ (I’m quoting Suzanne characterizing an attitude), but because the crime of rape, like every other crime, and testimony about it, like testimony about every other crime, participate in the messiness of human life. People make accusations that are false, in whole or in part, sometimes deliberately, sometimes sincerely. I doubt even if I’d read the whole thread through with the mot scrupulous care that I would endorse everything in it, but to repeat I think it’s monstrously unfair to most commentators who have expressed doubts about the RS story to be arguing as they do because they think that accusations of rape are always or usually false, that women’s testimony is less truthful than men’s or anything of the sort.
carbon dated
I feel conflicted about this, because Marcotte’s harshest critics are usually horrible people, but this is the dumbest take ever.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne:
Both of these sentences indicate that you are in deep denial. Yes, I was right to be skeptical; that you can’t admit that shows some amazing blinkers. And, yes, you have accused me of something:
That one would kind of sting if it weren’t so ridiculous.
That one not so much, give that it involved misreading what I’d written.
This one is an implicit accusation since you don’t quite come out and say it, but given that it’s a direct response to something I wrote, I feel safe in including it. Contrary to your belief, I actually do get empathy and, as I’ve explained over and over, one of my big problems with Erdely’s story is that I think she displayed precious little of it to Jackie. That you continue to defend it despite what Jackie has said about feeling victimized by Erdely baffles me.
And there were others, but it’s all in that vein.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mandalay:
I’d have an easier time accepting what Suzanne says is true if she didn’t conflate two things: treating accusations of rape with any level of skepticism; and calling the women that make them liars. In the original thread I accused her of needing to keep things very simple and I stand by that. Admitting any nuance or complexity to the argument is bound to bring down her wrath and accusations that You Just Don’t Get It.
eemom
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
That — and it is further to what Kay was saying the other night about how this “here are your options” thing the University apparently does makes no sense, even if it is well-intentioned.
Rape is a crime, period. If a kid goes to an administrator and says she (or HE) has been raped, that person’s job is to call the police, AND be there to support the victim through the investigative process.
And also further to that point, another thing I mentioned the other night: I don’t get the radio silence throughout all this discussion — including from all the self-proclaimed victim advocates here — on the fact that if it’s NOT reported, the same guy is going to rape someone else. Why is that not front and center here?
Which brings me to another question I have: when “Jackie” choose to out this after two years, why did she make a fucking magazine reporter her confidant while insisting the perpetrators go unnamed? How could that serve justice, for her or anyone else?
Linnaeus
@Elizabelle:
It’s a sticky wicket, though, because there is a well established history of victims of sexual violence being treated shabbily by those whom we entrust to investigate and prosecute these cases, if the cases are even investigated at all. On its face, “go to the police” is the sensible and right course of action, but we have good reason to believe that rape victims face a level of scrutiny that victims of other crimes don’t.
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I’ll confess that I was willing to believe the account when I read it. I can see why the sensational nature of the charge would give one pause, but at the same time, it’s not like we haven’t seen monstrous crimes in this country before. We’re approaching the two year anniversary of a man walking into a school and slaughtering 20 children, something I’m sure that a lot of people could not believe someone could do, but he did.
(And that’s not even the worst attack on a school in U.S. history, but I digress.)
That said, I did take a step back when some of the skeptical analyses began to come out, but I was still inclined to believe that something horrible did happen, even if some of the details turned out to be wrong. I still think that, but Rolling Stone really did mess this up.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I disagree with this vehemently. As an outside observer, your role isn’t to determine innocence or credibility or guilt or incredibility. It’s to support the formation of a culture in which victimization doesn’t happen, or at least happens less frequently and severely. This is why giving rape victims the dignity of an assumption of credibility is so important—because it helps form that culture. Quite frankly, my feelings on Bill Cosby’s or Darren Wilson’s or OJ’s, or whomever’s guilt or innocence do not matter and are not interesting. What I do with those feelings matters, though.
Where rape victims get metaphorically screwed is that everyone gets hung up on deciding whether or not they’re believable rather than trying to make cultural change. This is what you’re doing here. Comment after comment on how Erdely sucks, Rolling Stone sucks. Who cares? You know what sucks? Being raped.
smintheus
I have not understood this RS story or its reception from the beginning. That’s partly because campus flaps are almost always misrepresented by students when they speak to outside news media; the facts are almost always significantly different, and significantly less clear cut in terms of villians and heroes, than student sources will have reporters to believe.
Secondly, it was hard to see where UVA was supposed to be to blame given how little this student was prepared to attest to and back up. The University would have been at fault if it tried to force the student to take any action, or forced her hand by reporting the alleged crime on her behalf to local police.
Thirdly, there were all kinds of clues in the RS account that suggested the possibility that the lone informant’s account might be embellished or worse. For starters, she was claiming abuse that was so far beyond the (unfortunately too) normal campus forms of rape that it should have caused the reporter to be more, not less, circumspect about confirming her account.
Fourthly, it was obvious that the RS article wasn’t really reporting as much as it was taking dictation from a lone source and what others heard from that same source. You give blind credence to that kind of journalism at your own risk.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne:
I submit that each of us should be free to make our own decisions as to what our individual roles should be.
Suzanne
@eemom: I agree with you that reporting a rape is ultimately the best option. I can’t blame people for not choosing it, though, when it means being treated like a slut and having your name be tied to that forever for every person you meet to Google.
As for Jackie and why she did what she did….who knows? Maybe she’s emotionally messed up. I agree with Kay that if we made a bigger deal about rape being a crime against society than against a person that we’d have more fairness. But I can imagine that it doesn’t feel like society has much investment when you’re getting questioned about how much you drank or what you were wearing, and when politicians are saying that you can’t get pregnant from rape, but you did, and no one will help you get an abortion.
chopper
@dubo:
I don’t think it’s as much ‘printing the accused’s side of the story’ as much as it is ‘looking into that side of the story to verify basic facts’.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Ypu have made numerous statements over a long timeframe that make me think you’re not that sympathetic. Your comments that Ray Rice should keep his job in the NFL even though he almost certainly violated a morality clause (by beating his wife) in his contract are one example. The comments you’ve made about the cheerleader case that Mnem referred to earlier are others. And now this refusal to understand how rape victims exist in a pretty uniquely horrible situation that in fact creates systemic harm to all women. I will confess that I accuse you of a lack of empathy. I’ll stand by that.
Starfish
@smintheus:
Universities are large financial institutions (see universities with foundations or trusts that dwarf what they receive in tuition) that muddy the waters when it comes to student stories because these stories could cost them a lot of money if people choose to not apply or donate to these schools.
UVA could have suspended its frat’s ability to serve liquor on campus if there was an active investigation into the frat. It could have shut down a chapter of a frat. It could have done a number of things, but treating this type of thing as lone actors who have now graduated and are no longer a problem instead of a systemic problem, they can continue with their doe-eyed innocence. I went to a university that constantly had students making use of its alcohol education services through its mental health department because this is what students had to do if they were caught drinking while underage on campus. But yeah, this would be totally impossible for UVA to do because…
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Suzanne: Treating a person who alleges rape and taking that allegation seriously seems like the least we should do. But then what? Are we supposed to treat the allegation as an established fact and rush immediately to judgement? That’s what happened with the RS article. If we aren’t going to be completely credulous, at some point someone has to do something to establish whether that allegation is the truth, a hopeless muddle on the part of the accuser, or an out and out lie, for whatever reason. The current mess with the RS article is that at best, the reporter and the editorial staff bent over backwards to accept the story as it was relayed to them. By doing that, they have made themselves, and future stories on rape culture, less than credible. Is that a good thing?
You may not like it, but to fail to investigate the truth behind allegations like those in this case hurts your position.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Then what is it about rape that makes people decide that their cultural role is to be Sherlock Holmes?
Nope. I think society has the job to support each other with a social safety net, emotional and otherwise.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@eemom:
I don’t know if she would say that’s the way the story came out.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the WP story that TTP(JMN) quoted from above. Scroll down…
Are there problems with the details? Maybe. Maybe her friend identified the wrong fraternity building.
People mis-remember things, especially after trauma. Reporters get things wrong. Reporters who accuse other reporters of getting things wrong get things wrong.
Hyperbolic criticism of magazine articles on important topics seems to me to be counter-productive.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Comrade Scrutinizer: The only thing I defended Erdely on was the choice not to contact the alleged perpetrators, because the perpetrators weren’t identified. Because I feel that the story is really about UVA’s inadequate response to sexual assault in general, and because I can believe a woman who says she was raped without needing to know every detail, and because that isn’t necessary when reporting on of rimes other than rape, I don’t think contacting the perpetrators directly is a breach of journalistic ethics. I did not and do not defend a lack of fact-checking of any other fact in the story.
smintheus
@Starfish: I’ve been studying/working at colleges for decades, and my parents worked as staff at universities when I was growing up. I’ve seen lots of campus flaps. Thus my comments. Students frequently misrepresent all manner of things and indulge in hyperbole.
UVA could not do very much with the alleged incident unless the student was willing to stand by her allegations, which she plainly was not. We’ve seen this scenario before: Student makes informal complaint but won’t proceed to making a formal charge. College cannot move forward based on undocumented allegations. Later, student of supporters of student denounce the college for “ignoring” the charges that were never filed.
eemom
@Suzanne:
Since you purport to be an advocate for systemic change, I suggest you consider that it needs to occur on multiple fronts, rather than just according a presumption of credibility to the alleged victim. Absolutely, attacking or vilifying any alleged victim is something that needs to end, now, forever. But so does the attitude that it’s up to the victim to decide whether an alleged rapist continues to walk the streets, or a college campus.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne:
I have no idea how other people approach it, but I tend to approach it as I do any other crime. I look at it as a lawyer; this means I tend to be analytical.
While society does have responsibility to do that, each individual has a right to determine how they participate in that process.
chopper
@Mandalay:
except in the thread a few days back people were trying to make TTP eat a bunch of shit over his skepticism over the RS piece, much of that coming from Suzanne. i think that’s why TTP is trying to fish for a little recognition here.
Elizabelle
@Linnaeus:
That is so true. It’s appalling to imagine having to discuss the details of an attack with your parents, your loved ones, or in open court under adversarial conditions.
You lose your privacy a second time. It brings pain to everyone you love and know.
And there is a stigma to rape that does not exist with gunshot or embezzlement victims. It’s shocking enough that people will remember you as “Jackie, rape victim” more than “Jackie, UVa grad and exceptional anthropologist and photographer.”
Rape is a crime unlike most others.
So I have great respect for those courageous women who come forward and seek justice and to stop their attackers — the RS writer noted there are serial rapists on campus and that’s believable — they live among us, and college is a unique opportunity.
And we can force a stop to a culture that accepts or at overlooks rape, but it requires great courage and truth.
Suzanne
@eemom: I agree with you 110%, and I honestly don’t know why you think I ever disagreed with you on that.
chopper
@Suzanne:
you think this effect is limited to accusations of rape? i’ll just point out the huge amount of digital ink spilled everywhere, including here, trying to figure out exactly how the last hour of michael brown’s life went down.
mtiffany
Pardon the raising of the obvious point, but how about “If this is a hoax, it only hands Men’s Rights Activist douchebros more ammunition and talking points they can use” ? If it is a hoax then it’s a rhetorical cudgel they can use in an argument, not that MRA types are actually open to thoughtful discussion, but if it’s a hoax it (in their minds at least) legitimizes their bullshit and will give them an empirical hook with which to try to sway persuadable minds. If it’s a hoax then it’s giving away ammunition to the enemy.
And also, not least of all, if it’s a hoax it’s also the smearing of innocent men and the criminal jeopardy in which they were placed and for that, this woman should (if it’s a hoax) spend a year or two in jail.
Suzanne
@chopper: I think it’s pretty much confined to sex crimes where women are the victims, and sensational/prominent crimes where racial minorities are the victims.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
i would further submit that people should read any and all media reports and stories critically. on any subject.
eemom
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Right, it’s much more productive to an important topic to disregard any and all questions that come to light about the accuracy of the reporting or the credibility of the alleged victim. That way nobody who writes about an important topic ever needs to bother about fact-checking at all.
Facts, schmacts. The topic’s important, so it’s all good.
eemom
@Suzanne:
um, because you said that reporting rape is an “option” that you’re ok with women not “choosing”?
Suzanne
@eemom: To be fair, no one advocated that position. I and others here agreed with Cole’s assertion that contacting Jackie’s alleged assailants wasn’t necessary in the contact of this specific article, because we felt that the focus of the article was UVA’s actions when the rape was reported, anyone told by a reporter that they were suspected of a crime wouldn’t comment, and that that standard doesn’t seem to be in effect when reporting on crimes other than rape. No one ever said that facts were unimportant.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@eemom: Just to be clear – That comment wasn’t directed at you, in particular. It was directed at TTP(JMN).
I like a good detective story, and I’ve been known to get on my high horse about things in the news, too.
But.
I just don’t like binary arguments like – ‘Well she wrote that Jackie said This but some other reporter writes that someone else says That so therefore the only conclusion is that the RS writer is a Lying Liar Who Lies!11′ (Not an actual quote.). I can picture all kinds of reasons why there may be discrepancies in Jackie’s story that have nothing to do with the RS reporter being incompetent or a Lying Liar Who Lies. It’s hard to imagine a 9000 word story in a magazine being error-free even if it were fact-checked until the cows come home….
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@eemom: I thought I made it pretty clear that not reporting rape is certainly not my preferred position. It is legally optional, though, not an “option”–your scare quotes are needlessly inflammatory. I understand and am sympathetic to victims who choose not to report when all that awaits them is character assassination and further trauma and humiliation. I agree that it is in everyone’s best interest when rape is reported.
grandpa john
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: So yes as you stated earlier, lets wait and see what the independent investigation finds out.
I do hope this thread is renewed when those results are finally revealed.
kc
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Also, with all due respect, not a fair characterization of what TTP has been saying.
chopper
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
the fact that apparently the frat in question didn’t actually have a party at all on the weekend in question implies that the writer didn’t really check many facts.
grandpa john
@chopper: part of that problem was because TTP came on like an arrogant asshole , slinging ad hominem insults at anyone who dared question his infallible assurance that he was the fount of correct knowledge on all topics under discussion
grandpa john
@eemom: @eemom: Hmmm, I believe the keyword in his statement was Hyperbolic
Suzanne
@grandpa john: I believe the term is “mansplaining”.
kc
@grandpa john:
Bullshit.
sapient
@Suzanne: I’m wondering, Suzanne, if you know that there are rape shield laws that protect the identity of a victim who comes forward to report rape. The idea that going through the criminal justice system forever stigmatizes a rape victim is not true. If this is what rape victims are led to believe, this is another failure of the victim support system.
Omnes Omnibus
@sapient: Most rape shield laws are full of holes.
sapient
@Omnes Omnibus: Example?
Omnes Omnibus
@sapient: This is one. Also, the defense can go into prior sexual history if it can show that it is somehow relevant to the defense.
chopper
@grandpa john:
the problem was that TTP argued that the reporter didn’t do a very good job and failed to do much of any background. you can take his confidence in that particular argument and his willingness to stand behind it how you want, but it turns out TTP was spot fucking on. the RS reporter did, in fact, fuck up, and didn’t do some basic fact-checking.
eemom
@kc:
Seconded.
I don’t know why Grandpa and others seem to have a gripe against the guy, but that comment is absolutely not an accurate description of the thread earlier this week.
sapient
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks. That case is 25 years old (not that I’m questioning the law), but my feeling is that it’s pretty rare for victims to be identified in a newspaper. And, sure, during a court proceeding, people can be dragged through the mud.
You know, though, I’m kind of reluctant to view women as frail flowers. At a certain point, everyone who vindicates their rights faces a certain amount of pushback. Rape shield laws are quite effective (if not perfect) in protecting the identity of people who come forward. There have been controversial rape cases in my locality where a public figure was accused of rape (and later convicted), and many people during the process were bashing the alleged victim. ‘cept nobody really knew who she was. Rape shield laws, like anything, aren’t fool proof, but they’re pretty effective.
Suzanne
@sapient: Even questioning by the police can be traumatic and invasive, and oftentimes the police just drop the issue if they don’t feel they have enough evidence, leaving the victim with diddly-squat but a rape kit and hours of upsetting questioning. That’s what happened to my friend. They never caught her rapist. And they didn’t try hard, either.
eemom
@Suzanne:
“Option” is the word you used, child — not “legally optional.” Direct quote, not scare quote.
If you want to play quote games with me, I suggest you go to law school first. From what I’ve seen of your duck and weave style of arguing, you’ll fit right in.
sapient
@Suzanne: I know this. I’m absolutely not saying that the criminal justice system is great. But it’s really the only hope. “Calling out” people through the media ends up in the b. s. that just happened.
On the other hand, as someone who has encountered a few things, there’s a cost/benefit analysis. My feeling is that if an incident is easily survivable, reporting it might be a waste of time. However, if an incident is egregious, reporting it is a duty. We used to ask a lot of citizens (witness the draft, where people were required to risk/give their lives). I would say that an egregious incident of rape is something that a citizen has a duty to report. And the frail flower defense doesn’t cut it.
kc
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Was just reading comments on a WaPo article, and someone is saying the REAL story is how UVA “counseled” Jackie not to report to the police.
Sheesh.
Suzanne
@sapient: I agree that reporting it should be the goal, because it’s best for everyone. It would go a long way, though, if society had better attitudes about it. The scene in the article where Jackie’s friends worry that if they report it, they’ll be committing social suicide. That rang true for me, because I know SO MANY PEOPLE who behave this way. It’s sick. And it’s not the same for rape as it is for, say, burglary. Many women who are raped don’t even tell friends or family because they’re so traumatized, never mind file a police report or get a rape kit. And while I agree that more personal strength is a good thing, I don’t think it’s treating women like “frail flowers” if they’re traumatized after going through one of the very worst things that can happen to a person.
eemom
@sapient:
What the fuck does that mean, please? (Emphasis added.)
sapient
@Suzanne: I agree with most of what you said, and that we have to help victims be strong. The “frail flower” concept has been applied to me personally, and I resent it. People can stand up, although they need support. That’s what rape support systems are supposed to do.
@eemom: “Easily survivable” means things that a lot of people (including me) have contended with, such as being chased around, and having managed to escape. Such situations are horrendous, and probably against the law, but is it worth the effort? For a hero, maybe. For me, not.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@eemom: People read things differently, I guess.
TTP(JMN)’s comment #5 in this thread seemed pretty binary to me. YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
grandpa john
@kc: Evidently you didn’t read the complete thread. and yes much of what he said was bullshit
grandpa john
@chopper He may have been, but if you read the entire thread you will find that my assessment is borne out by the attitude and language he used in his replys to others.
grandpa john
@eemom: guess you were not one of the the ones he called an idiot then.
chopper
@grandpa john:
that’s because she wasn’t being an idiot.
Suzanne
@eemom: From the way you insult rather than argue, it sounds like you went to the law school of Jersey Shore U. I’ll stick to architecture, THX.
(Not much) shorter eemom: “You’re all idiots. I’m smarter when I spend less time with you idiots.” Repeat at least five times in different threads, often enough to demonstrate that you still spend much time here.
grandpa john
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: MY overall opinion of TTS was not formed on just that one thread but on his overall postings that I have read here on several different topics. of course we all think that we are right in our opinions but they should be formed on facts , and not just for the purpose of contrarianism or just being an insulting asshole, things that I have observed in recent days, and at least here on this blog. I have the same ability to form my own opinions as he does.
grandpa john
@chopper: neither were the other people he insulted with name calling.
chopper
@grandpa john:
if you read the entire thread you will find that my assessment is borne out by the attitude and language others used in their replys to him.
eemom
@sapient:
Are you a woman? And are you talking about rape, or something else?
eemom
@Suzanne:
You’re a clown, kidlet.
Also too — insulting the great state of New Jersey? SO not cool.
sapient
@eemom: It’s none of your business whether I’m a woman or a man. I said things like being chased around, and escaping, being inappropriately groped, things like that … I don’t think that people have as much of a civic duty to report those things as they do for heinous gang rape.
Not sure why you care what my gender is. I did indicate that I experienced some inappropriate sexual conduct. Does it matter whether I did so as a man, woman or transgemdered person?
eemom
@sapient:
You said, in the context of this discussion which is specifically about rape:
That suggests you are drawing a distinction between what you would characterize as an “easily survivable” rape, versus an “egregious” rape. That strikes me as a big time What The Fuck assertion to make, especially if it’s coming from a man, who has no experience of rape.
Omnes Omnibus
@sapient: I am a guy. I have been sexually harassed. On the other hand, the harassment was a one off thing precisely because I am a man. I don’t move through a world where it happens to me all the time. Quite a few women do.* My views on the issue are likely to be colored by my experience – no matter how I try to avoid it. Gender can definitely matter.
*Vast understatement warning.
eemom
@sapient:
So only gang rape is heinous?
And “being chased around” and “inappropriately groped” is the same as being raped?
TomG
It bothers me that there are nearly twice as many mentions of “Jackie” in these comments as there are “Sabrina”. It was Sabrina who seems to have ignored Jackie’s attempt to pull away from the article once she (Jackie) realized what the focus was. It was Sabrina who put the more sensational alleged gang-rape front and center and left the more solidly based UVa cases that she knew about to be mentioned more briefly further down in the article.
I think it really misses the point to focus too much on whether Jackie is or is not recalling things correctly. Sabrina and her editors failed at several points before deciding to go ahead with this apparently error-ridden article. They are the ones who should bear the brunt of any backlash.
In other words, what chopper said at 261.
Kay Eye
@Another Holocene Human:
Of course you are right. Here is one link: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/07/kbr-could-win-jamie-leigh-jones-rape-trial
And perhaps you over-interpret my understanding of the story, a story which was far more complicated than your summary suggests.
Neither I nor the Mother Jones writer suggested, much less thinks, that rape of a drunk person is somehow less of a rape than that of a sober victim. This particular victim’s story was a mess. The victim’s life – and the alleged perpetrator’s life – were both a mess. Mother Jones had the courage to keep following the story through the civil trial even though Jamie Leigh Jones’s story frayed under scrutiny at trial. No, not slut-shaming, scrutiny of carefully assembled facts in addition to conflicting stories. Mother Jones did some solid follow-up reporting.
But good advice from you, if I may quote – PEOPLE. STOP RAPING UNCONSCIOUS PEOPLE. IT IS RAPE.
In fact, stop raping people, conscious or not. Period.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@grandpa john: probably late in the game here but that is bullshit
Mandalay
@Kay Eye:
This is a hot topic in England right now, where a professional soccer player has been released from prison after serving two and a half years for raping a teenager who was considered too drunk to have given consent. He is still maintaining that he did nothing wrong, but an unexpected consequence of the reporting on his case is that rape reports have increased by 90%!
The police have put out a tweet that states “It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, how much she’s had to drink, or whether you’ve kissed… #NoConsentNoSex”
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Mandalay: push for 300 comments? #letsdothis
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: Grohl’s Sonic Highways show is pretty good.
He’s talking with Obama at the moment.
Cheers,
Scott.
Nick
If there’s one thing that can never be forgiven on a comment thread, it is being completely right.
eemom
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
Generally I’d agree, but you know what? This is really not funny.
The number of comments on this thread exists because a bunch of self-righteous assholes — led by esteemed bloglord Cole — insisted a few days ago that a Salem witch trial-esque condemnation of any accused rapist is the correct way to redress the horrific injustices that have been visited on rape victims throughout history — and can’t endure the fact that they’ve been proven wrong so soon.
YellowJournalism
@MomSense: I’m just surprised any of what I wrote made sense, because I was a ball of emotions while writing it. Thanks to you and Omnes for the correction. Yes, it is not in the hands of the accused to prove themselves, although an accused person deserves a chance to receive fair treatment within tour system. And so do the victims.
When I first read the RS article, I processed it from an entirely emotional perspective. rereading it, I feel I can only judge the inconsistencies of the article and not the rape claim because everything is just a jumbled mess. And now it seems that “Jackie” is backing away because she can’t handle the scrutiny for whatever reasons she has.
someguy
@tam1MI: I sure hope people remember how people are lynching a rape victim under the guise of “journalistic ethics” the next time Chuck Todd says that journalists are under no obligation to determine the truth of a matter.
Yeah, better to lynch seven 19-20 year old boys accused of rape by a liar, than to “lynch” a rape victim by not taking seriously her widely publicized, false accusations of rape. Let’s review: they’re under investigation by the police, the university is continuing its Title IX proceeding under which the boys stand a good chance of being expelled, and they report that they’ve become social pariahs and are taking abuse from all sides as a result of the accusations.
Asshole. Only somebody with your mentality could cause me to stand up for UVA frat boys.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@eemom: don’t mistake me kidding about 300 comments to mean I am unsympathetic to the various sentiments being bandied about.
Hope your daughter ends up having as rich and fulfilling experience that I had at UVA.
Peter Akuleyev
The UVA story was never about just rape, it was about class and many people’s satisfaction that finally a lot of wealthy white frat assholes were going to get the punishment they deserved. There have been a shocking number of well substantianted cases of gang rapes at college in the news lately, but they don’t get much media play, maybe because the rapists were scholarship athletes (Vanderbilt), or African-Americans (Paterson University). What exactly made the UVA story so compelling? Maybe it was precisely the lack of real detail, the facelessness of the attackers that allowed pundits to turn one woman’s horrible experience into a commentary on society at large. It is also true that in a metaphorical sense most Americans are being raped financially every day by rich white elites much like the people who join frats at UVA, so I can understand the temptation to see “Jackie” as a stand-in for a lot of us. But choosing emotional truth over objective truth is a dangerous path that leads to demagoguery and worse.
eemom
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
Thanks. The negativity in my comment was in no way directed at you.
And, thank God or whatever (and knock knock knock on wood), my daughter has indeed been enjoying her UVA experience thus far.
I may be a nervous wreck, but that’s neither there nor here.
chopper
@Suzanne:
commenters on this blog spent the better part of a week obsessively arguing over what was the exact timeline of a nurse getting on a plane in cleveland. we like to argue possibilities, it’s the internet.
chopper
@TomG:
the writer of the piece was really focused on more in the other thread a few days back, when people like TTP were showing skepticism of her work. now that RS has come out and admitted (in their own way) that the story was bad, it’s tending to be more toward ‘what happened’ which is going to focus on the victim more.
chopper
@Peter Akuleyev:
i think this is certainly a factor. you accuse a bunch of regular dudes of gang rape and people are all ‘wow, for real?’. you accuse a bunch of frat boys of gang rape and people will tend to be ‘oh hell yeah it happened’.
Soonergrunt
I’ve waited until here because I wanted my thoughts and emotions to be in line and settled before I said something. I have a bias which I freely admit, and so I wanted to be careful about what I put down..
I don’t know what, if anything happened to “Jackie.” It seems clear to me that something happened to her that was very psychologically damaging. If there’s any evidence that something was a sexual assault or other criminal activity, the perpetrators should be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And that extent must include the right to put on whatever defense they find most availing.
The only thing that’s really obvious to me is that Rolling Stone published a confused mess of an article that doesn’t appear to have been properly fact checked, and since then, appears to be blaming their source for them not doing (what I understand as) basic journalistic procedures.
jonas
Goddamn Rolling Stone. I can understand the reporter not releasing the guy’s name or getting him on the record at the behest of the alleged victim in this story. But not even doing some background digging to answer the basic question “does he exist?”? Now they’re not even sure the frat involved was PKP, despite letting the victim “fact check” the story before it went to press. This is professional dereliction of duty of the highest order, and the fallout is going to harm thousands of women. The reporter and her editors need to lose their jobs.
The sad thing is, it really does appear that this woman suffered some kind of serious trauma. I would still put money on the fact that she was sexually assaulted at a frat party. Somewhere along the way, however, she seems to have channeled that trauma into a series of recovered memories that don’t match objective reality. I hope at least that the subsequent investigations get to the bottom of what really might have happened to her.
Elizabelle
I knew this thread had the potential to hit 300+.
Always look for silver linings, and the one here is that UVa and its students are reviewing how better to prevent sexual assaults, and support those traumatized by same. Rape, or being taken advantage of physically, should never be a part of campus life.
UVa’s president is the very same Teresa Sullivan that that dreadful rector (still rector, alas, Helen Dragas) tried to have ejected a year or two ago. Sullivan seems to be an empathetic and responsible leader. We’ll see how UVa and other universities handle this issue.
The RS article motivated some alumni to stop financial support of UVa; I saw one signed comment that the alumna was donating to the American Assn of University Women instead.
Elizabelle
Correction: Helen Dragas is no longer Rector at UVa. Yes, she was reappointed rector (by Transvaginal Bob, with support from Mark Warner) in wake of her misdealings re trying to eject the president — the scandal blew up in 2012, but that term as rector ended in 2013. Dragas is still on the Board, however.
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: Done!