Rolling Stone retracts Campus Rape Story

[Cow Poke]

Source: RollingStone

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

© Copyright Original Source

Epo is requested not to post here.


It's AMAZING how the allegation of rape can be so incredibly damaging -- especially to REAL rape victims.

[Darth Executor]

It's AMAZING how the allegation of rape can be so incredibly damaging -- especially to REAL rape victims.

No, not especially to real rape victims. This is like when some minority does something bad (like a muslim blowing up a coffee shop) and all the liberals chime in to say that the main victims are the minorities that will suffer from racism as a result. False allegations of rape are primarily damaging to the people who are falsely accused of rape, who frequently end up damaged for life even if the accusation is proven to be false. Rape victims are, at best, a secondary casualty (if they are one at all).

[Cow Poke]

No, not especially to real rape victims. This is like when some minority does something bad (like a muslim blowing up a coffee shop) and all the liberals chime in to say that the main victims are the minorities that will suffer from racism as a result. False allegations of rape are primarily damaging to the people who are falsely accused of rape, who frequently end up damaged for life even if the accusation is proven to be false. Rape victims are, at best, a secondary casualty (if they are one at all).

I'll buy that. (I would have thought that would have been obvious, but, yeah, what you said)

Especially since you're slow cooking meat.

[Cow Poke]

Here's some more background for those who may not be familiar with the details....

Source: USA Today

On Nov. 19, the magazine ran a story of "Jackie," an unidentified UVA. student who says she was gang-raped at a party at the house of Phi Kappa Psi in the fall of 2012. Her shocking story, with vivid details from the night of the incident, and its charges that sexual assaults at UVA. often go unreported deeply embarrassed the university and launched an investigation by school officials and local police. All Greek life activities were also suspended in the wake of the story.

Soon after the 9,000-word story ran, media critics began to question Erdely's reportorial methods. According to Rolling Stone, she spent months talking to Jackie, her friends and university officials. But Erdely never spoke to the accused, "Drew" and other men at Phi Kappa Psi.

Erdely didn't contact the men for comments due to an agreement with Jackie, Dana said. "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," he wrote.

"We have no knowledge of these alleged acts being committed at our house or by our members," according to a statement released Friday by the university chapter of Phi Kappa Psi. "Our initial doubts as to the accuracy of the article have only been strengthened as alumni and undergraduate members have delved deeper."

© Copyright Original Source

[Mountain Man]

This is similiar to Lena Dunham's recent allegations in her "tell all" book that she was raped in college by a high-profile campus Republican. Breitbart did an in-depth investigation and could not verify a single detail about her alleged attacker. During the the investigation, one long-time campus employee refused to cooperate with Breitbart and angrily retorted, "Asking whether or not a victim is telling the truth is irrelevant. It's just not important if they are telling the truth."

So the truth doesn't matter, only the seriousness of the accusation. Except that it does matter to the one man who has been falsely pegged as Dunham's supposed rapist and has had his life ruined because of it (he happens to have the same name as the man in Dunham's account, and he was student at the time time, but he doesn't fit any of the other details that she vividly describes).

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywo...under-scrutiny

[Darth Executor]

The cherry on top is that the Dunham Horror is herself a child molester by her own admission.

[Cow Poke]

AND it puts me in mind of tax cheat Al Sharpton's Tawana Brawley story!

[Catholicity]

I have to point out, Its very common for a rape victim not to want the attacker to be contacted when they tell the truth. Its also common for university officials to deny it. Keep in mind recent scandals at Bob Jones and Other Christian Universities as well as Harvard and other places that knowingly allowed rape and assault among faculty male to male and male to female assaults and hid it or expelled the rape student. Clearly there could be some pay off to rolling stone and as a woman who is highly aware of assault statistics for good reason is aware that this could be true.
I'm also aware of the faked accusations of Duke Lacrosse and Faked accusations in other high profile cases and find them equally disgusting. However Rapists are too quick to get a pass, because at the high level of court many times judges themselves and police officers profile as sociopaths or narcissists and favor the pedophile and blame the woman or the children involved. A faked accusation is horrible to true victims but to write it off is equally as bad.

[Christianbookworm]

I have to point out, Its very common for a rape victim not to want the attacker to be contacted when they tell the truth. Its also common for university officials to deny it. Keep in mind recent scandals at Bob Jones and Other Christian Universities as well as Harvard and other places that knowingly allowed rape and assault among faculty male to male and male to female assaults and hid it or expelled the rape student. Clearly there could be some pay off to rolling stone and as a woman who is highly aware of assault statistics for good reason is aware that this could be true.
I'm also aware of the faked accusations of Duke Lacrosse and Faked accusations in other high profile cases and find them equally disgusting. However Rapists are too quick to get a pass, because at the high level of court many times judges themselves and police officers profile as sociopaths or narcissists and favor the pedophile and blame the woman or the children involved. A faked accusation is horrible to true victims but to write it off is equally as bad.

Well... I wonder what the Judge(i.e. Jesus) will think about that. Shame on the evildoers!

[pancreasman]

It is a nasty situation. However, I will give RS points for at least going to press to admit they had it wrong.

[Mountain Man]

I have to point out, Its very common for a rape victim not to want the attacker to be contacted when they tell the truth. Its also common for university officials to deny it.

That may be true in some cases, but it doesn't appear relevant as far as the Rolling Stone story and the Lena Dunham accusations are concerned. Breitbart did a lot of digging through publicly available records and could find no support for Dunham's allegations. After a thorough investigation of Dunham's story, Breitbart's John Nolte concluded: "Lena Dunham might have been raped at Oberlin College, but the 'Barry' she describes in her memoir is a ghost."

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[Catholicity]

About the dunham case: How would they know who she is talking about given that she never use a real name. The defining characteristics were sadistic sex, a potential rape, and the use of drugs and cocaine. That indicates that the person in question at the very least had some questionable morals and most certainly was into sleezy sex. Its certainly easy to believe that type of person may have had some kind of accusation before against them however like most universities, no one wants a high profile assault. I mean what could that mean for the donors!!!!!

[Paprika]

It's AMAZING how the allegation of rape can be so incredibly damaging

Yes, to the falsely accused, which is why there should be harsh penalties for false allegations of rape.

[Mountain Man]

About the dunham case: How would they know who she is talking about given that she never use a real name. The defining characteristics were sadistic sex, a potential rape, and the use of drugs and cocaine. That indicates that the person in question at the very least had some questionable morals and most certainly was into sleezy sex. Its certainly easy to believe that type of person may have had some kind of accusation before against them however like most universities, no one wants a high profile assault. I mean what could that mean for the donors!!!!!

You'll have to read the Breitbart story if you want the complete picture, but Dunham gave some very specific details that would make the individual easy to identify, assuming she's telling the truth. First of all, she never indicates that "Barry" is a pseudonym suggesting that it's his real name. She repeatedly describes him as a prominent Republican and the "resident conservative" on campus. She claims that he worked at the campus library shelving books. That he had a flamboyant mustache and wore purple cowboy boots. That he hosted a radio talkshow called Real Talk With Jimbo. After weeks of interviews and digging through public records, Breitbart could not verify a single one of these details except that there was man named Barry who happened to attend the school around that time but doesn't fit any of the other distinctive characteristics (prominent Republican, flamboyant mustache, purple cowboy boots, hosted a show called Real Talk With Jimbo, etc.), and he insists that he never even knew Dunham while at Oberlin. Of course none of this has stopped Dunham from letting people assume that the Barry in the book is the Barry that his been identified by the popular press.

[Catholicity]

I did, and as an FYI the Breibart story SHOULD NOT be posted due to content here.