Apparently the woman at the center of the case has told conflicting versions of the story.
The fraternity, too, will soon begin defending itself against her claims.
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A note from Rolling Stone. UD thanks Chris, a reader, for the link.
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I should have been more skeptical.
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Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
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George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
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Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
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University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
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If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte
December 5th, 2014 at 5:22PM
Your previous clinic on point of view and word choice still works, whether it’s creative writing, or journalism.
December 5th, 2014 at 5:42PM
Thank you, Stephen. I’m pretty sure the Rolling Stone piece was still closer to journalism than creative writing, but this is obviously going to be a very long unraveling.
December 5th, 2014 at 6:12PM
It will not matter if every single thing “Jackie” (and for that matter, the vile Lena Dunham) said proves to be untrue. The true believers have already moved into Fortress Mapes-Rather, the home of the “fake, but true” story. The rape culture industry will grow unimpeded. Activists will continue to be hired into comfy deanlet positions, where they will preside over an endless series of workshops, lectures, conferences, and colloquia. The forests of entire Third-World countries will be cut down to make the paper needed for the flyers, posters, travel requests, and honorarium checks. Even more supportive, non-judgmental counselors will be hired to make soothing noises when young women bring them accounts of assaults and rapes by seven psychopaths running loose on campus. They will calmly assure students that it’s entirely their choice not to go the police while Messrs. Drew, Armpit, Blanket, et. al. plan their next assault–the safety of 10,000+ other women on campus be damned.
In all seriousness–if Theresa Sullivan’s administration heard and believed “Jackie’s” account of the seven alleged frat psychopaths when she brought it to them, and they did not do everything short of picking “Jackie” up with a crane and putting her in front of a police detective, people need to be fired. If that would not be first-degree rape-enabling, what is?
If, on the other hand, they did not believe her, they should admit that.
December 5th, 2014 at 6:40PM
Yes, indeed. One should be particularly skeptical about stories that confirm one’s own beliefs because of the risk of confirmation bias.
In this case, though, just reading the story itself should raise doubts in any intelligent reader. (Three hours being raped on broken glass and no need for medical attention? Nine (!) students allegedly participated in the gang rape and no word leaked out? “Friends” who discouraged her from seeking help or reporting the alleged rape lest they themselves be socially tarred? No serious attempt to interview any of the accused or the so-called friends? Doesn’t that read more like a bad porn novel than a factual description of a real attack?)
Those doubts should have been enough to make commentators refrain from accepting the accusations at face value until there was more information. Did commentators on university sexual assaults learn nothing at all from the Duke and Hofstra hoaxes? Do they care nothing at all for students accused of heinous crimes?
But thanks for admitting the rush to judgment and following up with the debunking reports.
December 5th, 2014 at 6:56PM
One the one hand, I suppose we should all have been more skeptical. On the other hand, it was the RS editor’s job to be skeptical for/before us. Because (s)he failed to do that job, both efforts to combat sexual assault on campus (which does happen, all too frequently) and to preserve long-form investigative journalism have been undermined. Bad news all ’round.
December 5th, 2014 at 7:35PM
“Many a good story has been ruined by over-verification.” — attributed to James Gordon Bennett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gordon_Bennett,_Jr.)
December 6th, 2014 at 8:31AM
@Dennis–former Vassar deanlet Catherine Comins covered the “Do they care nothing at all for students accused of heinous crimes?” issue over a decade ago in Time.
“Comins argues that men who are unjustly accused can sometimes gain from the experience. “They have a lot of pain, but it is not a pain that I would necessarily have spared them. I think it ideally initiates a process of self-exploration. ‘How do I see women?’ ‘If I didn’t violate her, could I have?’ ‘Do I have the potential to do to her what they say I did?’ Those are good questions.”
In other words, false accusations are not a bug. They’re a feature!
December 6th, 2014 at 8:34AM
tp: Yikes.
December 6th, 2014 at 11:32AM
What on Earth does something that someone at an entirely different college said 23 years ago (not merely “over a decade”) have to do with anything that just took place at UVA? Jesus, talk about a stretch.
December 7th, 2014 at 9:23AM
A quarter century ago, the Perpetually Aggrieved still had to spell out their loss function, or at least attempt to explain why normality had to be deconstructed. These days “check your privilege” or “rape apologist” might suffice.
December 7th, 2014 at 9:35AM
Alan, I am sorry, but not terribly surprised, that you are deep in denial. Actually, by today’s standards, the Prophet Comins is a moderate. She was at least willing to let the idea of an “unjust accusation” rattle around her head. I have now seen four network reports and a half dozen written stories. Not a single one spent a second considering even the possibility that the fraternity and its members had been unjustly accused, their reputations smeared, and the potential impact on their lives. The frat’s denials are noted and left uncontradicted–but then it’s right over to worshipful interviews of a series of rape culture Bacchantes to preach their revelations. The unjustly accused frat boys? These days, they’re just road kill under the wheels of the Rape Culture Express.
December 7th, 2014 at 10:46AM
Is that babble of non-sequiturs supposed to contain something roughly akin to a casual claim?