Remember that story of gang rape at a fraternity party at U VA? It was disclosed in a long story in Rolling Stone magazine. After it was published, the U VA administration banned all fraternities on campus and took a batch of other actions. Since neither the identity of the supposed victim nor the identity of the perpetrators was disclosed in the article, the university's actions were directed against those obviously Neanderthal fraternities even though half the student in those fraternities had not been enrolled yet at the university when the alleged rape happened. Then a few days ago, the story of the rape began to unravel. Today, Rolling Stone issued an apology for the story and announced that some of the details provided by the supposed victim were being exposed as incorrect. Despite the apology, the university has not rescinded any of its punitive actions taken in response to a false story.
We do not know all of the items that have been exposed as false for Rolling Stone. One thing we do know: the fraternity party at which the gang rape supposedly happened NEVER TOOK PLACE. The fraternity hired an investigator to look into the allegations and they discovered that there had been no party at the named fraternity on the date alleged or even close to that date. We also know that no one ever even tried to speak to the supposed perpetrators to ask them what had happened.
Look, we don't know what happened. We do know that the story told in Rolling Stone was clearly wrong in major aspects, that the reporter did not bother to follow even the easiest of journalistic protocols in writing her report and that the editors at Rolling Stone made no effort to confirm any of the story (they did not even try to speak to the victim.) It seems most likely that the whole story is phony. But, of course, the administration at U VA was still able to take punitive action against all fraternity members on campus including hundreds who weren't even students when the supposed attack took place.
We do not know all of the items that have been exposed as false for Rolling Stone. One thing we do know: the fraternity party at which the gang rape supposedly happened NEVER TOOK PLACE. The fraternity hired an investigator to look into the allegations and they discovered that there had been no party at the named fraternity on the date alleged or even close to that date. We also know that no one ever even tried to speak to the supposed perpetrators to ask them what had happened.
Look, we don't know what happened. We do know that the story told in Rolling Stone was clearly wrong in major aspects, that the reporter did not bother to follow even the easiest of journalistic protocols in writing her report and that the editors at Rolling Stone made no effort to confirm any of the story (they did not even try to speak to the victim.) It seems most likely that the whole story is phony. But, of course, the administration at U VA was still able to take punitive action against all fraternity members on campus including hundreds who weren't even students when the supposed attack took place.
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