UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

We learn more about "Drew" too:

The friends said that details of the attack have changed over time and that they have not been able to verify key points in recent days. For example, an alleged attacker that Jackie identified to them for the first time this week — a junior in 2012 who worked with her as a university lifeguard — was actually the name of a student who belongs to a different fraternity, and no one by that name has been a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

Reached by phone, that man, a U-Va. graduate, said Friday that he worked at the Aquatic and Fitness Center and was familiar with Jackie’s name. But he added that he never met Jackie in person and never took her out on a date. He also said he was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

 

I'm still willing to believe that something upsetting and/or traumatic happened to this girl that night. It may even involve a sexual assault. She reached out to friends for support on the night in question.

But, for whatever reason, it sounds like she didn't just remember the incident poorly, or exaggerate a few details, or even change a few key details so that the attackers could not be identified.

She appears to have invented a wholly different incident that the one that may have actually occurred.

 

This gets weirder and weirder.

 

Renda's role is disturbing too.

Erdely trolls rape counseling/advocacy/awareness groups at top colleges, and Renda has got a whopper of a story for her.

I don't think she betrayed any confidences, but just by putting the two together, she put Jackie in a situation where she either had to decline to participate -- but how could she, it was such an important story -- recant, or retell her story, with all of its discrepancies.

 

The takeaway from this story shouldn't be that we don't believe rape victims.

It's my trust in journalism, and in the kind of narrative reporting seen in publications like Rolling Stone, that is diminished.

Let's keep the focus on poor reporting, and putting a good story over facts.

 

Here's why I thought she story was true and why I still think chunks of it are accurate.

Fraternity has an unofficial function at the house. Why it is unofficial matters. Maybe they aren't allowed to have rush events. Maybe, depending on the housing corporation setup, they can have alcohol at unofficial events but not at official events. Maybe the ratio of members to non-members matters at official events as compared to one that is off the books. Maybe, and far more likely, they want to get as many women into the house as possible and the school has rules for and against that as well. Also, at some schools, if you have an official event, you have to pay an off-duty cop(s) to provide security. An unofficial event you don't.

So long paragraph short, there's lot of reasons why the fraternity in question wouldn't have something on the calendar.

As an aside, the housing corporation line matters because no fraternity is stupid enough to mess with the housing corporation. They control the money. Also, at some schools, if the house is on fraternity owned land then university rules on alcohol don't apply. Some fraternity chapters have built apartment complexes, in addition to the house, and the same rules apply since they are privately held housing.

Anyway, fraternity has a function. As a dutiful fraternity member, you are expected to drum up attendance as it might be five bucks at the door, or five bucks for a dixie cup that you can drink all the beer you want from as it is a little bit of a fundraiser. Or maybe they want to get prospectives and women out to their functions. Having a house full of beautiful women will help sell your chapter. And recruitment is the lifeblood of fraternity life. A small pledge class can spell doom for a couple of reasons but the biggest is all that housing needs people living in it.

Okay, so now you are at the function and you spot the cute girl from the pool and think damn she looks good in some makeup. You invite her up to your room and she says yes, and the lizard part of your brain kicks in and says she said yes and you now believe that everything that happens next is consensual.

Now what happens next is maybe some other dudes are in the room. Maybe they are smoking some pot or maybe they were waiting on the girl to be brought believing her to be a "pass around." A term of art created at my school for the female students who hung around the chapter houses for the purpose of having sex and getting drugs, etc. Think of them as groupies but with style. They might also be in sororities but probably not. It is fine to think of the girls from Almost Famous here.

It is important to remember that these guys think of themselves as budding masters of the universe. They have money, connections, bold-faced family names and power. They think themselves invulnerable.

So things heat up and get a little rough but at no point do they think of themselves as rapists. The girl went into the room on her own. Lizard brain says that's consent.

She thinks she was raped. Tells her friends about it. They tell her not to report it. Maybe because they believe it was also consensual, she did go off by herself and into the room of the guy she was talking about. Or maybe they don't want to be known as the friends of the girl who cried rape. And, remember, these aren't most lifelong friends, they are people she only just met a few weeks earlier and live in the same dorm room or have some classes together. Since they don't really know her, they may simply not believe her.

So time passes and she's messed up. In her head that night only gets worse.

The guys involved don't think of anything of it. Because a) it was consensual, b) this isn't the first time they've done this, c) she was drunk anyway and won't remember.

So that line about her running into the guy and him asking her if she had a good time, sounds entirely reasonable to me. He hasn't seen her since and thinks I hope she had a good time because he doesn't believe himself to be a rapist.

She's also still a student there and it is very likely she's fearful if names come out.

The story needed more reporting but the general outline is still pretty sound. Mostly because the general outline has so much truth to it, you can't shake it off as a complete fabrication.

 

This has as much in common with the story she told as "Citizen Kane" does with "Spice World."

 

Is there any evidence that frats at UVa have "unofficial functions" of this nature?

This party sounds like a big one, that wouldn't slip under the radar:

Caitlin Flanagan, who wrote The Dark Power of Fraternities for the Atlantic (http://theatln.tc/1fLO1dv), and knows a little about the subject says this:

Anyone who has studied frats 5 mins knows a party if that type would have been registered with office of Greek life.

https://twitter.com/MaryHartmanx2/status/540945830291582976

So, what are you basing your theory that this unofficial event happened on?

 

One of her friends said she told him that night that she was forced to perform oral sex that night. (Can't recall where I read it, but I'm pretty sure they referred to the friend as "Andy.") Still monstrous, not nearly as splashy as the RS story.

 

And, btw, how does the author have any idea if the "punch" Jackie spilled on the floor was spiked?

She didn't talk to anyone else at the party.

The gang rape that was supposedly planned by "Drew" and his Frat Bros would not require Jackie to be drugged. They were going to use overwhelming force to rape her.

And, if the "punch" was spiked, then wouldn't we have a whole bunch of people who were drugged the night in question, and would have come foreword -- especially after publication of the RS piece -- to say they were served spiked punch at the unofficial party in question?

And, the author can't put that on Jackie. The author chose to put this bit in, knowing she had no proof.

 

That's from the WaPo story.

And, that may be true. But, she didn't just embellish what happened. She appears to have made up an entirely different scenario, which implicated a whole frat house.

 

Shocking.

A very clearly liberal rag with a penchant for telling stories and interpreting facts in order to suit its own political agenda made up stories about evil men raping women in order to underscore this "epidemic" of evil men on campuses assaulting women.

Just shocking.