Has anyone else read the Rolling Stone piece on the UVA rape?

[+ FreshFluff]

It appears that key elements of it are now in doubt, per a note from the managing editor of Rolling Stone. The article:

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119

 

An excerpt from the note from the editor:

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

 

Whether her account is true or false, the fallout from this will make rape survivors less likely to step forward. That's tragic, especially when studies show that many rapes on campus are committed by serial rapists. (The article itself discusses one such study.)

[+ FreshFluff]

I would not be surprised at all if Jackie had indeed been raped, but the details of the account sounded off. To me, it was difficult to assess the credibility of the account of the rape itself, since by the grace of God, I have not been put in that position.

 

But one part that stood out to me was the friends' response in the immediate aftermath of the rape, particularly the bolded part below:

. "What did they do to you? What did they make you do?" Jackie recalls her friend Randall demanding. Jackie shook her head and began to cry. The group looked at one another in a panic. They all knew about Jackie's date; the Phi Kappa Psi house loomed behind them. "We have to get her to the hospital," Randall said.

 

Their other two friends, however, weren't convinced. "Is that such a good idea?" she recalls Cindy asking. "Her reputation will be shot for the next four years." Andy seconded the opinion, adding that since he and Randall both planned to rush fraternities, they ought to think this through.

 

The following is a generalization taken from own experience in college and the experience of college women I've seen: They think a lot about how their own actions will be perceived. But they rarely spend much time worrying about the social price of others' actions--especially if the "other person" is not an extremely close friend.

 

If that kind of conversation happened at all, it would be about reporting the assailant. It seems absurd that they would worry about bringing a young woman was spattered in blood and with her face beaten to the ER.

[armadillo]

News-Hour is doing a piece on this tonite.

[+ FreshFluff]

BTW, what's been said so far still isn't enough to exonerate Drew. But the contradictions between her earlier and later interviews don't give the reader a lot of confidence in her account.

[Guest]

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 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.

 

Get both sides of a story before forming an opinion? That's the most preposterous idea I've ever heard!!!

 

Everyone knows, you just need to hear from the accuser, avoid any fact-checking, then send out the lynch mobs. It's easier, more expedient, and what in the hell could go wrong?

[MsGuy]

Get both sides of a story before forming an opinion? That's the most preposterous idea I've ever heard!!!

 

Exactly my reaction.

 

And their excuse for not at the very least attempting to contact the accused men is just plain goofy. If they can't come up with a better story than that they need to hire a new set of spin doctors.

 

How the hell did this story ever get past Legal?

[+ FreshFluff]

MsGuy, here's a take on the story from a libel law perspective.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/12/06/libel-law-and-the-rolling-stone-uva-alleged-gang-rape-story/

 

Meanwhile, a website has published the identity of Jackie, the rape survivor.

[instudiocity]

More importantly, it was WaPo that exposed the errors in The Rolling Stone's article:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-fraternity-to-rebut-claims-of-gang-rape-in-rolling-stone/2014/12/05/5fa5f7d2-7c91-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html

[+ FreshFluff]

More importantly, it was WaPo that exposed the errors in The Rolling Stone's article:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-fraternity-to-rebut-claims-of-gang-rape-in-rolling-stone/2014/12/05/5fa5f7d2-7c91-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html

 

Yes, the WP did the kind of investigative reporting Rolling Stone should have done.

[+ quoththeraven]

I linked to the Rolling Stone article in my response to the thread on Bill Cosby before the WaPo did its reporting. And it's entirely possible that Jackie was raped but is confused about the details, like what weekend it happened. That's normal when someone's been traumatized and tries to reconstruct an event after the fact. Furthermore, a lot of the reporting and of the most horrifying aspects have nothing to do with Jackie's assault and everything to do with the common perception and reputation of the fraternities at UVA. Part of the reason this got through was because no one was surprised. See for example this response from Autostraddle that blames the reporter, who pressured Jackie not to withdraw permission to be a source (though Jackie tried to do so) and didn't change the story because of Jackie's request that she not contact the perpetrators:

 

http://www.autostraddle.com/i-believe-jackie-on-credibility-rape-culture-and-rolling-stone-268246/

 

Also, it's interesting how Jackie's the one who's name's been revealed, presumably in order to punish her and to discourage others from reporting rapes. See this series of tweets in response to the outing/doxxing, especially this one: You identify and sympathize with the accused and not the person making the claim - every fucking time. pic.twitter.com/ZypBy If that's the case for any of you reading this, there is something wrong, because studies show that rape claims prove to be false 8% of the time or less. Most certainly they're not all false.

 

The idea that women are golddiggers and can't be trusted in sexual matters, but we'll take their word when it comes to other kinds of criminality, is fundamentally sexist and illogical, and to the extent anyone who still makes the argument that women have more to lose if they have sex and hence reason to make rape accusations when they regret it, that's exactly why the traditional (and to a large extent still extant) view of male/female relations -- men push sex, sex is a game, women are the gatekeepers who engage in sex only if pushed and only because they're looking for relationships (much of which is demonstrably false -- in college hookup culture, men are as desirous of relationships as women) -- is so harmful. If we viewed sex more equitably as something that people of whatever gender and orientation engage in for pleasure (not pressure or status) because they want to and halt if at one or more of them doesn't want to any longer, we'd be happier, have a healthier outlook toward sex, and need to have fewer conversations like this.

 

For more, see this critique (by moi) of a famous movie about a rape and the relativity of human perception (summary: I don't think it's possible to create a movie about the relativity of truth and the inability of humans to perceive it that doesn't uphold the patriarchy when the topic is rape because in the end, it will either resolve the facts in favor of one version or the other (rape or not rape) or it will show a hopelessly snarled "he said, she said" that only reinforces existing prejudices about women being untrustworthy and unreliable, especially in sexual matters) and this followup that describes the difference between our current (rape) culture and the ideal (consent) culture.

[Lookin]

http://www.autostraddle.com/i-believe-jackie-on-credibility-rape-culture-and-rolling-stone-268246/

 

 

It feels like Erdely was more interested in nailing her narrative than justice or integrity for Jackie.

 

 

That was my take too. It seemed the writer was going to tell the story she wanted to tell, and Jackie be damned. It's a shame too, because the conflicts a rape victim has would be, in my opinion, the part of the story most worth telling.

 

I think the lousy job of vetting done by Rolling Stone is another story worth telling. Haven't read them for a while but they appear to have jumped the shark while my back was turned.

[Guest]

:

If that's the case for any of you reading this, there is something wrong, because studies show that rape claims prove to be false 8% of the time or less. Most certainly they're not all false.

 

 

Wow. I had no idea that the percentage was that high. And that's only those that are proven to be false, presumably. When one considers what a living hell the accused has to go through, that's a pretty high percentage. Careers, and even lives can be ruined by a false accusation. I suspect the percentage gets higher when celebrities are involved and accusers see $$ flashing in their eyes (i.e. Kobe Bryant and maybe Bill Cosby?).

[Rod Hagen]

oops:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/arts/television/hbos-the-newsroom-draws-backlash-over-rape-plot.html?_r=0

[+ quoththeraven]

Wow. I had no idea that the percentage was that high. And that's only those that are proven to be false, presumably. When one considers what a living hell the accused has to go through, that's a pretty high percentage. Careers, and even lives can be ruined by a false accusation. I suspect the percentage gets higher when celebrities are involved and accusers see $$ flashing in their eyes (i.e. Kobe Bryant and maybe Bill Cosby?).

 

That was an actual randomized retrospective study, not just a study of already-known to be false accusations in a pool that was not similarly evaluated. I know I've seen it; I think David Lisak, preeminent researcher on this subject, cited and linked to it in an article of his on his website.

 

8% is the upper floor. Other studies (possibly less rigorous) have found lower rates. You do realize that for accountants, materiality runs around 5-10%, meaning that an error of less than that magnitude is not material and hence need not be reflected in audited financial statements?

 

There is always error and mistake, unintentional and intentional, in every human endeavor. Considering the difference in the harm, I don't think believing women to begin with (as opposed to assuming they're lyring golddiggers) is too high a price to pay. Too many other people have been wrongly convicted of rape and murder on (bad and unreliable) eyewitness testimony. I'm thinking in particular of the young black men whose lives were ruined and spent undeserved years in jail for a crime they didn't commit (Central Park jogger rape case, where no one disputed she'd been raped but the teens who were convicted were not the perpetrators). Their justice? Millions of dollars in a settlement from NYC. No one can give them those years back, just like no one can undo what's happened to those traumatized by rape. Money is a poor substitute.

 

I don't know about you, but I have always been an advocate of the Innocence Project and other similar projects, an opponent of the death penalty, and an advocate of retrospective testing of as much DNA as possible. That's what we need to keep wrongful convictions (and possibly the execution of an innocent person) to a minimum. And believe me, police are hugely complicit in false accusations and bad convictions especially if the person involved has a history, is the wrong race, or is insufficiently deferential. Far too often, so are prosecutors.

 

Also, calling Michael Brown a 280 pound thug, as you did on another thread, doesn't help your credibility.

[Guest]

Also, calling Michael Brown a 280 pound thug, as you did on another thread, doesn't help your credibility.

Well, to clarify, he was a 292 pound thug. At 11:51 a.m. on August 9, 2014, a convenience store security camera captured video of Brown taking a $48 box of cigarillos and physically assaulting and intimidating a convenience store clerk. At 12:01 p.m., Wilson drove up to Brown and Johnson in the middle of Canfield Drive and ordered them to move off the street and onto the sidewalk. Wilson continued driving past the two men, but then backed up and stopped close to them, after realizing that Brown matched the description of the robbery suspect, according to Wilson. A struggle took place between Brown and Wilson through the window of the police SUV, a Chevrolet Tahoe. Wilson's gun was fired twice during the struggle, with one bullet hitting Brown's arm while it was inside the vehicle. Blood on the ground supports statements that Brown continued to move closer toward Wilson after being hit by a number of bullets. A thug is defined as a common criminal, who treats others violently and roughly, often for hire. There is no dispute but that Brown battered both the convenience store clerk and the police officer. If that doesn't define him as a thug, I don't know what can. I might have added that he was a jackass-stupid 292 pound thug.

 

I'm glad you're an advocate of the Innocence Project, as am I. Many innocent men (African-American men disproportionately) have been proven to not only be wrongfully accused, but also convicted, sometimes sentenced to death, and even executed. While most accusations are probably honest, I don't believe one should believe the accuser "to begin with." One should not form firm opinions until one has examined all of the evidence. Innocence should be presumed unless the case can be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

[+ quoththeraven]

Unicorn -- I have seen summaries that dispute your characterization of events, particularly those at the convenience store. I've seen surveillance video from the store that purportedly shows him paying for the cigarillos and the statement of the store owner that they hadn't made a complaint to the police.

 

Given that the police have no real incentive to investigate thoroughly, I think no one other than an investigative reporter with no particular ax to grind either way will come close to a true accounting (or as true as we can get). Given that the facts are in dispute, characterizing him as a thug on the basis of his actions that day seems like jumping to a conclusion. If the initial events were not as claimed, then Brown was someone being hassled by the police for no good reason. Violently resisting someone who's wronging you is the American way as long as it's not a challenge to (white) authority. Misguided and foolish? Probably. Thuggish? No.

 

It is the norm to form opinions about cases without all the facts. Neither you nor I have them. I have no problem with forming and expressing opinions of what's likely without all the facts as long as I'm not a juror. After all, no one is applying the presumption of innocence to Drzhrokar Tscharnayev.

 

Logic, a knowledge of psychology, and a knowledge of how rape claims play out (plus the existence of such claims going back at least ten years, maybe more) tells me that there's enough that's consistent from people in whose interest it is not to speak up at all for me to conclude that at least some of the allegations against Cosby are true. In this case, the "presumption of innocence" card is used to denigrate and shame, which has the effect of making the victims of this particular crime less likely to report or speak up contemporaneously. As I've said before, it is peculiar and (imo) an outgrowth of sexism to use "presumption of the innocence" here when it's not with other crimes. After all, there's such a thing as insurance fraud, so some arsons are set by the victims, some stolen property is in fact not stolen, and some accidents are not in fact accidents. But that doesn't lead us to question the veracity of every report of such crimes.

 

Aside on the Innocence Project: It should chill you and everyone else that Justice Scalia has hinted that he doesn't believe that proof of actual innocence via DNA testing renders the death penalty a due process violation. Are we craven enough as a society to say "so sorry, our bad" if an innocent person is executed and say that is not a constitutional violation because he was wrongly convicted via a process that ignored, overlooked, or didn't use DNA evidence to confirm the conviction when it could have?

[+ quoththeraven]

Ha, I wasn't here to respond to Unicorn, but to post a link to this article that does what Rolling Stone's article should have:

 

https://sports.vice.com/article/the-wrestler-and-the-rape-victim

[Guest]

Now some woman is claiming that both HRH Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz raped her as a child! According to Dershowitz's affidavit, 3. Specifically, Jane Doe #3 has alleged that she had sex with me on Mr. Epstein's Caribbean island. That is a deliberate lie. I was on that island only once in my life, for

Special: The One Thing You Should Do for Your Prostate Every Morning

approximately one day. I was with my wife and daughter during the entire day. My wife, daughter and I slept overnight in the same room. We had dinner with Mr. Epstein and a

distinguished professor from the Harvard Business School, his wife, her sister, brother-in-law, their kids, and an older woman.

 

During our entire stay on the island, we never saw any young woman that fit the description of Jane Doe #3. Indeed we do not recall seeing any young women during our entire visit to the island. The older woman showed us around the island. There is no conceivable possibility that I could have had any sexual encounter with Jane Doe #3 during that period. Her lawyers could have easily learned this by simply calling and asking me for the specifics. I would have then provided them with the names of unimpeachable witnesses who would have contradicted Jane Doe #3 's false account.

 

4. Second, Jane Doe #3 has alleged that she had sex with me in Mr. Epstein's house in New Mexico. That is a deliberate lie. I was in that house only once while it was under construction. My wife, daughter and I were driven there by a New Mexico businessman and his wife, whom we were visiting. Mr. Epstein was not there. Nor were there any young girls visible at any time. We were shown around the house for about an hour and then drove back with our friends. Jane Doe #3 's lawyers could have easily learned this by simply calling and asking me for the specifics. I would have then provided them with the names of unimpeachable witnesses who would have contradicted Jane Doe #3's false account.

 

5. Third, Jane Doe #3 has accused me of having sex with her on Jeffrey Epstein's plane. That is a deliberate lie. I was on that plane on several occasions as the manifests will

show, but never under circumstances where it would have been possible to have sex with Jane Doe #3. On a couple of occasions I was on his plane with my wife and daughter. On another occasion, I was on the plane with my nephew and several older people going to see a launch at Cape Kennedy. On several other occasions, after the alleged events at issue, I was on the plane with members of Mr. Epstein's legal team flying down to perform legal services. Had his lawyers called me, I would have provided them this information and told them to check the manifests. There were never any young girls on the plane during any of my trips.

 

(Sorry about the "Special" announcement on the prostate. The answer to that one is to select a picture from Unicorn's postings, and clean the prostate out of its secretions)

 

Mr. Dershowitz's alibis seem pretty tight. If she's bullshitting, I sure hope he sues her ass effectively.

[+ quoththeraven]

Unicorn -- This was the topic of another thread in the Lounge about a week ago.

 

http://www.companyofmen.org/showthread.php?102249-Will-Prince-Andrew-testify-for-alleged-sex-with-an-underage-sex-slave

 

There are various article links embedded in that thread.

 

I agree that those are pretty compelling facts if proveable. However, the posture of the matter is such that all of Jane Doe #3's statements are privileged, as they have been made in court documents seeking to overturn Epstein's guilty plea and give the various claimants rights to be advised of the progress of the case against him. Basically, the contention is that by shutting these women out, the authorities, state and federal, enabled Epstein to get a cushy sweetheart plea deal. The allegations go to why she should have a right to be advised and consulted about the status of the prosecution of Epstein instead of ignored. It's those rights she and the other women are seeking to enforce.

 

I understand why Dershowitz is angry about this; however, there is, as I mentioned in the thread itself, Rule 11 mandates that an attorney's signature on a pleading is a representation that the facts are as stated. However, if all that's been filed is Jane Doe #3's affidavit (sworn statement) and the lawyer's motion to have the Violence Against Women Act provisions for notice and consultation applied to her, I'm not sure there's anything actionable. At any rate, his attempt to be included as a party, or at least to be heard, makes sense, although I don't know if it'll succeed. If she's deliberately lying about Dershowitz (and yes, there are such things as nondeliberate lies, but that would require her to have met someone who looks remarkably like Dershowitz, something I consider unlikely), she could be subject to prosecution for perjury.

[Guest]

and yes, there are such things as nondeliberate lies, but that would require her to have met someone who looks remarkably like Dershowitz

 

Sorry, but the definition of a lie is:

1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.

2. Something meant to deceive or mistakenly accepted as true: learned his parents had been swindlers and felt his whole childhood had been a lie.

v. lied, ly·ing (lī′ĭng), lies

v.intr.

1. To present false information with the intention of deceiving.

2. To convey a false image or impression:

 

The very definition of lying entails an intent to deceive, so a lie, by definition, cannot be unintentional. Otherwise it's just being confused or misguided.

[+ quoththeraven]

I'm talking in terms of perjury. By "lie," I mean untruth. Something can be untrue and the person who believes it can still be mistaken rather than deliberately telling an untruth. Perjury is knowingly asserting something contrary to fact.

 

I thought I was nitpicky, but I seem to have met my match. You really thought it was worth arguing over a word that is used colloquially to mean untruth rather than a deliberate untruth (though admittedly that's not the dictionary definition)? Go back and look at the sentence, and think about what to replace the words "deliberately lying" with that isn't longer and awkward to read.

 

I don't usually give unsolicited advice, but here's some: It's often better to leave things there than to pursue a point or a disagreement down the last alley. It looks magnanimous and you look good for having made your point without belaboring it. When you belabor it, you risk making the rest of those reading think you don't know how to quit when you're ahead.

[Guest]

Really? You're the one who seems to find it all-important to have the last word. Yet I think that most people understand the difference between making a statement that's untrue because the person is confused versus making a statement that's untrue with the intent to deceive. In my work, I frequently have to deal with people who make false statements because they're deeply mentally disturbed (i.e. they think they're Jesus or talking to Him), or demented, and I also have to deal with people who lie, generally for nefarious purposes such as scoring drugs, getting disability placards for the car, and so on.

[instudiocity]

I'm talking in terms of perjury. By "lie," I mean untruth. Something can be untrue and the person who believes it can still be mistaken rather than deliberately telling an untruth. Perjury is knowingly asserting something contrary to fact.

 

I thought I was nitpicky, but I seem to have met my match.

Seems to me you've switched horses in the discussion, you've gone from 'deliberate lie' to 'perjury'.

 

• Wouldn't you agree that all lies are deliberate?
  
• Moving from 'deliberate lie' to 'perjury' conflates their definitions, in my mind.
  
• Perjury is to lie under oath as in sworn testimony.
  
• Perjury is generally regarded as a law governing truth telling coming from the concept of 'forswearing', that is swearing an oath to tell the truth while intent upon lying.
  
• The consequences of lying as opposed to perjurious testimony could be compared to the difference between the red-faced embarrassment upon being exposed as a liar versus a jail term.
  
• While lying might be a component of perjury, the degree of lying and the fact of forswearing leads to much greater consequences in our society.
  

 

It seems to me your nits weren't quite picked enough.

 

The Rolling Stone article includes no sworn testimony, simply a retelling of a story = facts mixed with untruths, emotions, and self-perceptions. In my mind, this admixture of truth and lies as reported is more the responsibility of the writer, editor and publisher than the victim-witness. But the basis of the whole mess comes in the erroneous documenting which I lay at the feet of the writer.

[+ FreshFluff]

Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism was asked to review the process that led to the publication of the Rolling Stone article about the rape of "Jackie," a student at UVA. Their report will come out tonight, and a news conference on it is scheduled for Monday.

 

The following is taken from an interview with Ryan Duffin, identified as the Jackie's friend, "Randall." If his account is true, it appears that Jackie made a series of increasingly desperate attempts to get Ryan's attention.

 

A video of the interview with Ryan (along with the article) can be found here: http://news.yahoo.com/katie-couric-interviews-uva-student-ryan-duffin-on-rolling-stone-rape-on-campus-story-192239916.html

 

Duffin and Jackie had met shortly after they both arrived at the UVA campus their freshman year. He says Jackie expressed interest in him, but those feelings were not mutual, “I also made it clear that it was not reciprocated,” he said, “but I was still happy being friends with her.”

 

Duffin says it wasn’t long after that Jackie told him about a student in her chemistry class, Haven Monahan, who had shown interest in her. She asked Duffin and another friend to vet Haven. Jackie provided them with phone numbers that she said belonged to the third-year student and asked them to text him. Duffin later discovered that those numbers were tied to an anonymous online texting service and were not linked to anyone named Haven Monahan.

 

“The conversation for both me and the mutual friend, when we were speaking to Haven, very quickly turned into a conversation about how much Haven cared about Jackie,” Duffin recalls, so he and the friend gave Jackie their blessing to go on the date. It was on that date, Jackie would later claim, that Monahan orchestrated a vicious sexual assault that left her physically and emotionally scarred.

 

But for Duffin, the story took an even more bizarre turn five days after the alleged attack, when he received an email from someone claiming to be Monahan. “The subject line said ‘About You,’” Duffin says, “And the text of the email said, ‘You really should read this. I’ve never read anything nicer in my life.’”

 

It was a letter that Jackie had allegedly written, gushing about Duffin and revealing her deep feelings for him. [...] But it wasn’t until the Rolling Stone article put Jackie’s story under a microscope that investigators discovered that Haven Monahan never existed at all.

[rvwnsd]

Rolling Stone retracted the story this evening (afternoon for those of us on the West Coast).

 

http://nyti.ms/1DPnEV5