There are two separate controversies this week over rape stories that have been challenged by critics. Both stories involve leading U.S. universities. Unlike the Duke Lacrosse controversy, neither school is accused of wrongdoing. Rolling Stone magazine has apologized for shocking failures in reporting a sensational rape story where a woman named Jackie alleged that she was gang raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house, but the Washington Post reported on discrepancies in the account, including the fact that no party was held at the fraternity on the day in question. In the meantime, Lena Dunham’s story of being raped in college has been challenged as containing discrepancies and the man who has faced the most accusations is now considering a libel lawsuit against the author and director.
The Rolling Stone Controversy
Rolling Stone magazine ran the story containing detailed accounts of the rape of Jackie, but it agreed to a demand by the alleged victim not to interview with accused man. It was an astonishing lapse of journalistic principles and the magazine also failed to fully investigate the details of the alleged rape. Notably, however, the magazine issued an apology but then removed this line: “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.” That line was replaced with this line “These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie.”
The story “A Rape on Campus” by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, discussed how Jackie was a freshman in 2012 when she was forced to perform oral sex by seven men at the prestigious Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house. Various people raised questions over the reporting, including the fact that some of Jackie’s closest friends questioned her account despite Erdely’s insistence that her friends’ accounts were “consistent” with her story. These inconsistencies include Jackie’s initial claim, according to friends and the Washington Post, that she had been raped by 5 men and then later claiming it was 7. Other friends said that there was an absence of any physical injury despite the claim of the magazine that she emerged bloodied and battered. The fraternity also said that there was no party on the day identified by Jackie and that her identification of “Drew” did not match anyone at the house and that in conflict with her claims, no one at the house worked as lifeguards at the pool. One of the named attackers was from a different house and no one by his name is a member at the Phi Kappa Psi. The man named said that he never met Jackie.
The fact that the magazine agreed not to interview the accused was widely condemned. The magazine stated that “[b]ecause of the sensitive nature of Jackie’s story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man who she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men who she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her.” A Rolling Stone editor claimed that it could not reach some of the men, though others including the Post were able to do so.
The Post details clearly identified individuals who were never contacted by the magazine. The Post reported that the person identified in the Rolling Stone story as “Cindy” told it that Erdely’s version of events was “completely false.”
The story of the brutal rape is still available on the Internet with the addition of the apology.
The Lena Dunham Controversy
A man named “Barry” is reportedly considering a libel lawsuit against Lena Dunham for her account of being raped at Oberlin College. She supplied details of the rape by a “mustachioed campus Republican” named Barry. Dunham’s widely acclaimed memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, included an identification of Barry as the rapist and describes him as a 19-year-old student who was known as a “poor loser” at poker with a flamboyant mustache who worked at the campus library and hosted a radio talk show. She also stated that Barry was the “campus’s resident conservative.”
The seemed to reduce the suspects to one man named Barry who was on the campus at the time and named Barry who claims that he has been hounded by the allegation that he is a rapist and that Dunham has refused to speak with him or clear his name.
Dunham’s high visibility has made the rape allegation international news and that has magnified the alleged injury to Barry. She received a $3.7 million advance for the memoir and is a leading producer, writer, and director, including her celebrated work on on the HBO series Girls.
Dunham not only claims that Barry raped her but gives highly graphic details of the encounter. She also quotes a friend who said that after she “once her friend Julia woke up the morning after sex with Barry, and the wall was spattered with blood. Spattered, she said, “like a crime scene.” But he was nice and took her for the morning-after pill and named the baby they weren’t having.”
The conservative website Breitbart has investigated the claims and identified what it says are clear discrepancies. The Washington Post blog has said that those discrepancies offer a solid basis for a libel action.
It is difficult to judge the merits of the claim. However, a libel lawsuit could force a response from Dunham and discovery into her account. Such an action could be based on not just libel but false light. The latter tort is defined
in Restatement (Second) of Torts, Sec. 652E as:
(1) the portrayal must be found to be “highly offensive to a reasonable person” and
(2) the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the other would be placed.
The risk for Dunham is that there may be enough details — and alleged discrepancies — to get such a case to discovery and possibly trial. Discovery could result in depositions of an array of acquaintances and Dunham herself under oath. “Barry” has reportedly set up a donation site to pay for “costs and related fees associated with defending Barry’s reputation including, but not limited to, potentially pursuing Lena Dunham and Penguin Random House for harm caused to Barry’s reputation from the publication and sale of Ms. Dunham’s memoir.”
so quick to rush to conclusion
OK, this is genuinely funny. Thanks, Inga!
No Karen, ALL her facts have NOT been proven false.
Name ONE that is verified as being true.
Karen, so quick to rush to conclusion. The details haven’t even begun to be revealed, I suspect we will be hearing more in the days and weeks to come.
Well, the details describing the individuals, place, and time were all proven false.
What else is there? Her name and age she probably got right.
No Karen, ALL her facts have NOT been proven false.
Michael Haz, so now I “hate men”? Oy.
Inga – you are not a friend of men, that is for sure.
Lee:
There are nice ways for men to appreciate a beautiful woman who walks by, vulgar ways, and intimidating ways.
In Spain, they have the “piropo,” along the lines of “your eyes are like limpet pools reflecting all the stars in the universe.” They really get an “A” for effort. And then there is Italy, where I swear men love the female gender more than air, water, and food. The absolute best pick me up a woman can get after a bad breakup is to go to Italy with some girlfriends.
I can’t understand why women would get offended by men reacting to their beauty as they walk by. Most women take it as a compliment if that’s how it was intended.
I differentiate compliments from vulgarity or bullying.
BTW, Daniel Frankovitch, my outrage at the culture of lying that pervades our campuses isn’t “faux” at all.
How should I demonstrate that? Shall I throw a rock or two at the nearest Women’s Studies department?
OMG, now they’re running??
Hmm, I wonder what those packs of rapists are running from. Guilty consciences? The police?
• Clemson University suspended social and “new-member initiation activities” of 24 fraternities last September after several incidents, including the death of a Sigma Phi Epsilon pledge during a fraternity run.
In the Clemson case, the university’s student affairs vice president cited “a high number of reports of serious incidents involving fraternity activities, ranging from alcohol-related medical emergencies to sexual misconduct
(only one example copied and pasted from the article.)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/26/uva-rolling-stone-greek/70048166/
Inga:
“A claim of rape cannot be dismissed out of hand as false because there may be repercussions for the potential perps.”
No. That is not what anyone is saying. Her facts were all proven false, and the men identified by these false details were proven innocent.
If she makes a corrected claim with completely different details that are proven true, then THAT claim will be judged on its own merits. This one failed.
Maureen wrote: “When reading the article I thought it was shocking that a gang rape would be used as a pledge for a fraternity. That should have been a red flag right there. What fraternity in their right mind would have their pledges commit felonies to become members”
Sadly this is not unknown behavior. ie. felonies
Five FAMU Students Face Hazing Charges
http://pajoyner.blogspot.com/2006/04/five-famu-students-face-hazing-charges.html
Five members of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity at Florida A&M University fraternity were arrested on Monday night on felony hazing charges after students pledging the fraternity said they were brutally beaten with broken canes, smacked and taunted until some passed out. The undergraduate Alpha Xi Chapter of the fraternity has been suspended from campus until 2013.
Book on Fraternity Gang Rape
Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus http://nyupress.org/books/9780814740385/
They are doing their best to put themselves on a righteous pedestal by stating the rest of the commentators, who do not agree with them are morally repugnant. Therefore putting the rest in a defensive mode.
They put me in eyeroll mode. Grotesquely illogical gasbags have that effect on me.
@Karen S ~ Completely agree with your comment at 12:40 pm.
Do you see what Daniel and Inga are doing? They are doing their best to put themselves on a righteous pedestal by stating the rest of the commentators, who do not agree with them are morally repugnant. Therefore putting the rest in a defensive mode.
Daniel ~ My point on the show or when her book was published has nothing whatsoever to do with the facts that Dunham is a liar and a child molester. I can and have the right to state my opinion, as you do, it’s not my concern that it doesn’t jive with your reality. Name calling is a Liberal tool, which you are Daniel!
Msjettexas – isn’t the show based on her unpublished manuscript? And then she went on and finished it while doing the show?
Dust Bunny Queen: “But….as a woman who has been in some pretty dicey situations in my lifetime and has never been raped, I can attest that there ARE things that a woman can do to prevent the chances of being assaulted.”
When I was college age, the present-day hook-up culture while there, was still only incipient. Behavioral norms were still prudent.
Today, it strikes me that the hook-up culture is teaching college women to behave in ways that place them at greater risk for criminal sexual assault but separately, also to engage in behavior that instigates or causes ambiguous sexual encounters that often don’t meet the standard of rape under criminal law yet are being categorized as sexual assault under campus regulations that are increasingly far afield of standard jurisprudential ethics.
And with that, I take my exit of this thread.
Inga,
It’s too bad that you hate men. Seriously. The “teach your sons not to rape” meme just gives you away. A reasonable parent may say that, and would also say teach your daughters not to lie about being raped.
@Daniel Frankovitch . . . you cannot be indignant on selective comments. Read them all first before you post. lol So typical.
Karen:
I served on a jury that heard a Murder One case. Clear cut. The guy stabbed his girlfriend, he told someone he did it right after he did it. His fingerprints and her blood were on a knife in his kitchen. Others heard him threaten to kill her. Even his defense attorney began by saying that he knew it was an open and shut case, and that he was there just to see that the accused got a fair trial.
During deliberation, there was one person who simply wouldn’t believe that the perp did it, even though the perp all but admitted it. “We might not have all the facts” or “maybe he’s covering for a friend to actually killed her” or “maybe he’s just troubles”.
Some people can convince themselves that the facts are all incorrect because to believe they are true conflicts with that person’s perceived reality.