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.”
Michael Haz
This is typical of how women at some universities want to treat men. Chilling.
Back in the 1990s, a dean at Vassar College told Time magazine that a false accusation is not only an acceptable price to pay, but might even benefit the falsely accused:
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Until the dean gets falsely accused. No, there is no benefit to being accused of something that you didn’t do.
I’m beginning to doubt “Jackie” is a real person.
Lee, I read all the articles and the related investigations.
Liberals and their leftist press deserve condemnation and ridicule and disgust and mockery.
This is typical of how women at some universities want to treat men. Chilling.
Back in the 1990s, a dean at Vassar College told Time magazine that a false accusation is not only an acceptable price to pay, but might even benefit the falsely accused: “[The wrongly accused] 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.”
“A false accusation is an acceptable price to pay.” How horrific.
Compassion should be with ‘real’ victims, not wannabe victims. It amazes me that you cannot even empathize with being the victim of a false accusation. Jackie’s accusations have affected a whole respected learning institution’s reputation across the world, a fraternity of young men whom are innocent of these accusations and lastly have put what was a respectful magazine, on a legal slippery slope . I cannot blame ‘Jackie’ because the reporter was shopping a ‘rape story’. She didn’t check her sources and smite the school and those affected.
If Jackie is real, then maybe she’ll come forward. After she tells her story of whatever really happened to her, will I have compassion. But it may not be for the same reason as you.
So why do you keep mentioning them Haz?
You. Brought. Them. Up.
Karen how about the big black man who was choked to death? You didn’t mention him.
Just like the smearing of police shooting victims, that always comes first it seems.
Why also are police shooting victims torn apart before even an indictment?
I brought it up to make a statement ….
http://m.quickmeme.com/img/e9/e9d4c0cbc630a634d8a7d2efbcb63db180e799a055ee623c8dbe9952bf9e37ec.jpg
Oh this was mean of me, I know.
Jim, lack of compassion has been my focus. I set out to make a point. I made it. Now you all can feel free to get back to bemoaning the curtailment of the frat boys “activities”. I am trying hard to conjure up compassion for their lack of “activities”. At least I’m trying.
So why do you keep mentioning them Haz? I told you WHY I mentioned them. I’m not interested in discussing their cases here. The charge of going off topic is specious to say the least.
Few individuals are so monolithic in thought their focus is absolutely dedicated to one issue.
Darren:
Don’t we owe JT the courtesy of staying on the topic he starts? I can understand wandering off the topic if it’s an open thread, but this thread was specifically about the rape allegations, and not about Brown or Garner.
US lefties are always fighting imaginary injustices. Campus rape, at least the bogus 1-in-4 stat, cannot be solved because it is not a problem to begin with.
There is no 1-in-4 occurrence campus rape. Never has been. Just like institutional racism and anti-gay graffiti and global warming.
To keep interest in their unicorn sightings, they have to fake one every once in awhile.
It’s their weekly OUTRAGE!! fix, the 2 minute hate.
Just don’t look at the woman behind the curtain.
Rape stories that aren’t.
Nooses hung by black women themselves.
Gays writing anti-gay graffiti.
Palestinians staging being shot in the street.
‘Hands up,’ when hands weren’t up, except to attack a cop.
For me, everything I read in the lefty press is best viewed as a lie, unless corroborated elsewhere, by a non-lefty press.
Not just a lie, but most are scripted lies.
Planned, thought out, deliberate.
They learned it in j-school, in poli-sci, and film school and at teacher conferences. Just as Bill Ayers taught Barry how to Alinsky .
Everything they say and do is a lie, part of a lie, or in service to a lie.
People, Please do use all a favor and stop taking the bait that Inga is putting on the hook. For people who know the law it really seems quite ridiculous what she is spewing.
@ Dust Bunny Queen~ Thank you.
http://www.applause.at/images/applause.jpg
I don’t have desire have faux outrage over incidents which may not have occurred. Or to have compassion until I know that it is deserved. To expend all that energy on false premises and then find out later……you were tricked and manipulated is a complete waste of time and energy.
Me too
I do not choose to give my opinion on the Eric Garner story because
……….because it is not the topic of this post which is the reporting and writing about two “alleged” rapes. It is also about journalism or lack of investigative journalism.
Darren, I certainly wasn’t expecting any mention of the police shootings in this thread by conservatives. I brought it up to make a statement on COMPASSION and empathy, or the lack of it. Some things are uncomfortable. Again, why I need to spell this out is telling and not really surprising, considering. I didn’t bring it up to change the topic. I brought it up to make a COMPARISON, to make a point, which I did.
Inga~ Only you would take my comment personally. I swear I cannot figure out how you get your opinions or thoughts. I was not referring to you. . . thank you. But yet you take the victim role. . . so liberal of you.
I do not choose to give my opinion on the Eric Garner story because I’m a white woman, as anything I say that isn’t lock step with yours, you will accuse me of being racist. You Liberals have pushed race relations back about 40 years with your race baiting. I’m not falling for it. . . and wrong thread.
It is not reasonable to expect that because of two events involving the police shootings occurred that the entirety of all discussion must somehow only involve these two happenings, else there is some kind of miscarriage of justice fostered by not focusing on only those two.
There is the entirety of the news in the world. The world does not revolve around any particular thought or discussion about any singular topic. In fact, this article is about this one particular matter relating to the magazine and the related fallout that ensued.
It is rather selfish to also expect that others only discuss or report a particular interest of those individuals else be labeled as unconcerned about their particular cause. It is even such with such expectations that the degree others have most according to the selfish be absolute in order to satisfy the expectation. Few individuals are so monolithic in thought their focus is absolutely dedicated to one issue.
It is rather odd that those who have this expectation of others to conform and be completely outraged at a an approved subject do themselves change from one topic to another over time and expect others to follow their course as well. So whatever happened to the original subject that was so dearly pursued? Was it also forgotten unjustly in favor of another topic?
Well you are just so awesomely heroic that the rules of evidence should be totally changed just to fit your life story.
Evidence? What the eff are you talking about? Do you have some secret special one-of-a-kind evidence that was not collected by local, state and federal investigators? Do you have testimony that was not presented to either of the grand juries?
The facts in the case do not agree with your narrative, so you just make stuff up?
Oh. now I understand why you try to link the cases to the rape allegations…..