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.”
The story is a fake because the details seem implausible? Rush to conclusion.
Maureen ~ I looked at Michael Haz link and did my own little background check. That picture is on a Facebook group page dedicated to this cause.
https://www.facebook.com/SlutWalkNorfolk/photos_stream
Since it had her last name on there, I did some checking and found this Jackie C was only 17 years old during this ‘2011 Slutwalk’, since her birthdate is March 1994. That is why I find it even more unlikely that this happened at a university. That sign she carried fits their agenda and if she claimed it back in 2011 and protested at this ‘Slutwalk 2011’, then she was 16 when it supposedly happened. I would never let my children participate in any political event under the age of 18. So this story is total baloney!
Here is a website for False Memory Syndrome Foundation: http://www.fmsfonline.org/. It’s possible that this girl believed something happened to her but it could also be a false memory planted in her or they can result from the influence of external factors, such as the opinion of an authority figure or information repeated in the culture. I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist but this is too big to ignore.
Lena Denham is another story whose publisher admitted that the ‘Republican’ named Barry that supposedly raped her was fictitious as well. Plus the fact that she claims she sexually molested her much younger sister. Now Barry the Republican, an actual person, can sue her for defamation of character. I hope he does. These people who have an agenda should pay for their falsehoods that have hurt others, groups or institutions.
Paul C. Schulte – “leejcaroll – I think men need to start complaining about the ‘female gaze’ and being raped by the eyes of females wherever they go. It is horrible. It is something we put up with all the time. Every time we bend over to pick something up there are female eyes glued to our butts. That is non violent rape and must end. Men have got to start reporting it. It is sexual assault.”
Paul, It won’t work since the liberals will make it so that women own the word rape and therefor men can’t be raped much like blacks can’t be racist.
This has been one of the creepiest threads on this site. I would have never guessed that people would condone false accusations.
Jim22 – I feel sexually threatened by your response to my rape message. Please check your white male privilege at the door.
Paul – I believe she is a fabulist. Her story of rape is not the first one she created (see protest sign in link I provided above), and was done for her anti-male cause. There was never a police report, never the slightest bit of evidence. There was no party; there were no fraternity pledges. She falsely accused a class of people of rape.
It’s a different version of something some feminists have been doing for years.
There is a good chance something happened to the University young woman. She didn’t help herself by, how should I put it, enhancing whatever happened?
On the other hand, there is also a chance she made the whole thing up.
Could she have something akin to munchausen? … “a psychiatric factitious disorder wherein those affected feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma to draw attention, sympathy, or reassurance to themselves.”
What could attract more attention and sympathy than a rape charge at a University, in the mist of a nation wide “rape on campus epidemic”?
I don’t know.
Maureen, the lefty press has no idea that
1. People don’t simply agree with everything they believe.
2. There are consequences for lying, even for a good cause.
3. Truth has any actual value. All is a bout power, all is narrative. If it furthers the caus, who cares if it’s ‘true’? (see Foucauld)
That’s how they live, every day.
On campus and in the MSM, this story would’ve just been their usual red meat.
Michael Haz – just out of curiosity, why would anyone make up a story that sensational, when they know it would be investigated and they would make a fool of themselves and possibly be prosecuted?
On a tweet I called the Washington Post the rape paper of record. All those r’s.
Michael Haz – I do doubt her story, but I read that they are still proceeding with the investigation and I am curious to find out the results.
All the rape is making me thirsty.
The narrative, the imaginary unicorn of 1-in-4 campus rapes, must go on.
The Rolling Stoners tried to do their part, adding a fake story they assumed would be believed because it fit the needed narrative.
But noncompliant investigative journalists asked important questions.
Ridiculed and despised at first for Doubting The Narrative, they showed holes in the story.
Now, like every liberal Icon, it was shown to be a lie.
This is the I, Rigoberta Menchu of college BS.
I do not know if Jackie is telling the truth or not…but I am calling BS on Lena Dunham.
There is no evidence – none – that establishes that what Jackie said happened, and the Rolling Stone reported happened actually did. It is a story made up to fulfill a political agenda.
Maureen – why do you think anything happened to Jackie that night? It has been established that the fraternity did not have a social event that night, and didn’t have a pledge class that entire semester.
Michael Haz – the question is whether we have a rape victim who is padding the number of rapists or a total fabulist on our hands.
Msjettexas – Can’t imagine being represented by a lawyer who leaves me stranded in the court room because he or she is upset about a decision in another court case.
Getting back to UVA. I read Jackie’s story and was traumatized myself just reading it. It bothered me for days. When the retraction and apology came, it was stunning and I felt duped.
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.
Something bad may have very well happened to Jackie that night and after a thorough investigation hopefully the truth will come out. But, until then you can’t ruin people’s lives with unsubstantiated allegations.
@Michael Haz. . . I did a look-up on her and the only one in Jackie (?) in Virginia was born in March 1994 and the rest have a 1961 year of birth or older and in other states.
So this has to be her, the Virginia Slut Walk was in April 2011, which means she just turned 17 years old. It doesn’t make sense, why would a 17 year old teenager be in college and since she just turned 17 in March, one would assume she was 16 when the supposed rape took place.
Maybe she was raped at a high school party, but I certainly do not believe she was raped at a college, unless she was there but not a student.
Her home is about 80 miles away from UVA or an hour and half drive. I certainly do not believe she was even a student there at this time. Her picture and full name have been published. I still do not blame her, I blame the reporter and Rolling Stone for not fact checking their source.
5. Politics will prevail over logic or evidence for some..
I’m a self identified leftist. I think Lena Dunham is demonstrably a weirdo. Maybe she entertains some people. I don’t know. But I wouldnt be shocked that she casually lied about something that might hurt someone else. Jackie … Is a private citizen. If Rolling Stone had done their job right, we might actually know the facts of the matter, but at this point it’s unlikely we ever will.
4. The UVA administrators and faculty who condemned the male students based on the false story should be fired.
“And rolling stone said they were wrong. What more do you want.”
1. The writer and editor should be fired.
2. The next Rolling Stone cover should be an apology to the UVA frats.
3. WaPo and every MSM medium should run a front page article/TV story telling the truth.
None of this will occur.