UVA Begins to Deal With Legal Costs of Discredited Rape Story
This is going to be an expensive situation for UVA. I hope all the fraternity members have good lawyers.
From Business Insider.
University Of Virginia Legal Costs Mount After Discredited Rape Story
The costs to the University of Virginia after a discredited report by Rolling Stone magazine of a fraternity gang rape are mounting, with lawyers’ contracts totaling more than $500,000, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Virginia’s flagship university was thrown into turmoil in November after Rolling Stone reported about a 2012 gang rape in a fraternity. The magazine stepped away from its story in December, citing discrepancies in the alleged victim’s account.
To tighten security on the Charlottesville campus, the university’s Board of Visitors, or trustees, were told in December that one-time infrastructure improvements, such as upgraded camera and lighting systems, would cost an estimated $3.5 million.
Estimated operating costs in fiscal years 2014-15, which could include more counselors, training and security personnel, would add another $1.4 million.
As for legal expenses, the Daily-Progress newspaper in Charlottesville on Sunday published a contract totaling $500,000 for the international law firm of O’Melveny & Myers.
The Virginia attorney general’s office has named the firm an independent counsel to investigate how the university handled the 2012 report of sexual violence reported in Rolling Stone, Michael Kelly, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said on Sunday.
Kelly said the bills from the law firm would be reviewed by the attorney general’s office and then forwarded to the Board of Visitors for payment.
University Of Virginia Legal Costs Mount After Discredited Rape Story (Business Insider)
Comments
Sadly, the only data points they will pay attention to have dollar signs. They don’t care about the harm their “guilty even if proven innocent” policies cause, but they do care about the money they are forced to pay out.
I would like to think that this matters but colleges have infinite money. They are invincible.
If there ever was a need for a choke point operation, it would be for the revenues and income of colleges. They need to get hurt, and right now, the way things are, you can’t hurt them.
If I get this, it’s half a mill to see if the U handled Jackie’s story appropriately.
I can’t laugh loudly enough to do this credit. Might do myself a mischief.
By the time this is over, I hope, half a mill will look like the copying fees.
Isn’t Rolling Stone a party to this fraud? What’s its liability? That would make this that much sweeter, though I agree it’s high time universities had to suffer seriously for their hubris and the damage they do to others.
UVA should be required to break out the costs related to this fiasco as a line-item surcharge on student accounts, e.g., 2014 False-Rape Hysteria Fee. Don’t pass the cost on to taxpayers. Make university customers and bill payers (parents) fully aware of the cost of the institution’s mis-administration. Then let the chips fall where they may.
Regardless of the money that UVA needs to pay for their misdeeds, they need to fire the idiot they have as president. My dog appears to be smarter than she is.
Good. Now, the fraternity should sue UVA, the accuser and Rolling Stone.