UVA’s Associate Dean of Students Rails Against Rolling Stone
Nicole Eramo his a bone to pick with Rolling Stone who published the now retracted story about an alleged gang rape on UVA’s campus.
Matt Schiavenza reports for The Atlantic:
Damage Lingers From Retracted Rolling Stone Story
Much of the focus on Rolling Stone’s retracted “Rape on Campus” article has centered around its journalistic failures. But three weeks after a Columbia Journalism Review investigation seemed to conclude the controversy, another subject of Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s article has spoken out. On Wednesday, University of Virginia’s associate dean of students Nicole Eramo blasted Rolling Stone in a four-page open letter addressed to founder Jann Wenner that accused the magazine of causing her personal and professional damage.
“Using me as the personification of a heartless administration, the Rolling Stone article attacked my life’s work,” she wrote.
The article centered around a UVA freshman named “Jackie” who alleged that she was raped by seven students at a fraternity party in September 2012. The next year, Jackie reported the incident to Eramo, an administrator experienced in dealing with victims of sexual violence. According to Jackie, Eramo reacted to Jackie’s claim with indifference and stonewalling. During her reporting of the story, Erdely approached Eramo—but the dean declined to speak about Jackie’s specific allegation out of fear of violating university policy. The incident frustrated Erdely. “I had actually gone to campus thinking that they were going to be very helpful,” she said to CJR. Instead, the journalist portrayed Eramo’s response as emblematic of how universities deal poorly with reports of sexual violence.
Comments
Nobody’s gonna read her 4 pages!
And, over at Columbia (the university that did a tear down on the Rolling Stone piece) … they’ve had a female (senior) student, (Sulkowitz), carrying around a mattress, claiming she was raped upon it.
Now, Columbia is being sued by Paul Nunsegger (sp?), the male student who is also about to graduate. From his lawsuit against the university, he’s placed a dollar amount, on what the university allowed to happen. PLUS, this idiot dame is getting thesis credit for her campus shenanigans. He is seeking to make the university aware that she shouldn’t be allowed to the graduation ceremony with the mattress being carried there.
What will Columbia do? Will there be a financial settlement? Will the university finally wake up to prevent any mattress carrying to be carried out on graduation day? Stay tuned.
Nicole deserves the ridicule that she has reaped. I can tell you that deans of students are not the brightest bulbs around, but usually they are smart enough to find out little things like whether there really was a party on the night in question before they take action against the fraternity. Nicole and UVA need to take a large monetary hit so that they learn about basic student rights.