× Thanks for reading! Log in to continue. Enjoy more articles by logging in or creating a free account. No credit card required. Log in Sign up {{featured_button_text}}

One of us has taught at the University of Virginia for more than 25 years; the other, his son, is a third-year (junior) U.Va. student. We both love the university dearly, and when we heard that a member of our community of trust had been savagely gang-raped by other members (associated with a fraternity), we were shocked and angered.

Our first response was to seek to learn the facts. We independently read the Rolling Stone article (“A Rape on Campus,” Nov. 19), which we both concluded was filled with details that, to say the least, were implausible. U.Va. does not admit idiots, and only a fraternity filled with idiots would establish an initiation ritual requiring pledges to gang-rape fellow students. The crime of rape quite properly can be punished by imprisonment for life in Virginia.

Would anyone be so stupid as to assume that no fraternity brother or pledge had a functioning conscience (or a sister or girlfriend), that no victim of such abuse would complain or mention it to others who might report it, and thus authorities could never learn of their crimes?