From Think Progress:

What UVA Gang Rape Truthers Are Missing About The Reality Of Campus Sexual Assaults

BY TARA CULP-RESSLER POSTED ON DECEMBER 4, 2014 AT 4:24 PM

It’s been two weeks since Rolling Stone published an investigation into the University of Virginia administration’s failure to adequately respond to allegations of a gang rape at a frat house, and the backlash to the story is intensifying. Much of that criticism is stemming from doubts that college men are capable of carrying out a premeditated assault on that scale — an assumption that ignores the ugly truth about the nature of these crimes.

Outlets ranging from the New Republic to Slate to Fox News have suggested the Rolling Stone reporter failed to do her due diligence because she presented Jackie’s story as fact, and didn’t let the accused men tell their side of the story….

Other critics are taking it a step further, claiming that the central figure in the Rolling Stone piece, a young woman identified only by Jackie — which is her real first name — may have fabricated the horrific details about her gang rape. This argument is supported only by their assumption that gang rapes like the one that Jackie describes don’t happen on college campuses.

One of the first arguments along these lines appeared on the personal blog of the author and magazine editor Richard Bradley, who concludes that he’s “not convinced that this gang rape actually happened” because “something about this story doesn’t feel right.” …

But the fact that Jackie says she was assaulted by multiple men isn’t necessarily unique. Gang rapes happen on college campuses, and they especially happen within fraternities; in fact, a widely acclaimed 1990 book entitled Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus detailed the trend….

It’s not hard to find additional evidence. Right after Rolling Stone published its UVA investigation, the Washington Post reported that Jackie’s story “bears a striking similarity to other stories of fraternity gang rape,” based on the academic research in the field. There are plenty of headlines along these lines, too — gang rapes reported at a Johns Hopkins frat party, in a William Paterson University dorm, in a Vanderbilt University dorm.