Nicole Eramo, Dean of the University of Virginia, has filed a lawsuit with the Circuit Court of the city of Charlottesville against Rolling Stone and writer Sabrina Erdely for the false, and now debunked, accusations presented in her article â€śA Rape On Campus.â€ť



Source: Photo by Jay Paul/Getty Images

With this lawsuit, Dean Eramo is looking to restore the name and good faith of the University of Virginia, which was dealt a harsh blow due to the false and defamatory accusations, not only against the college, but against Eramo in particular who was portrayed as being apathetic to â€śJackieâ€™sâ€ť situation.

â€śIn the article and related media appearances, Rolling Stone and Mrs. Erdely stated that I discouraged Jackie from reporting or discussing her alleged assault, that Jackie suffered ‘abuse’ at my hands when she tried to hold the perpetrators accountable, that I called UVA ‘the rape school’, that I did not ‘support’ Jackie, that I did ‘nothing’ in response to Jackieâ€™s allegations and did not report them to the police, and that I sought to ‘suppress’ Jackieâ€™s alleged sexual assault. Rolling Stone celebrated these malicious and false allegations by accompanying the article with a cartoonish picture of me doctored to appear as though I was smiling and giving a ‘thumbs up’ to a crying victim sitting in my office, while angry protesters marched outside with signs like ‘Stop Victim Blaming.’â€ť said Eramo.

The lawsuit tells the story. â€śThese statements, and the portrayal of Dean Eramo, in ‘A Rape on Campus’ and in Erdely and Rolling Stone‘s subsequent public statements, are categorically false. Indeed, publicly available information demonstrates that the highly disparaging claims about Dean Eramo are all untrue. In fact, upon being told of Jackie’s allegations of sexual assault â€“ which differed materially from the description Erdely and Rolling Stone published â€“ Dean Eramo immediately offered to assist Jackie in holding her attackers accountable â€“ by going to the police, by pursuing misconduct proceedings within the University, or by both. Dean Eramo ultimately persuaded Jackie to speak with the police, and she arranged and attended two different meetings between Jackie and officers from the University Police Department and the Charlottesville Police Department.â€ť

Not only does the lawsuit also state that Erdely and Rolling Stone â€śacted with actual malice,â€ť it further goes after Erdelyâ€™s past history of unethical journalism stating, â€śLong before Erdely wrote ‘A Rape on Campus’, Erdely has made a practice of using narrative journalism in which a shocking rape case is used as the vehicle to show that a given institution is indifferent to, or actively seeks to conceal, sexual assaults.”

It goes on to cite Erdelyâ€™s previous articles such as her 1996 â€śIntimate Intimidationâ€ť piece in Philadelphia magazine where she accuses a gynecologist of sexually abusing a patient, and her 2008 article in Self called â€śThe Crime Against Women No One Understandsâ€ť in which she tells the story of a victim who became a rape victim after she was drugged via her drink. Both articles follow the same pattern as â€śA Rape On Campus,â€ť in which she describes in graphic detail how a woman is raped, then goes on to accuse various systems for not properly punishing the accused rapists.

It also cites an article written previously to â€śA Rape On Campusâ€ť by Erdely and published by Rolling Stone titled “The Catholic Church’s Sex-Crime Files: How a scandal in Philadelphia exposed documents that reveal a high-level conspiracy to cover up decades of sexual abuse,” which tells the story of an altar boy given the name â€śBilly Doe,â€ť which accused the Catholic Church of covering up his molestation at the at hands of two priests and a Catholic school teacher. This story was analyzed by Newsweek, and found “the factual discrepancies in Jackie’s story are dwarfed by the factual discrepancies in Billy’s story that was published in the September 15, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone.â€ť

All in all, it would appear Erdely has a modus operandi when it comes to writing rape accusations, and it would appear that major inaccuracies are recurring problem within them. Furthermore, these falsified reports by Erdely have not cost her her job, which can be viewed as a serious outrage, seeing as how her falsified reports have cost others so much.

The actions taken by Erdely and Rolling Stone do more than just darken the reputation of the writer and the publication. These false rape accusation are purely destructive, as can be seen not only by the harm done to the reputation of Eramo and UVA, but the very real physical threats and damaged lives suffered by the young men of Phi Kappa Psi.

And the UVA rape hoax is not the only time these kind of accusations have been so damaging.

With this lawsuit, Dean Eramo seeks punitive damages against Erdely and Rolling Stone of no less than $350,000, covering all costs including attorney’s fees, and $7,500,000 in compensatory damages.

It is the hope of many that this case deters any further false accusations, and damaging sensationalistic reporting.

Hailing from Austin, Texas, Brandon Morse has been writing about politics and culture across many websites for the last six years, with a heavy emphasis on anti-authoritarianism. Aside from writing articles, he is also known for voice acting and authoring scripts. He is an avid gamer, dog person, and has a bad habit of making vague references to things no one has heard about or seen. Follow him at @TheBrandonMorse on Twitter.

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