If she lies to the police that is a criminal act. If she confessed to the police that she made up the whole story, then that sets her up for a libel case. A libel case brings her real name out, although most already know it. Any future employer Googling her name will hit this story.
I would like to see her sued, prosecuted, some punishment for her lies. This excerpt from the Wash Post link above bothers me the most:
I was not the least bit surprised today. I hope she is home and getting the mental health support she so clearly needs.
I hope that fraternity sues the pants off Rolling Stone and that UVA finds the students who vandalized the house and turns them over to the police for prosecution (fat chance, I know).
I guess that’s as much closure as we’re going to get from Jackie. There are still two other investigations going on: the one conducted by the State of Virginia investigating UVA’s handling of Jackie’s “case” and the one conducted by Columbia Journalism School investigating Rolling Stone’s processes. Columbia’s report is meant to be published by Rolling Stone on April 8.
In this interview with Katie Couric, Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo made his opinion clear that he would like to see colleges get out of the business of felony sexual assault investigation and adjudication. Couric seemed clueless on the reason that colleges are as involved as they are.
One point that came out today is that police have also noted serious inconsistencies in Jackie’s claim of being hit by a beer bottle when she spoke out about the alleged rape.
What is striking to me is that despite multiple fabrications and compound inconsistencies, the media (and even the police chief) are willing to bend over backwards to give Jackie the benefit of the doubt with caveat upon caveat like “Rape victims seldom lie,” “Something must have happened” “rape victims often change their stories” “We have to be very careful” ad nauseam. I wish college men accused of sexual assault were given so much benefit of the doubt when the accuser’s claims can’t be proven.
Watch this trio on CNN tying themselves into knots trying to justify their belief that Jackie did not lie, could not have lied.
Because if Jackie lied, the ‘victims’ in this case are the members of the wrongly accused fraternity and that just doesn’t comport with the biases of the media.
If a person lies to her friends, there is no punishment. If a person lies to a magazine, it will likely result in a libel lawsuit by the fraternity. However, if a person lies to the police, that is a felony. Jackie once met with the police and her lawyer, but refused to answer any questions.
(Dick Cheney was famous for lying to everyone, except when the FBI asked him a question, he told the truth to them.).
Yes Tatin, I would hope the university asked her to leave although theoretically she could be expelled under Title IX as she clearly created a hostile environment with her reluctance to report and to be truthful about whatever was going on in her life. That said she’s sounds very disturbed and UVa is not where she needs to be. It is interesting to see how the media is treating her with kid gloves yet develop total antipathy toward the accused frat in almost every media report. A good lesson for all that things aren’t always what they seem to be.
Jackie’s name should no longer be shielded if it turns out she was the criminal and not the victim. She has done harm to many people at the frat, the university, and Rolling Stone magazine, and has done a disservice to the cause of women who really have been and will be victimized.
I think we have all learned NOT to believe any first reports as being accurate or factual. Mike Brown–thug. Tony Robinson–high on mushrooms and felon.
Not surprising unfortunately. One thing my Dad told me decades ago is that for political correctness to succeed as successful propaganda the first thing which must be sacrificed is the truth. Truth would reduce the payout and freebies possible, so it must be trampled. No matter how accurate, truth must be not be said publicly if it offends a group or a supposedly self-defined disenfranchised movement - feelings trump reality, thus leading to minimal success in solving anything because everyone gets an excuse to continue as is, and it is always someone else’s fault. He got that right.
I wrote in post #1042
Three months later I feel much the same, but the sympathy part is fading fast. I don’t want to see Jackie prosecuted, but I wish the media, the advocates, the politicians (like Kirsten Gillibrand yesterday) would stop referring to Jackie as a “victim” and conflating the revelation of her deception with “blaming the victim.” She is not a victim. She is not even an alleged victim. She is a disturbed young woman who needs help for a psychological disorder that has impacted a lot of other lives as well as hers. Accepting that Jackie LIED is not the same as blaming the victim and the sooner we collectively get to that point, the sooner real victims will get the support they deserve.
If anything good comes out of this train wreck, perhaps it will be that colleges’ mandatory reporting rules vis a vis Title IX’s confidentiality mandates will be clarified so that colleges understand when they should and must involve the police in sexual assault investigations.
I am usually one to take rape claims very seriously from the get go. However, I had a very uncomfortable feeling about Jackie’s story when I read that piece, and said so on this thread. Almost none of it rang true, and it seemed that the reporter didn’t make much of an effort to verify any of the assertions made in it. It just boggles the mind that the reporter and the magazine, knowing what a huge story this was going to make, didn’t get the same sense about Jackie that almost all of us posting here did. If Jackie is a disturbed individual with psychological issues, it seems to me that the reporter and Rolling Stone both exploited her, possibly even encouraged some of this nonsense. At the very least, they had a duty to either try to vet the story better or point out IN THE PIECE inconsistencies that were glaring to everyone who read it.
I can’t decide if I should pity Jackie or be incensed with how she has set back the cases of real victims, but there is no question that the reporter and Rolling Stone are deserving of every bad thing which comes out of this fiasco.
I always give this example, but I remember back to All the President’s Men, where Woodward and Bernstein are constantly frustrated by their boss’ requirement that they get two independent confirmations of all assertions they made which could potentially be actionable. Rolling Stone should have gotten confirmation of the accused date’s name before they ever proceeded with this story (even if they didn’t plan on printing the name). Had they even attempted to do that one simple thing, the rest of the story would have unraveled before they dug themselves into this hole and slandered a whole lot of people.
This case highlights the need for better and deeper investigations to ferret out both the fabricated stories and the vastly more numerous ones that are buried or considered business as usual in that pernicious subculture. It is no accident that the fake story appeared believable.
It changes little to the overall appraisal of frats.
Saw this today re: fraternities and sexual assault:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/25/fraternities-lobbying-rape_n_6934714.html
"Members of the Fraternal Government Relations Coalition, a lobbying group that includes the National Panhellenic Conference and other national fraternity umbrella organizations, talked about escalating lobbying on Capitol Hill during a Feb. 2 conference call, according to a recording obtained by The Huffington Post. The group’s members considered pushing to delay college investigations and to stop schools from punishing fraternities based on a single incident of sexual assault, hazing or other risky or offensive behavior.
During last month’s conference call, leaders of national Greek organizations said lobbying efforts will escalate this year. Buddy Cote, chairman of the North-American Interfraternity Conference, said colleges should defer punishment of a student accused of sexual assault “until the completion of the criminal investigation and any subsequent trial.” Victim advocates noted that could take years and may not happen until after the victim and offender graduate, if at all."
They talk later in the article about wanting each individual college to choose its own standard of proof, and they also say:
"The fraternity representatives suggested colleges be allowed to adopt a stricter standard, such as criminal courts’ “beyond a reasonable doubt,” that would require more evidence to determine that a student committed sexual assault.
The fraternity lobbyists said they planned to utilize an index of lawmakers who have relationships with Greek life organizations and members."
Unbelievable. A single incident could be rape, death by alcohol poisoning, or destruction of a ski lodge. Also, the blatantly racist speech that would fall under “offensive behavior”.
No, you can’t punish us just for a SINGLE INCIDENT. Even if it is a crime! We have to do more than one.
And more than one is rarely … enough. If history is an indication for the future, the lobbyist know what works to eliminate the repercussions of the actions of the fraternities. One wish they’d spent more time eliminating the problems in the first place. But that is wishful thinking!
Sure, this would be the logical deduction and approach IF dealing with truth-finding journalism.
However, journalism has long left that venue and is mainly narrative-driven. Accepting that Jackie lied does not fit the narrative that advances whatever agenda is in play here. And since enough people are rather stupid and believe anything nowadays, the journalistic cabal feeds the narrative, even if disingenuous, knowing that enough idiots will follow and believe if repeated often enough.
@awcntdb: I wholeheartedly agree with you in re: journalism. While I am ignorant of the trappings of all papers around the nation, I can say that I feel that the last great piece of investigative journalism came from the Tampa Bay Times’ expose of Scientology. Beyond that, it’s simply been muckracking piece after muckracking piece, everywhere I look…
I may be wrong, but it sounds like they are fighting against unfair punishments. For example if one allegation is made, all of greek life shouldn’t be punished. See UVA, WVU, Clemson etc.
Basically they want the legal process to play out before the university gets involved and they don’t want blanket punishments for one fraternities actions.