<p>I’m not entirely convinced that Jackie is a victim of sexual assault or that she is suffering from PTSD. That she is a troubled young women is obvious. I believe her pain and suffering are authentic and may be caused by a mental or emotional disorder, but I’m not sure that the causes have been identified.</p>
<p>Jackie told RS that she was taking Wellbutrin for depression, and she told the WaPo that she had been diagnosed with PTSD. She may well be suffering from clinical depression, but the cause of her unravelling could be something other than trauma, sexual or otherwise.</p>
<p>Reading between the lines, there are several indicators that all was not right in her world. She told RS that she had a “strained relationship with her father in whose eyes she’d never felt good enough”. RS describes her as an academic and exra-curricular high achiever – a role model, and implies that her parents discouraged her from socializing and attending fraternity parties. She told the Post that wanted to go to Brown but that her family couldn’t afford it. Despite living in Northern Virginia “she enrolled in UVA without ever visiting the school.” </p>
<p>RS says that after she was attacked she became despondent, dropped out of at least one class and considered suicide. She reached out to her mother for help as the term ended, but what she actually told her mother about the fraternity attack is unclear. </p>
<p>At the end of her second term, Jackie, along with her mother, had a meeting with the academic dean because she was failing 3 classes. According to RS, Jackie’s mother explained to the dean that her daughter had had a “bad experience” at a party. </p>
<p>The academic dean referred Jackie to Nicole Eramo, the dean in charge of sexual misconduct. Eramo listened Jackie’s story but left the decision of what to do next up to Jackie. Eramo sent Jackie an email thanking her for sharing which is hardly a believable response if Jackie had indeed told her the same account as she told RS. </p>
<p>Here the RS article lapses into fuzziness: “In the meantime, having presumably judged there to be no threat to public safety, the UVA administration took no action to warn the campus that an allegation of gang rape had been made against an active fraternity.” </p>
<p>Just how the “allegations” got from Eramo to the “administration” isn’t clear, but I have to believe that the Dean in charge of sexual misconduct and the UVA “administration” would have done SOMETHING after hearing that a depressed, suicidal and failing student had been violently gang raped in a fraternity pledge ritual! UVA may have been too lax in response to individual he said/she said cases, but this is a major criminal act with 9 offenders. Surely the college would have taken some action.</p>
<p>Then there’s “Drew”. Various acquaintances of Jackie’s have subsequently claimed to know the identity of “Drew.” When the WaPo tracked him down and talked to him he said that he “was familiar with Jackie’s name. But . … added that he never met Jackie in person and never took her out on a date.” If this “Drew” is to be believed, it appears that Jackie fantasized a date with the handsome lifeguard and a romantic dinner at an expensive restaurant. </p>
<p>As for what happened after dinner, Jackie stands behind her account of the horrific violence that she endured with “Drew” at the fraternity house, but as contradictory and inconsistent details emerge, it seems to me that the whole event could be fictitious.</p>
<p>I’m not suggesting that the other stories recounted in the RS article are fraudulent or that UVA doesn’t need to improve their response to sexual assault and take rape claims seriously. And I don’t mean to suggest that Jackie doesn’t deserve sympathy, support and treatment. I’m just not sure for what. </p>