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<p>And this "as usual’ comment is coming from a person who says alleged accusations of rape should be believed on their face without even hearing the accused side of the story? You are a great example of logical consistency.</p>
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<p>Actually it looks even worse if discovered later on, even if just in a passing blurb in an article or something. </p>
<p>All applications and interviews ask if there is something we should know about etc. If the person is lied about and s/he literally forgets about the incident or think s/he was not connected, but something now shows connected to him and his name etc., we would not even waste our time asking for an explanation, we just move on to the next candidate. In this job market, there is always a next, just a good as, or better candidate around the corner. Not worth the time, especially if it looks like the person now purposely omitted something and did not tell us. </p>
<p>This recent graduate timeline outlook approach is just way too short-sighted. Lies hurt people and can do so for a long time.</p>
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<p>Yes alot of it is the media’s fault for cherry picking (weak) stories to support both the women and all the male lawsuits. There is “no story” that doesn’t resonate with one sex or the other. The guy who really does rape and is expelled we never hear from. The women who have a strong story of rape we never hear from because most likely she prosecuted it in court or the college expelled and she is content with the outcome . There are two sides to every story so some people believe it’s OK to totally deny a male’s story and believe a female’s story? I find that unconscionable. It cuts both ways unfortunately. And embellishing or lying or pulling a PR stunt with a less than optimal story just aren’t helping women in my opinion. Look what’s happening to twenty-something media darling Lena Dunham, she published a book saying she was raped and her story is not holding up. Yet she wrote it and presented it somewhat as fact, even though she was able in other sections of the book to articulate when it was embellishment or fiction. Let’s just chop ourselves off at the knees young women.</p>
<p>"Working for the government? You’ll more than likely need a security clearance. "</p>
<p>And you think that the (overwhelmingly male) decision-makers at Bain and McKinsey and the CIA etc. are going to hold this questionable implication of Phi Psi against well-qualified individual candidates? I think it’s very unlikely. They know their business a lot better than that. </p>
<p>Several groups within the military (notably some service academies) have a well-publicized, well-substantiated pattern of condoning the rape of servicewomen. Government agencies hire male veterans of those groups all the time. They don’t assume that everybody is a rapist or rape apologist.</p>
<p>Now, the court of public opinion? Next year’s freshman recruits? Phi Psi’s image is seriously compromised among the rank and file because they will be lazy and make assumptions without seeking all the information. But that’s not something you can say about decision-makers at McKinsey or the Justice Department.</p>
<p>The UVA Phi Psi chapter will no doubt be damaged, perhaps irreparably by this incident. If they are not cleared, then they won’t get any new members for quite some time, if ever. They will lose money by having no paying members in the house; they will probably have to sell it to another organization.</p>
<p>Its silly to claim there will be no long lasting injury to these men if they are wrongly accused and their name is not cleared. Jobs as prosecutors, medical professionals, school teachers… all could be impacted once their association with the house where rapists supposedly lived is discovered. </p>
<p>I do believe Jackie was sexually assaulted in some way, and Phi Psi may have been involved, but we don’t know that yet. I am vehemently opposed to taking innocent people down and negatively impacting their lives in process, just to make a point. That includes their ability to enjoy and share a part of their lives that was important to them at some point in their past, without concern that others might punish them for it based on false information.</p>
<p>I am talking specifically about UVA. There are plenty of well qualified individual candidates coming from UVA who don’t have the suspect distinction of being a Phi Psi brother. Most of the folks hiring these newbies aren’t the sophisticated decision makers you hold them out to be. </p>
<p>When my D was offered an internship with a tech company who does government work, it was contingent on her obtaining her clearance. No clearance, no internship. If she hadn’t gotten that internship, she wouldn’t have her current position…which required a higher level clearance in less than two years. No clearance - no job. </p>
<p>Hanna, what is your point? You seem to be saying that lying about people is okay because it probably won’t matter much or they can leave that stuff off the resume. Maybe, I’m misunderstanding. If there is a need to lie or exaggerate or string together a bunch of tangentially related stuff to create an attention-getting theme that doesn’t hold up to closer scrutiny with the hope that no-one will bother to scrutinize all that tells me is the real-life problem is not enough which should be good news, but they need a bigger problem to get a bigger crowd of people churned up at at rallies. Ick.</p>
<p>“You seem to be saying that lying about people is okay”</p>
<p>Where are you getting that? My point is that I don’t agree with the assertion that Phi Psi brothers are likely to be kept out of elite jobs and graduate schools because of this scandal. I foresee different results for them than some others do. I think they’re going to be all right when it comes to the big things in their careers. How is that arguing that lying is OK? (If this was in fact a case of lying, as opposed to a case of error.)</p>
<p>If I said, “Yes, they got shot, but it was a superficial wound, and they’re going to be back at work tomorrow,” would that be the same as saying that it’s OK to shoot people?</p>
<p>Hanna,
Its not just about grad school and “elite” jobs. I don’t know what its like around where you live, but around here, business and professions are tight-knit communities. Networking and connections help people get jobs. People know each others’ backgrounds, including all the way back to college life. I’m sure its the same way in VA for UVA grads.</p>
<p>I was reacting to the seeming lack of concern about the calculated smearing of this frat because it fit the stereotype the author of the RS story chose before she began her piece was the going to be the bad guys. </p>
<p>Yes. And I think the UVA old boys’ network is going to continue to work fine for them.</p>
<p>You may never have the chance at that elite job if you can’t get your first because of misinformation and prejudice. </p>
<p>Yes, that’s true. But we differ about the likelihood of this scenario, especially where no names were named. It’s not the Duke lacrosse team where every player’s name was all over the internet.</p>
<p>“Yes. And I think the UVA old boys’ network is going to continue to work fine for them”</p>
<p>That statement alone Hanna is a problem. It furthers a lot of what that article did to smear not only Phi Psi but all frats at UVA. And it shows that you really don’t care that these boys may have been falsely accused. </p>
<p>Are you arguing that there isn’t an old boys’ network at every single coed elite college? Could you name a school where you believe there isn’t one? </p>
<p>Acknowledging that fact is not a “smear.” Just as acknowledging that prompt and expert medical care can save a shooting victim with no long-term injury doesn’t mean that you don’t care that someone got shot.</p>
<p>Someone sent the below to me about this situation and thought it worth posting - it sums up a couple points on this issue, I believe, rather well. These are not my words, but I have permission to post them here:</p>
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<p>The fact that the police and judges are using different standards than the advocates is a salient point. The discussion went into what changes advocates want in the system:</p>
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<p>I would add that there advocates (some on this thread) who more modestly push for lower standard of proof, which is not unreasonable in some cases. But the issue there is that the lower standard of proof is not being handled by legal authorities, but by civilians masquerading as legal beagles, which they are not. I do not believe that will work either. And it definitely will not work when females want to publicly call people felons, i.e., rapists, when the person has never been charged or convicted of rape.</p>
<p>This case is not over yet. UVA’s hired counsel is investigating, the Charlottesville police department has not closed its books on the case, national Phi Psi is investigating, RS’s lawyers are surely investigating, Jackie has a lawyer now, who knows what Erdely is doing to protect her career. I expect more details will be uncovered and more information forthcoming, and hopefully some action pursued against someone on Jackie’s behalf. </p>
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<p>Even if the old boy network flourishes, it does not give people the right to just smear them. The standard is not if you continue just fine; it is a right or wrong standard. It is wrong to smear. Are we now in a world of such moral lacking that it is OK to smear people for gain if we think it does not hurt someone directly? If that is the case, then downward we go as a society.</p>
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<p>Give me a break, Hanna. Now you are acting like women have zero role in hiring men nowadays. Its not like every single UVA man is going to be hired by another UVA man who knows that the accusations against Phi Psi are not true. </p>
<p>There is no case, there never was any case, and there never will be any case. There was just a story.</p>
<p>And, to clarify, by this I mean legal case. CPD has assigned a couple of officers to investigate nothing basically since last I heard Jackie wasn’t co-operating. RS could be looking at a case, however</p>