What continues to amaze me is that RS did not retract the article months ago. They continued to post it on their website, with only a mild disclaimer. It should have been pulled completely and retracted as soon as they knew it was defective. They continued to prominently slander Phi Psi’s name using their website until today.
I don’t blame President Sullivan. The University continued its own investigations and asked the Cville Police (who have legal jurisdiction of the off-grounds fraternities) to investigate. She said at the very beginning that the account in RS was not consistent with what U. staff were told by Jackie. She also said that the U. could not discuss specific matters because of federal privacy regulations. Pres. Sullivan had been a leader in addressing issues of sexual assaults, and continually decided to direct the energy that arose from this controversy to address a wider problem.
A few people (mainly outside of Cville) were angry that she told fraternities not to have parties on the couple weekends that were left in the semester after the RS article was published. That was an essential cooling off period. The media was descending on Cville in hordes looking for salacious video of parties. Everyone needed a breather, and needed to put their energy back into studying for exams. It had been a roller coaster of a semester because of many things that were not the fault of the U., and it was time for everyone to catch their breath.
The Columbia article provides many examples of how the account would have started to fall apart if RS had just talked to a couple more people. Instead, they put all of their faith upon one accuser.