Three weeks agoย Rolling Stoneย publishedย an article byย Sabrina Rubin Erdely. It chronicled the story of a young woman named โ€œJackieโ€ who was (allegedly) โ€œbrutally assaulted by seven men at a frat party.โ€ According to Erdely, โ€œJackieโ€ tried to getย the University of Virginia to take her (alleged) sexual assault seriously, but the university was indifferent because it wanted to protect its reputation.

It is hard to overstate the degree of exposure this piece achieved.ย Nearly every major media outlet reported on it (examples:ย CNN,ย PBS). Sweeping reforms were demanded at UVA. The universityย president Teresa Sullivan (who had actuallyย resigned as president in 2012, only to be reinstatedย later)ย suspended all Greekย activity at UVA.

Massive hatred was poured upon fraternities through a plethora of channels. The frat house itself was vandalized, and the members were demonized (see the various pictures in this post for examples).

The Kool-Aid drinkers were out in force, lashing out at men as a group, at fraternities writ large, and university administrations. Simply read through the comments section ofย the RS articleย and see for yourself. Or go to the #istandwithjackie Twitter feed to see for yourself.

One small problem: Sabrina Erdely atย Rolling Stone, at the behest of โ€œJackie,โ€ย never contacted the men she claimed assaulted her to get the other side of the story. That should have been a red flag that โ€œJackieโ€ quite possiblyย didnโ€™t want them to get the other side of the story. Call it a rookie mistake, but award-winning โ€œfreelance journalistsโ€ like Sabrina Erdely should know better.

Perhaps she thought she could get away with it. And granted, if this were the 1990s, she very likely could. But we live in 2014, an age when information is not only much more free, it also travels much more quickly.

Since her initial article in mid-November, more facts discovered byย other news organizationsย have come to light that do not support โ€œJackieโ€™sโ€ story, let alone Erdelyโ€™s article. The cumulative impact of these facts hasย promptedย Rolling Stoneย to write a retractionย in which they said โ€œwe have come to the conclusion that ourย trust in the accuser was misplaced.โ€

What are these facts? Letโ€™s list a few:

  • The person โ€œJackieโ€ย named as the โ€œmain rapistโ€ was not a member of the fraternity where she claimed the rape occurred
  • There was no frat party on the night โ€œJackieโ€ claimed to have been raped, nor that entire weekend
  • โ€œJackieโ€ herself is now โ€œunsureโ€ whether the man (โ€œDrewโ€) who (allegedly) lured her into the room where the (alleged) rape occurred was a Phi Psi ย brother. As it turned out, โ€œDrewโ€ was not a Phi Psi member; he belongs to a โ€œtotally different fraternity.โ€
  • None of the frat members worked at the UVA pool in the fall of 2012, whereasย Jackie claimed that she and โ€œDrewโ€ both worked there as lifeguardsย at the time
  • A friend of โ€œJackieโ€™sโ€ later toldย Rolling Stoneย that โ€œhe found Jackie that night a mile from the schoolโ€™s fraternities.โ€ She did not appear injured, despite her claiming that she was grabbed from behind by a large man who fell on her and โ€œcrashed [with her] through a low glass tableโ€ that night. She also appeared uninjured despite emerging from this โ€œpartyโ€ (the party that never happened) being โ€œโ€barefoot, disheveledโ€ฆface beaten, dress spattered with blood,โ€ according to Erdelyโ€™s article.
  • She also never went to the hospital on the night of her severe โ€œinjuries,โ€ nor did she ever reportย the matter to the police
  • โ€œJackieโ€ did not want the newspaper to contact the men she accused of sexual assault to get their side of the story

When taken altogether, these discrepancies look very bad for โ€œJackieโ€™sโ€ story. And itโ€™s not just the facts that make the story look bad, although they are indeed primarily what does.

Oh by the way, here are the nobleย kool-aid drinkersย crusaders:

Note especially the posters on the top: โ€œLetโ€™s smash patriarchyโ€ on the top left, and โ€œBurn the frat houses down!โ€ on the top right.

She remembers every moment of the next three hours of agony, during which, she says, seven men took turns raping her, while two more โ€“ her date, Drew, and another man โ€“ gave instruction and encouragement. She remembers how the spectators swigged beers, and how they called each other nicknames like Armpit and Blanket. She remembers the menโ€™s heft and their sour reek of alcohol mixed with the pungency of marijuana. Most of all, Jackie remembers the pain and the pounding that went on and on.

โ€œArmpit and Blanketโ€ were what these frat members called each other? What, they didnโ€™t just call each otherย Lunkhead #1 and Lunkhead #2? I thought all frat boys were lunkheads? The point being this: Erdelyโ€™sย story is so caricatured and saturated with stereotypes that we should immediately question it on that basis alone.

Take a look at theย next passage:

โ€One of my roommates said, โ€˜Do you want to be responsible for something thatโ€™s gonna paint UVA in a bad light?โ€™โ€‰โ€ says Jackie, poking at a vegan burger at a restaurant on the Corner, UVAโ€™s popular retail strip. โ€œBut I said, โ€˜UVA has flown under the radar for so long, someone has to say something about it, or else itโ€™s gonna be this system that keeps perpetuating!’

The language here is soย contrived that it looks like the entire conversation was manufactured for political purposes. We are led to believe that โ€œJackieโ€™s roommateโ€ plays devilโ€™s advocate and takes the side of the university, despite her having no real interest in doing so. And all of a sudden, โ€œJackieโ€ โ€“ who never went to the policeย orย the hospital despite supposedly sufferingย severe injuries โ€“ now talks about how itโ€™s everyone elseโ€™s fault that the issue has โ€œflown under the radarโ€ for so long.

Feminists are now redirecting their crusade toward criticizingย Rolling Stoneย for publishing the retraction. Donโ€™t get me wrong:ย they donโ€™t disagree withย Rolling Stoneย presuming the guilt of the accused men. Feminists are just fine with that, and they are maintaining their practice of labeling โ€œJackieโ€ a โ€œvictimโ€ and a โ€œsurvivor,โ€ even though we not only have no real evidence that she is either of these things (but have strong evidence that she isย not).

Hereโ€™s what one Feminist, who writes forย Slate, Salon, and other online media, says:

In a sense that is true that people donโ€™t have to have a perfect memory to have a case; people can easily mess up on dates and times. I do it myself occasionally.

But there is a matter ofย degreeย as well. Expecting accusers to have aย perfectย memory is one thing. Expecting accusers to not tell a story that isย overwhelminglyย contradicted by evidence is another.ย Messing up on 10% of your story โ€“ a 10% that doesnโ€™t call into question key events? Ok, maybe thereโ€™s something we can still work with. Messing up on 90% of your story? Expect to get called out on the carpet.

Yes, some people have accidents. And for others, โ€œaccidentsโ€ happen with remarkable consistency.ย And โ€œJackieโ€ clearly falls into the latter category.

Hereโ€™s another gem:

Feminist Zerlina Maxwell recentlyย wrote an article for theย Washington Post. Note the title:

The word โ€œautomaticallyโ€ was later changed to โ€œgenerally.โ€ Here is what she has to say in the article:

We should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says. Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist. Even if Jackie fabricated her account, U-Va. should have taken her word for it during the period while they endeavored to prove or disprove the accusation. This is not a legal argument about what standards we should use in the courts; itโ€™s a moral one, about what happens outside the legal system.

Ah, you mean like what we did back in the days of slavery, right? Back when we acted โ€œoutside the legal systemโ€?

This is why Feminists, with their bigoted due-process-be-damned mentality, do not deserve a seat at the table in these issues. Itโ€™s not just that they get it wrong in โ€œone or two cases.โ€ They are hostile to the basic concept of not presuming a man is guilty, becauseย they are hostile to men as a group. No, not just โ€œa few men who happen to be rapists.โ€ย All men.

The utter hypocrisy of Feminists like Zerlina Maxwell โ€“ to be presuming guilt on the basis of oneโ€™s arrangement of chromosomes, and then lecturing those who disagree on โ€œmorals.โ€

Here is what a leading Feminist website Jezebel thinks when a user doesnโ€™t say the rape accusation is false, but merelyย questions whether itโ€™s possible for it to be:

Feminists & Friends are now all a-twitter atย #istandwithjackie. Why do they stand with Jackie? This Feminist, author of the bookย Full Frontal Feminism,ย founder of the uber-popular websiteย Feministing (popular among Feminists & Friends anyway), and columnist atย The Guardianย tells us why in a simple tweet:

 

Well, too bad โ€“ I do not trust women. But then again, I also do not trust men, white people, black people, or any other โ€œgroupโ€ period. I trustย individuals.ย I donโ€™t presume that individualsย are good or bad, or trustworthy or untrustworthy, based on what group they happen to be born into. Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for Feminists like Jessica Valenti.

Feministsย sayย they trust women, but in fact they only trust the women who support their narrow, dogmatic, and generally anti-male worldview. They hide behind women as a group โ€“ indeed they use and exploit women โ€“ to throw venom-tipped spears at men and boys.

I must give a shout out to The Community of the Wrongly Accused, which describes the implications of this case expertly inย a must-read article:

The Rolling Stone debacle did not happen in a vacuum. The sordid saga of the infamous article about a supposed gang rape โ€” the fact it was written in the first place, then published in a mainstream magazine, and then unconditionally believed by so many โ€” is the product of a culture that has allowed gender extremists to dominate the public discourse on sexual assault.

These are people who demonize college men and reduce them to vile caricature; insist that college campuses are rape pits; claim with a straight face that women donโ€™t lie about rape; and preach that due process for men accused of rape on campus is a luxury college women canโ€™t afford. In short, they buy into โ€œrape culture.โ€

Indeed, the presumption of male guilt by Feminists & Friends is nothing new. We have seen it at Duke during the 2006 false rape case. We have seen it atย Ohio University. We have seen it atย Columbia University. We have seen it atย Eckerd College. We have seen it atย Dartmouth. We haveย a warehouse of statementsย from these people, demonstrating clear as day that their mindset is not one of equality and justice, as the publicย has erroneously been led to believe.

It is beyond clear that โ€œJackieโ€ is not just an โ€œimperfectโ€ accuser; at this state in the game (which is no short time of two years) she is anย accuser with near-zero credibility. And the possibility that she was never a โ€œvictimโ€ or a โ€œsurvivorโ€ in the first placeย just might be why she never went to the hospital, or to the police, and forbadeย Rolling Stoneย from interviewing the men she accused to understand the bigger picture.

Is it still possible that โ€œJackieโ€ was a victim of rape at a frat party on the UVA campus? Highly, highly unlikely โ€“ and thatโ€™s where my โ€œjudgmentโ€ will rest.

When this story broke a month ago I was tempted to do a writeup on it, but felt that waiting would be better. As we have done in the past, this websiteย will continue to maintain a policyย againstย presuming guilt simply on the basis of sex. We will leave the less morally-inclined Feminists to shoot themselves in the foot over cases like these.

The time has come to seriously reconsider the prominence Feminism has in conversations on gender. Rape is a significant issue on campus, just like false rape accusations are a significant issue. But neither is an โ€œepidemic,โ€ and the kind of bigotry and hatred that Feminism advocates should not lead the way.

We do not need to punish students who have not been found guilty of a crime, and the time has come to leave it up to the real professionals โ€“ the criminal justice system.

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Jonathan Taylor is Title IX for All's founder, editor, web designer, and database developer.

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32 Comments

  1. Jonathan Taylor 12/08/2014 at 9:15 am

    I’m also going to throw this video out there. I wouldn’t normally link to Roosh, but this one is pretty good:

    • DukeLax 12/08/2014 at 9:16 pm

      interesting…ive never thought about that…the rape accusation now being used as a weapon. But is it not also perverse and unconstitutional for federal dollars to be given to state law enforcement …….to enable and foster false rape accusations to such a degree…that women now feel safe to use them as weapons???

    • Jack Strawb 12/11/2014 at 11:06 am

      0:40 – “Any time a woman goes to the media before going to the police she is using the rape allegation as a weapon” (and the allegation is false).

      That sounds extreme, but we live in a “false rape accusation culture,” where false accusations are rewarded, and go unpunished when discovered; extreme measures are necessary.

      2:20 – the narrator adds something essential, that going to the media cannot be claimed to be safer for the accuser than going to the police. One cannot argue, I don’t believe, that an accuser didn’t go to the police–but did go to the media–out of fear for safety.

  2. Malcolm James 12/08/2014 at 11:26 am

    Two years is but the blink of an eye in terms of rape allegations surfacing. What would have happened if the alleged rape had occurred long enough ago for there to be no record of whether a party took place that weekend and no-one who could verify, or disprove, the story could be traced?

    • I Art Laughing 12/08/2014 at 4:48 pm

      That isn’t working out so good for Lena Dunham.

      • NotoriousPAT 12/09/2014 at 2:37 am

        I don’t know if that’s a good example, since she confessed to her crime unbidden.

        • I Art Laughing 12/09/2014 at 3:07 am

          Nah, I’m talking about her accusation of the campus conservative “Barry One”.

          • NotoriousPAT 12/09/2014 at 8:31 pm

            Ah, good point then.

  3. pierceharlan 12/08/2014 at 1:41 pm

    Thanks, Jonathan, for this great piece. And thanks for mentioning COTWA.

    One difference between my site and the feminist sites you mentioned: COTWA does not run stories based solely on people’s claims that they were falsely accused. Do you know how many of those I’ve gotten over the years? A lot — some are very compelling narratives, and while I am sympathetic, I don’t assume that I’ve got the whole story.

    Keep up the great work.

    • Jonathan Taylor 12/08/2014 at 6:14 pm

      No problem! Thanks for maintaining the high standard. Refraining from presuming guilt is a great differentiator for advocates for the wrongly accused; it makes us look at lot more sincere than the opposition.

    • Sports Droppings 12/09/2014 at 5:48 pm

      Jonathan and Pierce. Superb work in recent days by both of you. I have an idea I want to CC you guys on. Retrieve my email addy from Dean Esmay at AVFM

    • NotoriousPAT 12/09/2014 at 8:35 pm

      COTWA does great work, I’ve been reading it since almost the beginning. Thanks for keepin on, Pierce.

  4. Malcolm James 12/08/2014 at 1:55 pm
  5. Charlottesvillager 12/08/2014 at 6:15 pm

    The fraternity said that there was no member of the fraternity that worked at the pool. That report was spun in the media into “the main rapist was not a member of the fraternity”. Subtle difference, but it’s a jump in logic. They could conceivably say that the main rapist in the allegation therefore could not have been a member as described, but hat report from the fraternity could support the idea that there is no rapist as much as the idea that the alleged rapist was not a member. This spin is not being reported anywhere, but it is an essential, yet illogical stealth tactic, employed to continue to bias the narrative over neutral objective investigation.

    • Eagle_Eyed 12/09/2014 at 5:00 am

      Right. Remember, in the story the rape was contextualized as part of the fraternity’s initiation. “Don’t you wanna be a brother?” “We all had to do it.” Why would a non-member be part of an initiation ritual?

      But there is any easy way to clear this all up–have Jackie give up the real identity of “Drew” to a reporter who can let find out what relationship, if any, he had with either Phi Psi or Jackie. This is what someone who knew she was telling the truth would do, if at the very minimum to clear her own name.

    • Allan Kirk 12/28/2014 at 6:50 pm

      I’m not sure that I would even call this subtle except of course it is one thing to examine a statement once it has been put under the spotlight and another to have the modified version slipped-in so that a reader quickly scanning text gets the wrong impression.

  6. NotoriousPAT 12/08/2014 at 7:25 pm

    “The cumulative impact of these facts has prompted Rolling Stone to write a detraction”

    Don’t you mean “retraction?”. I only bring this up because of all the people whining about how RS is being mean to the accuser for saying their trust in her was misplaced.

    • Jonathan Taylor 12/08/2014 at 7:58 pm

      Retraction, yes. Thank you. Edited.

  7. disqus_ArQv6e31it 12/08/2014 at 10:53 pm

    Feminst hatred has no bounds! Shades of another ideology that came along in the late 20’s early 30’s. They use a lot of the same tactics as well.

  8. Democritus 12/09/2014 at 12:22 am

    “I trust women.”
    -Jessica Valenti

    I trust evidence.

    • I Art Laughing 12/09/2014 at 3:07 am

      I don’t trust Jessica Valenti, or anything she writes, ever.

  9. Will Jones 12/09/2014 at 6:07 am

    With minimal digging into Rolling Stone’s comments one discovers her homosexual ritual bonding gangbanger “pals” of Zionist mobster-son Mikey Cantor – including an Hispanic Phi Psi “lifeguard” whose obvious guilt forced him to flee the country and his former good looks – were the Roman Catholic sons and grandsons of the insular CIA: so it’s no coincidence God-fearing adherents of Truth seeking Justice for “Jackie” are getting the same gaslight and derision we’ve gotten since the CIA’s adjudicated assassination of JFK (viz. ‘Hunt v. Marchetti’), and with their fellow papists of the FBI, and atheist Zionism’s Mossad – 9/11.

    Hopefully rather than threatening or effecting another “Michael Hastings,” the same satanic Fifth Column Mr. Jefferson called “an engine for enslaving mankind,” “the real Anti-Christ,” has this time simply paid off “Jackie” with a mid-seven figure sum.

    Quite a blot on America’s Prophet and Founder Mr. Jefferson’s, now sodomite, former university.

  10. JP 12/09/2014 at 2:42 pm

    Verdict First, trial later.

    I am reminded of that novel, Bonfire of Vanities. Justice wasn’t served, and in the end, Master of the Universe got his comeuppance. Thirty years later, we have made entire industries of victims. There are literally tens of thousands of grievance peddlers that must make their mark – either through cable TV or the social media. The more outrageous the postings the better. For grievance peddlers have to eat too. Getting noticed not only is good for the ego, but it translates into a decent payday.

  11. bmanoc 12/09/2014 at 7:59 pm

    The railroading is sickening. I figured these liberal feminazis would remember how poor black men were falsely accused of rape and hung. The more this unravels, the more it seems there was a vendetta against men in general.

  12. Chris Thompson 12/09/2014 at 8:06 pm

    The Rape Cultures constructed on college campuses began at the University of Montana in 2011, I believe, and quickly spread from there. Last year it reached my alma mater and, similarly, addressed two unfounded “rapes” to immediately punish hundreds of male students for “guilt by association”…

    http://montana.ncfm.org/2013/10/03/double-secret-probation/

  13. Louis Bricano 12/10/2014 at 12:08 am

    “…poking at a vegan burger…” All I need to see to know the entire thing is politically motivated horseshit.

    • Jonathan Taylor 12/10/2014 at 10:40 am

      There are indeed more than a few vegan loonies in the world :)

      • Louis Bricano 12/16/2014 at 9:23 pm

        “veganism” is looniness by definition.

  14. ShlomoShunn 12/10/2014 at 8:22 am

    This, allegedly, is the false accuser:

    http://patdollard.com/2014/12/multiple-sources-confirm-to-charles-johnson-the-identity-of-woman-who-fabricated-uva-rape-story-to-rolling-stone/

    I say every rape accuser should be named or neither accuser/accused. Women are equal. Let them be treated as such.

  15. Jack Strawb 12/11/2014 at 11:02 am

    Let’s keep in mind the context for all this, too: Rape has been in significant decline since 1992, and…

    COLLEGE WOMEN ARE SAFER THAN NON-COLLEGE WOMEN.

    See, “Violence Against College Women: A Review to Identify Limitations in Defining the Problem and Inform Future Research,” by Callie Marie Rennison and Lynn A. Addington.

    The abstract can be found at http://tva.sagepub.com/content/15/3/159.abstract

    The report is summarized at
    http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/12/college_rape_campus_sexual_assault_is_a_serious_problem_but_the_efforts.html

  16. ZeroZeroOne 12/16/2014 at 8:28 pm

    I think this would be a awesome story for some investigative journalist to sink his or her teeth into. That is: the number of rape convictions that are proved true when an alleged victim goes to the media rather than the police. It would be breath taking I suspect.

  17. Allan Kirk 12/28/2014 at 6:40 pm

    This is what a thoughtfully considered, fair, well documented and eloquently written comment looks like! Congratulations.

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Three weeks agoย Rolling Stoneย publishedย an article byย Sabrina Rubin Erdely. It chronicled the story of a young woman named โ€œJackieโ€ who was (allegedly) โ€œbrutally assaulted by seven men at a frat party.โ€ According to Erdely, โ€œJackieโ€ tried to getย the University of Virginia to take her (alleged) sexual assault seriously, but the university was indifferent because it wanted to protect its reputation.

It is hard to overstate the degree of exposure this piece achieved.ย Nearly every major media outlet reported on it (examples:ย CNN,ย PBS). Sweeping reforms were demanded at UVA. The universityย president Teresa Sullivan (who had actuallyย resigned as president in 2012, only to be reinstatedย later)ย suspended all Greekย activity at UVA.

Massive hatred was poured upon fraternities through a plethora of channels. The frat house itself was vandalized, and the members were demonized (see the various pictures in this post for examples).

The Kool-Aid drinkers were out in force, lashing out at men as a group, at fraternities writ large, and university administrations. Simply read through the comments section ofย the RS articleย and see for yourself. Or go to the #istandwithjackie Twitter feed to see for yourself.

One small problem: Sabrina Erdely atย Rolling Stone, at the behest of โ€œJackie,โ€ย never contacted the men she claimed assaulted her to get the other side of the story. That should have been a red flag that โ€œJackieโ€ quite possiblyย didnโ€™t want them to get the other side of the story. Call it a rookie mistake, but award-winning โ€œfreelance journalistsโ€ like Sabrina Erdely should know better.

Perhaps she thought she could get away with it. And granted, if this were the 1990s, she very likely could. But we live in 2014, an age when information is not only much more free, it also travels much more quickly.

Since her initial article in mid-November, more facts discovered byย other news organizationsย have come to light that do not support โ€œJackieโ€™sโ€ story, let alone Erdelyโ€™s article. The cumulative impact of these facts hasย promptedย Rolling Stoneย to write a retractionย in which they said โ€œwe have come to the conclusion that ourย trust in the accuser was misplaced.โ€

What are these facts? Letโ€™s list a few:

  • The person โ€œJackieโ€ย named as the โ€œmain rapistโ€ was not a member of the fraternity where she claimed the rape occurred
  • There was no frat party on the night โ€œJackieโ€ claimed to have been raped, nor that entire weekend
  • โ€œJackieโ€ herself is now โ€œunsureโ€ whether the man (โ€œDrewโ€) who (allegedly) lured her into the room where the (alleged) rape occurred was a Phi Psi ย brother. As it turned out, โ€œDrewโ€ was not a Phi Psi member; he belongs to a โ€œtotally different fraternity.โ€
  • None of the frat members worked at the UVA pool in the fall of 2012, whereasย Jackie claimed that she and โ€œDrewโ€ both worked there as lifeguardsย at the time
  • A friend of โ€œJackieโ€™sโ€ later toldย Rolling Stoneย that โ€œhe found Jackie that night a mile from the schoolโ€™s fraternities.โ€ She did not appear injured, despite her claiming that she was grabbed from behind by a large man who fell on her and โ€œcrashed [with her] through a low glass tableโ€ that night. She also appeared uninjured despite emerging from this โ€œpartyโ€ (the party that never happened) being โ€œโ€barefoot, disheveledโ€ฆface beaten, dress spattered with blood,โ€ according to Erdelyโ€™s article.
  • She also never went to the hospital on the night of her severe โ€œinjuries,โ€ nor did she ever reportย the matter to the police
  • โ€œJackieโ€ did not want the newspaper to contact the men she accused of sexual assault to get their side of the story

When taken altogether, these discrepancies look very bad for โ€œJackieโ€™sโ€ story. And itโ€™s not just the facts that make the story look bad, although they are indeed primarily what does.

Oh by the way, here are the nobleย kool-aid drinkersย crusaders:

Note especially the posters on the top: โ€œLetโ€™s smash patriarchyโ€ on the top left, and โ€œBurn the frat houses down!โ€ on the top right.

She remembers every moment of the next three hours of agony, during which, she says, seven men took turns raping her, while two more โ€“ her date, Drew, and another man โ€“ gave instruction and encouragement. She remembers how the spectators swigged beers, and how they called each other nicknames like Armpit and Blanket. She remembers the menโ€™s heft and their sour reek of alcohol mixed with the pungency of marijuana. Most of all, Jackie remembers the pain and the pounding that went on and on.

โ€œArmpit and Blanketโ€ were what these frat members called each other? What, they didnโ€™t just call each otherย Lunkhead #1 and Lunkhead #2? I thought all frat boys were lunkheads? The point being this: Erdelyโ€™sย story is so caricatured and saturated with stereotypes that we should immediately question it on that basis alone.

Take a look at theย next passage:

โ€One of my roommates said, โ€˜Do you want to be responsible for something thatโ€™s gonna paint UVA in a bad light?โ€™โ€‰โ€ says Jackie, poking at a vegan burger at a restaurant on the Corner, UVAโ€™s popular retail strip. โ€œBut I said, โ€˜UVA has flown under the radar for so long, someone has to say something about it, or else itโ€™s gonna be this system that keeps perpetuating!’

The language here is soย contrived that it looks like the entire conversation was manufactured for political purposes. We are led to believe that โ€œJackieโ€™s roommateโ€ plays devilโ€™s advocate and takes the side of the university, despite her having no real interest in doing so. And all of a sudden, โ€œJackieโ€ โ€“ who never went to the policeย orย the hospital despite supposedly sufferingย severe injuries โ€“ now talks about how itโ€™s everyone elseโ€™s fault that the issue has โ€œflown under the radarโ€ for so long.

Feminists are now redirecting their crusade toward criticizingย Rolling Stoneย for publishing the retraction. Donโ€™t get me wrong:ย they donโ€™t disagree withย Rolling Stoneย presuming the guilt of the accused men. Feminists are just fine with that, and they are maintaining their practice of labeling โ€œJackieโ€ a โ€œvictimโ€ and a โ€œsurvivor,โ€ even though we not only have no real evidence that she is either of these things (but have strong evidence that she isย not).

Hereโ€™s what one Feminist, who writes forย Slate, Salon, and other online media, says:

In a sense that is true that people donโ€™t have to have a perfect memory to have a case; people can easily mess up on dates and times. I do it myself occasionally.

But there is a matter ofย degreeย as well. Expecting accusers to have aย perfectย memory is one thing. Expecting accusers to not tell a story that isย overwhelminglyย contradicted by evidence is another.ย Messing up on 10% of your story โ€“ a 10% that doesnโ€™t call into question key events? Ok, maybe thereโ€™s something we can still work with. Messing up on 90% of your story? Expect to get called out on the carpet.

Yes, some people have accidents. And for others, โ€œaccidentsโ€ happen with remarkable consistency.ย And โ€œJackieโ€ clearly falls into the latter category.

Hereโ€™s another gem:

Feminist Zerlina Maxwell recentlyย wrote an article for theย Washington Post. Note the title:

The word โ€œautomaticallyโ€ was later changed to โ€œgenerally.โ€ Here is what she has to say in the article:

We should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says. Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist. Even if Jackie fabricated her account, U-Va. should have taken her word for it during the period while they endeavored to prove or disprove the accusation. This is not a legal argument about what standards we should use in the courts; itโ€™s a moral one, about what happens outside the legal system.

Ah, you mean like what we did back in the days of slavery, right? Back when we acted โ€œoutside the legal systemโ€?

This is why Feminists, with their bigoted due-process-be-damned mentality, do not deserve a seat at the table in these issues. Itโ€™s not just that they get it wrong in โ€œone or two cases.โ€ They are hostile to the basic concept of not presuming a man is guilty, becauseย they are hostile to men as a group. No, not just โ€œa few men who happen to be rapists.โ€ย All men.

The utter hypocrisy of Feminists like Zerlina Maxwell โ€“ to be presuming guilt on the basis of oneโ€™s arrangement of chromosomes, and then lecturing those who disagree on โ€œmorals.โ€

Here is what a leading Feminist website Jezebel thinks when a user doesnโ€™t say the rape accusation is false, but merelyย questions whether itโ€™s possible for it to be:

Feminists & Friends are now all a-twitter atย #istandwithjackie. Why do they stand with Jackie? This Feminist, author of the bookย Full Frontal Feminism,ย founder of the uber-popular websiteย Feministing (popular among Feminists & Friends anyway), and columnist atย The Guardianย tells us why in a simple tweet:

 

Well, too bad โ€“ I do not trust women. But then again, I also do not trust men, white people, black people, or any other โ€œgroupโ€ period. I trustย individuals.ย I donโ€™t presume that individualsย are good or bad, or trustworthy or untrustworthy, based on what group they happen to be born into. Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for Feminists like Jessica Valenti.

Feministsย sayย they trust women, but in fact they only trust the women who support their narrow, dogmatic, and generally anti-male worldview. They hide behind women as a group โ€“ indeed they use and exploit women โ€“ to throw venom-tipped spears at men and boys.

I must give a shout out to The Community of the Wrongly Accused, which describes the implications of this case expertly inย a must-read article:

The Rolling Stone debacle did not happen in a vacuum. The sordid saga of the infamous article about a supposed gang rape โ€” the fact it was written in the first place, then published in a mainstream magazine, and then unconditionally believed by so many โ€” is the product of a culture that has allowed gender extremists to dominate the public discourse on sexual assault.

These are people who demonize college men and reduce them to vile caricature; insist that college campuses are rape pits; claim with a straight face that women donโ€™t lie about rape; and preach that due process for men accused of rape on campus is a luxury college women canโ€™t afford. In short, they buy into โ€œrape culture.โ€

Indeed, the presumption of male guilt by Feminists & Friends is nothing new. We have seen it at Duke during the 2006 false rape case. We have seen it atย Ohio University. We have seen it atย Columbia University. We have seen it atย Eckerd College. We have seen it atย Dartmouth. We haveย a warehouse of statementsย from these people, demonstrating clear as day that their mindset is not one of equality and justice, as the publicย has erroneously been led to believe.

It is beyond clear that โ€œJackieโ€ is not just an โ€œimperfectโ€ accuser; at this state in the game (which is no short time of two years) she is anย accuser with near-zero credibility. And the possibility that she was never a โ€œvictimโ€ or a โ€œsurvivorโ€ in the first placeย just might be why she never went to the hospital, or to the police, and forbadeย Rolling Stoneย from interviewing the men she accused to understand the bigger picture.

Is it still possible that โ€œJackieโ€ was a victim of rape at a frat party on the UVA campus? Highly, highly unlikely โ€“ and thatโ€™s where my โ€œjudgmentโ€ will rest.

When this story broke a month ago I was tempted to do a writeup on it, but felt that waiting would be better. As we have done in the past, this websiteย will continue to maintain a policyย againstย presuming guilt simply on the basis of sex. We will leave the less morally-inclined Feminists to shoot themselves in the foot over cases like these.

The time has come to seriously reconsider the prominence Feminism has in conversations on gender. Rape is a significant issue on campus, just like false rape accusations are a significant issue. But neither is an โ€œepidemic,โ€ and the kind of bigotry and hatred that Feminism advocates should not lead the way.

We do not need to punish students who have not been found guilty of a crime, and the time has come to leave it up to the real professionals โ€“ the criminal justice system.

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About the Author

Jonathan Taylor is Title IX for All's founder, editor, web designer, and database developer.

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32 Comments

  1. Jonathan Taylor 12/08/2014 at 9:15 am

    I’m also going to throw this video out there. I wouldn’t normally link to Roosh, but this one is pretty good:

    • DukeLax 12/08/2014 at 9:16 pm

      interesting…ive never thought about that…the rape accusation now being used as a weapon. But is it not also perverse and unconstitutional for federal dollars to be given to state law enforcement …….to enable and foster false rape accusations to such a degree…that women now feel safe to use them as weapons???

    • Jack Strawb 12/11/2014 at 11:06 am

      0:40 – “Any time a woman goes to the media before going to the police she is using the rape allegation as a weapon” (and the allegation is false).

      That sounds extreme, but we live in a “false rape accusation culture,” where false accusations are rewarded, and go unpunished when discovered; extreme measures are necessary.

      2:20 – the narrator adds something essential, that going to the media cannot be claimed to be safer for the accuser than going to the police. One cannot argue, I don’t believe, that an accuser didn’t go to the police–but did go to the media–out of fear for safety.

  2. Malcolm James 12/08/2014 at 11:26 am

    Two years is but the blink of an eye in terms of rape allegations surfacing. What would have happened if the alleged rape had occurred long enough ago for there to be no record of whether a party took place that weekend and no-one who could verify, or disprove, the story could be traced?

    • I Art Laughing 12/08/2014 at 4:48 pm

      That isn’t working out so good for Lena Dunham.

      • NotoriousPAT 12/09/2014 at 2:37 am

        I don’t know if that’s a good example, since she confessed to her crime unbidden.

        • I Art Laughing 12/09/2014 at 3:07 am

          Nah, I’m talking about her accusation of the campus conservative “Barry One”.

          • NotoriousPAT 12/09/2014 at 8:31 pm

            Ah, good point then.

  3. pierceharlan 12/08/2014 at 1:41 pm

    Thanks, Jonathan, for this great piece. And thanks for mentioning COTWA.

    One difference between my site and the feminist sites you mentioned: COTWA does not run stories based solely on people’s claims that they were falsely accused. Do you know how many of those I’ve gotten over the years? A lot — some are very compelling narratives, and while I am sympathetic, I don’t assume that I’ve got the whole story.

    Keep up the great work.

    • Jonathan Taylor 12/08/2014 at 6:14 pm

      No problem! Thanks for maintaining the high standard. Refraining from presuming guilt is a great differentiator for advocates for the wrongly accused; it makes us look at lot more sincere than the opposition.

    • Sports Droppings 12/09/2014 at 5:48 pm

      Jonathan and Pierce. Superb work in recent days by both of you. I have an idea I want to CC you guys on. Retrieve my email addy from Dean Esmay at AVFM

    • NotoriousPAT 12/09/2014 at 8:35 pm

      COTWA does great work, I’ve been reading it since almost the beginning. Thanks for keepin on, Pierce.

  4. Malcolm James 12/08/2014 at 1:55 pm
  5. Charlottesvillager 12/08/2014 at 6:15 pm

    The fraternity said that there was no member of the fraternity that worked at the pool. That report was spun in the media into “the main rapist was not a member of the fraternity”. Subtle difference, but it’s a jump in logic. They could conceivably say that the main rapist in the allegation therefore could not have been a member as described, but hat report from the fraternity could support the idea that there is no rapist as much as the idea that the alleged rapist was not a member. This spin is not being reported anywhere, but it is an essential, yet illogical stealth tactic, employed to continue to bias the narrative over neutral objective investigation.

    • Eagle_Eyed 12/09/2014 at 5:00 am

      Right. Remember, in the story the rape was contextualized as part of the fraternity’s initiation. “Don’t you wanna be a brother?” “We all had to do it.” Why would a non-member be part of an initiation ritual?

      But there is any easy way to clear this all up–have Jackie give up the real identity of “Drew” to a reporter who can let find out what relationship, if any, he had with either Phi Psi or Jackie. This is what someone who knew she was telling the truth would do, if at the very minimum to clear her own name.

    • Allan Kirk 12/28/2014 at 6:50 pm

      I’m not sure that I would even call this subtle except of course it is one thing to examine a statement once it has been put under the spotlight and another to have the modified version slipped-in so that a reader quickly scanning text gets the wrong impression.

  6. NotoriousPAT 12/08/2014 at 7:25 pm

    “The cumulative impact of these facts has prompted Rolling Stone to write a detraction”

    Don’t you mean “retraction?”. I only bring this up because of all the people whining about how RS is being mean to the accuser for saying their trust in her was misplaced.

    • Jonathan Taylor 12/08/2014 at 7:58 pm

      Retraction, yes. Thank you. Edited.

  7. disqus_ArQv6e31it 12/08/2014 at 10:53 pm

    Feminst hatred has no bounds! Shades of another ideology that came along in the late 20’s early 30’s. They use a lot of the same tactics as well.

  8. Democritus 12/09/2014 at 12:22 am

    “I trust women.”
    -Jessica Valenti

    I trust evidence.

    • I Art Laughing 12/09/2014 at 3:07 am

      I don’t trust Jessica Valenti, or anything she writes, ever.

  9. Will Jones 12/09/2014 at 6:07 am

    With minimal digging into Rolling Stone’s comments one discovers her homosexual ritual bonding gangbanger “pals” of Zionist mobster-son Mikey Cantor – including an Hispanic Phi Psi “lifeguard” whose obvious guilt forced him to flee the country and his former good looks – were the Roman Catholic sons and grandsons of the insular CIA: so it’s no coincidence God-fearing adherents of Truth seeking Justice for “Jackie” are getting the same gaslight and derision we’ve gotten since the CIA’s adjudicated assassination of JFK (viz. ‘Hunt v. Marchetti’), and with their fellow papists of the FBI, and atheist Zionism’s Mossad – 9/11.

    Hopefully rather than threatening or effecting another “Michael Hastings,” the same satanic Fifth Column Mr. Jefferson called “an engine for enslaving mankind,” “the real Anti-Christ,” has this time simply paid off “Jackie” with a mid-seven figure sum.

    Quite a blot on America’s Prophet and Founder Mr. Jefferson’s, now sodomite, former university.

  10. JP 12/09/2014 at 2:42 pm

    Verdict First, trial later.

    I am reminded of that novel, Bonfire of Vanities. Justice wasn’t served, and in the end, Master of the Universe got his comeuppance. Thirty years later, we have made entire industries of victims. There are literally tens of thousands of grievance peddlers that must make their mark – either through cable TV or the social media. The more outrageous the postings the better. For grievance peddlers have to eat too. Getting noticed not only is good for the ego, but it translates into a decent payday.

  11. bmanoc 12/09/2014 at 7:59 pm

    The railroading is sickening. I figured these liberal feminazis would remember how poor black men were falsely accused of rape and hung. The more this unravels, the more it seems there was a vendetta against men in general.

  12. Chris Thompson 12/09/2014 at 8:06 pm

    The Rape Cultures constructed on college campuses began at the University of Montana in 2011, I believe, and quickly spread from there. Last year it reached my alma mater and, similarly, addressed two unfounded “rapes” to immediately punish hundreds of male students for “guilt by association”…

    http://montana.ncfm.org/2013/10/03/double-secret-probation/

  13. Louis Bricano 12/10/2014 at 12:08 am

    “…poking at a vegan burger…” All I need to see to know the entire thing is politically motivated horseshit.

    • Jonathan Taylor 12/10/2014 at 10:40 am

      There are indeed more than a few vegan loonies in the world :)

      • Louis Bricano 12/16/2014 at 9:23 pm

        “veganism” is looniness by definition.

  14. ShlomoShunn 12/10/2014 at 8:22 am

    This, allegedly, is the false accuser:

    http://patdollard.com/2014/12/multiple-sources-confirm-to-charles-johnson-the-identity-of-woman-who-fabricated-uva-rape-story-to-rolling-stone/

    I say every rape accuser should be named or neither accuser/accused. Women are equal. Let them be treated as such.

  15. Jack Strawb 12/11/2014 at 11:02 am

    Let’s keep in mind the context for all this, too: Rape has been in significant decline since 1992, and…

    COLLEGE WOMEN ARE SAFER THAN NON-COLLEGE WOMEN.

    See, “Violence Against College Women: A Review to Identify Limitations in Defining the Problem and Inform Future Research,” by Callie Marie Rennison and Lynn A. Addington.

    The abstract can be found at http://tva.sagepub.com/content/15/3/159.abstract

    The report is summarized at
    http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/12/college_rape_campus_sexual_assault_is_a_serious_problem_but_the_efforts.html

  16. ZeroZeroOne 12/16/2014 at 8:28 pm

    I think this would be a awesome story for some investigative journalist to sink his or her teeth into. That is: the number of rape convictions that are proved true when an alleged victim goes to the media rather than the police. It would be breath taking I suspect.

  17. Allan Kirk 12/28/2014 at 6:40 pm

    This is what a thoughtfully considered, fair, well documented and eloquently written comment looks like! Congratulations.

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