UVA Dean Nicole Eramo Speaks
Posted on April 22nd, 2015 in Uncategorized | 88 Comments »
…and it’s not pretty for Rolling Stone.
I don’t have time to comment much on her letter just yet, except to say that, really, the idea that Sabrina Rubin Erdely will continue to work in journalism seems ever more bizarre.
88 Responses
4/22/2015 1:31 pm
I’m left pretty speechless. A compelling perspective which perhaps calls into question the New York Times standard.
And I am reminded of what I thought immediately after reading the underlying article - the allegations never established, to any sensible standard of proof, the thesis of administrative indifference to sexual assault.
4/22/2015 2:40 pm
Nicole Eramo certainly has the right to take whatever action she wants, including no action, or accepting a confidential settlement. My hope is that she refuses to settle, or if she does, that she refuses to accept a gag order as part of any settlement. Only by her (or another party) doing that will we see the full story of what went on behind the scenes at Rolling Stone (and hopefully cause there to be some real consequences for Rolling Stone and Sabrina Rubin Erdely). But whatever Dean Eramo decides to do, she is certainly entitled to be compensated for the harm that was caused to her.
It’s truly a shame that she should have incurred the treatment that she has. I understand the rage of rape victims and advocates to the article and its depiction of her, but they unfortunately let their anger lead them to act like a lynch mob. Again, understandable, but unfortunate.
4/22/2015 3:05 pm
She didn’t get to be a dean by being nice (knowing when to be diplomatic is not the same thing). The claws are out and I hope she shreds some “journalist” asses.
4/22/2015 3:27 pm
It sounds like she’s taking no action at all, just whining.
4/22/2015 3:36 pm
This is not whining, but a devastating rebuttal and an effective exposure of Rolling Stone’s continuing malpractice. Ms. Eramo’s discussion of the difficulty of the sort of work she does seems to me to be entirely persuasive and very measured.
I wish there were a recompense equal to the loss she has sustained. I have no doubt that Rolling Stone will do all it can to avoid being held accountable.
4/22/2015 5:47 pm
One thing that bothers me a bit about Eramo’s letter is that when she refers to the damage that was done to the “UVA Community” by the Rolling Stone article, she leaves out the fraternity that was falsely accused of hosting “Jackie’s gang rape.”
I don’t know if that was an oversight or a deliberate omission on Eramo’s part…but if I was a member of the UVA fraternity, it would rather annoy the hell out of me.
This said, I hope Eramo sues Rolling Stone for libel and wins a big judgment.
4/22/2015 6:20 pm
I’d like to know the implications of her pointing out that RS’s legal guys told her that they thought their treatment of her was fair even though they knew it wasn’t true.
4/22/2015 6:32 pm
Why has no one called out Emily Renda? She has made contradicting statements let alone her role at UVA. She never reported her rape but wants to invoke the rights of men?
4/22/2015 6:37 pm
Dean Eramo is entirely correct in her complaint against Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone. That Sabrina Erdely saw fit, in her article, to attack Nicole Eramo, with intent to vilify this Dean, provides evidence of the sort of prejudiced and “canned” journalism Erdely and Wenner and Rolling Stone were pursuing. This ought to be an object lesson to all of the journalists, fact-checkers, and editors at Rolling Stone, including Will Dana, Sean Woods, and fact-checker Elizabeth (Liz) Garber-Paul (who happens to be the daughter of a professor of philosophy at Princeton U.). If this isn’t enough evidence for the RS crew that ideology and wishful thinking are not commensurate with a realistic journalistic account, fully checked and verified, then this journal is unlikely to have much of a future.
4/22/2015 9:16 pm
At this point, it is no longer the lack of firings at Rolling Stone that is surprising.
It is the lack of resignations.
4/22/2015 9:58 pm
Wow,there is more again to.the real story. I would have liked Eramo to talk about the fraternity too and say they were painted in the worst possible way with truth as casualty, but I guess Eramo has her reasons - hard to believe in a four page letter she wouldn’t come out and say ” and they a are innocent” but maybe that is implied - by saying the story was discredited and uva wronged she includes the falsely accused frat house and its members.
Just would be better to say: “for the record the story shows their innocence”, but i guess if you are dean and you are the go to person for assault reporting, you probably have your reasons . Lets hope she also talked to the frats privately.
4/22/2015 10:02 pm
By that i mean. your position is one of trust and confidentiality to assault survivors, so you arent going to jeapardize that role for the sake of a public apology to a fraternity when you werent the one accusing them.
You still wonder what happened with Jackie, why go to Dean Eramo and go through the trouble if your story isnt yours. I guess Jackie will come forward sometime and spell it out.
4/22/2015 10:27 pm
I would also like to know why UVa employee, Emily Renda, isn’t being taken to task for her role in this. She is the one that introduced Jackie to Erdely and it’s just not plausible that she wasn’t well-aware Jackie’s story was fabricated.
4/22/2015 11:15 pm
I don’t know what motivates Eramo, but I fail to see how her saying in the letter that the fraternity members were the biggest victims of this one bogus allegation undermines her position as a advocate for genuine victims of sexual assault. Saying that is not an apology. It’s recognition by one victim (Eramo) that there were other major victims (the fraternity members).
To me at least, her omission of the fraternity members as victims in her letter is inexplicable and inexcusable.
But as I previously said: I hope she and the fraternity sue Rolling Stone out of existence for libel.
4/22/2015 11:26 pm
I want to second maskirovka77’s comment regarding Dean Eramo’s glaring omission of any explicit mention of the fraternity at the center of the Rolling Stone article. Speaking as a Dean, it seems that she should at least have acknowledged that this specific segment of the “UVA community” was directly — and perhaps more gravely — libeled by the same unfounded (and now thoroughly discredited) reporting that called her own professional reputation into question.
Reading the letter carefully, I strongly suspect that the omission was deliberate and probably based on the advice of counsel. If the scope of Dean Eramo’s comment was thus constrained, this would be understandable. It is also part of the problem.
4/22/2015 11:28 pm
There are questions about the legal standing of a fraternity to sue, but there are no questions about an individual such as an individual called out by name.
4/23/2015 7:10 am
@Carrie,
Perhaps Renda is being taken to task, with discipline being private.
And it is plausible that Renda was not aware of the fabrication - do recall that it took a great deal of independent reporting to uncover the fabrication. Indeed, I think even Eramo believed Jackie’s account for some time. It took Jackie overplaying her hand for the lies to be identified.
4/23/2015 7:26 am
Richard —
>> …really, the idea that Sabrina Rubin Erdely will continue to work in journalism seems ever more bizarre.
By singling her out, you appear to be giving Wernner, Dana, Woods, and Garber-Paul a pass. None of them should be able to work in journalism again, although Wenner is obviously different from the others in that he is the owner as well; and RS (and perhaps Wenner’s other publications) should go out of business. (The recent retraction of an article by Us Weekly and the related freelancer/RS Weekly staff issue shows that dishonesty if pervasive among him and his employees.)
I come back to Dean Eramo pointing out in her letter that RS’s legal department saying their treatment of her was ‘fair’ in spite of knowing what was being said about her was fair. It’s just not plausible that any of these individuals wasn’t involved with the lawyers or even unaware of the legal opinion, so they all have the same degree of guilt.
It would be more than a little ironic if this turned out to be an instance of Joseph Schumpeter’s ‘Creative Destruction,’ with RS going out of business, and the innocent members of the staff finding other employment… in this case the ‘creative’ would be of a different kind — the creative act of writing fiction.
4/23/2015 7:43 am
“Much of the public’s attention has been focused on the inaccuracy of the article’s account of a sexual assault involving Jackie…”
“Inaccuracy”? So she’s still going to pretend that Jackie was actually raped? I understand that for PR reasons she doesn’t want to be seen calling Jackie a liar, but it’s clear to every reasonable person that her story was a hoax. This unwillingness for university officials and even the police to come out and say that is simply insane.
4/23/2015 8:37 am
The next chapter of this saga is beginning in earnest. The Eramo letter was closely scrutinized by lawyers and is but the first salvo of a large defamation case. The letter was not about rape issues but instead re-iterated the RS story fiasco on the way to the courthouse. I hope to see several more letters soon, particularly from the wronged Fraternity.
4/23/2015 8:52 am
As far as I’m concerned, if Eramo had gotten legal advice not to mention the fraternity members as victims of “Rolling Stone,” she would have been better off leaving that entire section of her letter out. Because not mentioning the fraternity in the section about victims inevitably leaves the impression she does not regard them as such and raises the question of what exactly she does see them as.
4/23/2015 9:28 am
Emily Renda couldn’t have ever believed Jackie story to be true. Look at the facts: She is told of a ritual gang rape that takes place at a fraternity by a young victim who is lured in by her boyfriend. Emily Renda never tried to find Jackie’s date or identity. She never contacted the police. The story is horrific and dangerous and the only thing Renda ever did was repeat the story at rallies, the U.S. senate and call a reporter. You have a predator luring in a naïve girl into a rape den and you never once even try to identify the fiends? Any rape victim advocate knows the statistics of repeat rape offenders. So if Emily did believe Jackie’s story she would have contacted the police and try to find the perps. This was no date-rape scenario.
What Emily did not know was how fast and easy Jackie’s story would be discredited. Emily probably didn’t know about the catfish scheme that was pulled on Jackie’s friends. Renda just used the story to further her career since it contained the perfect criminals and victims. Naïve young girl, white privileged frat boys, a perfect narrative for social justice warriors seeking democrat employment. Renda was all over the airwaves when the story broke, NPR, MSNBC, CNN; quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post. Amazingly I don’t think a single “reporter” at the time ever asked Renda why she never contacted the police.
4/23/2015 9:31 am
maskirovka77
I think it more likely Eramo doesn’t see Fraternities as members of the UVA community, perhaps subconsciously, rather than that she doesn’t see them as victims. They’ve been successfully othered by the campus community Eramo belongs to.
4/23/2015 9:56 am
>>I would have liked Eramo to talk about the fraternity too and say they were painted in the worst possible way with truth as casualty, but I guess Eramo has her reasons – hard to believe in a four page letter she wouldn’t come out and say ” and they a are innocent” but maybe that is implied<<
The only thing implied by this letter, and Dean Sullivan's collective punishment of fraternities for crimes not committed, is that the ruling elite of UVA hates fraternities and welcomes anything that undermines them. If male students are harmed by the rape culture hoax, that's collateral damage to which they are indifferent at best.
4/23/2015 10:01 am
This appears to be the preface to Dean Eramo taking legal action; as such, as an individual, she may have even better odds of winning a settlement than the Phi Psi fraternity, which has some legal hurdles to overcome relative to whether the entity is public or private, leading to either higher or lower legal standards to prove its libel case. Dean Eramo has none of those issues, and, as well, probably has less items in her past behavior, ie no parties or antics (harmless, I might add) that fraternity members may engage in that can be twisted by the legal defense team at Rolling Stone.
Ms. Erdely still working in journalism would appear only a legal tactic by Rolling Stone. I very much doubt we will see much more of her “reporting” in print anywhere. And, good riddance to such an agenda driven journalist with little or no scrupples.
4/23/2015 10:10 am
This whole thing becomes more sordid and surreal by the day.
The absolute biggest stunner for me? ZERO accountability for the perps-no criminal charges, no disciplinary action, not even any real collective public backlash. When I say perpetrators, I’m meaning the individuals behind the hoax, not so much the groups like Rolling Stone, the college admins, etc.: Jackie Coakley, Emily Renda, SRE, her activist moron of fact checker moron who bragged about her “excellent” work on twitter and attacked critics of the story, and finally, all the hysterical raptivists on UVA’s campus that enabled, encouraged, and spread Jackie Coakley’s lies for a year or more
Jackie Coakley should be in county orange, or at least arrested in the same vein as Ashley Todd of 2008, the idiot who bruised an upside down B into her face and invented a black male attacker who assaulted her because she was a McCain supporter.
The fact that NONE of these disgusting people are brought to task shows how twisted our society has become.
Justice is the real rape victim here.
4/23/2015 10:21 am
Wow. Just wow. A compelling and tragic first person account of what it’s like to be conspicuously slandered for failing to protect a poor innocent rape victim. My heart goes out to Eramo; all she ever did was do her job as well as she could, and as it turns out she is very good at it. A lying journalist and a lying source almost cost her her job, her reputation, everything.
To those who wish she had done more to point out the damage to the fraternity, just remember that Eramo did not create that problem and it is not hers to fix. It was Erdely who should have apologized to those boys, and she cravenly did not.
4/23/2015 10:34 am
To those who wish she had done more to point out the damage to the fraternity, just remember that Eramo did not create that problem and it is not hers to fix.
This was also true of the other groups she did identify. Something drove the disparate treatment.
4/23/2015 10:50 am
I hope Eramo doesn’t settle out of court. The RS hit piece
had two specific targets: a brutal gang-raping fraternity and a corrupt campus administration. How this “preconceived narrative” came about and how it was executed (to initial acclaim) have still not been adequately investigated, much less convincingly reported.
Information on the university’s own independent report has also not yet been released. Here’s hoping “speculative” Richard has not finished speculating.
4/23/2015 10:58 am
test.
4/23/2015 11:00 am
Since this is kind of an open thread, here’s more of that “rape culture” that feminists are trying to push:
“TOPEKA (KSNT)- Over the last few months we’ve been investigating an alleged rape at Washburn University back in February.
But after further digging it was determined the rape may have never taken place at all.
KSNT News obtained the official documents from the university’s investigation. It finds that two students has sex, but it was consensual. Also, that 20-year-old Courtney Smith solicited the sex and was not the victim of abuse.
They base their findings on interviews with witnesses, Smith and the accused.
Investigators found a text message from Smith to the accused that said, “Thanks for this morning,” that she sent after the encounter.
According to the report there is also surveillance video of the two on campus right after the incident laughing and talking.
We talked to the student who reported the rape, she told us that the Universities findings are wrong, “I’m mad about it, they believe him over me and that’s not the way to go,” Smith said, when we asked if she tried to yell or fight back she said did yell and scream, “No stop,” around 10 to 20 times.
Smith does plan to appeal the University’s findings.
We also talked to the District Attorney’s office, they said he doesn’t plan to file any charges.”
http://ksnt.com/2015/04/15/washburn-university-no-sexual-assault-in-campus-chapel/
4/23/2015 11:01 am
TOPEKA (KSNT)- Over the last few months we’ve been investigating an alleged rape at Washburn University back in February.
But after further digging it was determined the rape may have never taken place at all.
KSNT News obtained the official documents from the university’s investigation. It finds that two students has sex, but it was consensual. Also, that 20-year-old Courtney Smith solicited the sex and was not the victim of abuse.
They base their findings on interviews with witnesses, Smith and the accused.
Investigators found a text message from Smith to the accused that said, “Thanks for this morning,” that she sent after the encounter.
According to the report there is also surveillance video of the two on campus right after the incident laughing and talking.
We talked to the student who reported the rape, she told us that the Universities findings are wrong, “I’m mad about it, they believe him over me and that’s not the way to go,” Smith said, when we asked if she tried to yell or fight back she said did yell and scream, “No stop,” around 10 to 20 times.
Smith does plan to appeal the University’s findings.
We also talked to the District Attorney’s office, they said he doesn’t plan to file any charges.
4/23/2015 11:06 am
@Chriscom
A quick google search will indicate that the number one advocate for fraternities in the world (the North American Interfraternity Conference) was recently led by….UVA Dean of Students Allan Groves.
The UVA admin is composed of several different people with several different points of view regarding fraternities. In general, UVA doesn’t hate fraternities.
One can only guess that Groves will also have a response for Rolling Stone but probably only after (if) he has his FOIA request completed - he needs this to show that SRE lied to intentionally harm him.
4/23/2015 2:37 pm
Hi Richard,
are you going to write about the new Krakauer book? Curious to hear your thoughts.
4/23/2015 3:59 pm
I am a bit baffled that so many people commenting here expected Ms. Eramo to ‘exonerate’ the fraternity or for that matter any other known victims of this hoax in this letter. She didn’t specifically exonerate her colleague Allen Groves, either, we’ll note and he is someone whom we also know was libeled with a bogus quote because there is videotaped evidence to show his words were extensively falsified by Erdely.
But it wasn’t appropriate for Eramo to do any of that in this particular communication to Rolling Stone. In fact, it would probably have been inappropriate for her to do that here. She’s not law enforcement, she’s not Columbia, she’s not Rolling Stone, she’s not the fraternity, she’s not a judge or jury.
She can only tell Rolling Stone with absolute certainty that she was slandered, she was libeled, she was defamed and she has suffered real & quantifiable damage to her reputation both personally & professionally, and this letter was merely her declaration of that real & quantifiable damage inflicted upon her by Rolling Stone to Rolling Stone.
4/23/2015 4:23 pm
PS) Also I think we can deduce from her letter that Eramo now believes as I and most everyone who has been closely following this story here does that she was defamed with malice, because everyone from Erdely to Erdely’s fact checkers, Erdely’s editors & Erdely’s publisher clearly chose not to check pertinent facts & deliberately elected not to interview relevant witnesses to confirm salient details in order that a narrative which they either knew to be false or should have known to be false could be published anyway.
By publishing without confirming anything, if Rolling Stone were ever to be caught in their fraud, everyone involved at every step of manufacturing this story would be preserving their ability to say later “It wasn’t malicious, we were all just ‘temporarily’ the worst journalists in the history of the world &, meh, we screwed up.” [“A rare blight!” - The AP]
Obviously NO legitimate journalistic enterprise outside of a grammar school booster club newsletter screws up that badly on a story with the potential that great for libeling so many innocent people so extremely unless their negligence was willful, and negligence that pervasive just doesn’t happen unless it’s calculated.
They knew full well that with a subject as erratic & unreliable as Jackie Coakley was, telling wild story with so many inherent logical contradictions as hers contained, that if they actually tried to responsibly check facts, track down witnesses & confirm those quotes, they’d lose their blockbuster story.
But this defamatory story was conceived as political propaganda, not journalism and was executed as political propaganda, not journalism, so the truth and the exercise of due diligence in avoiding harm to innocent people’s reputation be damned. They went to print essentially not confirming any of it.
I think Eramo is simply establishing her case and ONLY her case here that she’s incurred real damages through RS’s malicious slander (promoted in multiple television appearances) perpetrated through their deliberate misrepresentation of her words & deeds and the many aspersions cast upon her character, spread through tens of thousands of hard copies of that issue distributed internationally, as well as posted online at their website for so many months with god-knows-how-many unique views of the content defamatory to her.
(As an aside, once again we find these supposedly staunch ‘victim advocates’ Erdely & Wenner have smeared yet another woman & in this case virtually ensured she would become the target of what approaches a terroristic campaign of revenge by the inflamed mob Rolling Stone incited against her. It’s a rather peculiar version of feminism - one that victimizes women so cavalierly - which these Rolling Stone folks subscribe to, no?)
4/23/2015 5:54 pm
Excellent posts, Leili. I am assuming Rolling Stone’s lawyers are reading, too, and if they are not tripping over themselves right now to offer Ms. Eramo a big fat sum of money (tied to a non-disclosure agreement) before Eramo’s attorneys rip apart their defenses in discovery and turn up material so damaging that it puts RS out of business, they should return their law degrees.
4/23/2015 8:04 pm
@Leili
I beg to differ. Leaving out the fraternity members while mentioning other actors at UVA as victims of “Rolling Stone,” leaves the impression -whether it is accurate or not- that she has at least no opinion about the accuracy of Jackie’s bogus claims. I don’t deny that Eramo is a victim, but she ought to publicly state what I fervently hope she actually believes, that the fraternity members were falsely accused.
I fail to see how doing so compromises her position at UVA in any way, unless it’s with people who remain convinced -against all evidence- that Jackie was telling the truth.
4/23/2015 9:20 pm
@maskirovka77:
Nope, I still don’t see where this letter was the place to do that. This was a declaration about the harm she sustained at the hands of a negligent publication, made to that publication. That’s all it was.
This wasn’t supposed to be a complete litany of all the infractions perpetrated by RS against everybody, a complete J’accuse” with her serving as public prosecutor against RS for all their sins in this fiasco. That’s for other people to do (and possibly even for her to do in another arena apart from this letter to RS.)
But at this moment she only has complete expertise on what was done to her & on the harm sustained by her which she intended to convey in this one letter to the people who perpetrated that harm against her. I do think this letter was correctly restricted to that, and the only mention of the ‘UVa community’ seems to have been done to establish context for her as a member of and as a working professional in that community. She sustained damage on a lot of levels here.
But it’s not her place to speak for the defamed fraternity or the catfished friends or Allen Groves or anybody else nor to condemn the obvious harm that was inflicted upon them also in her letter to to Rolling Stone.
That’s their place to make their claim to RS if they feel they have one, and in the almost certain eventuality there is a civil action, a jury’s place to decide whether it’s valid.
And remember, this is a letter addressed to Rolling Stone, not to the public or to posterity, so it’s not seeking to authoritatively enunciate her judgement of what should be the final word on all the parameters of Rolling Stone’s extensive culpability on this.
4/23/2015 9:30 pm
@I-roller. Yep. I also suspect RS’ lawyers are figuring out she’s got a good case too - or at the very least, they’ve figured out they need to strike anyone named Leili from the jury pool! 😉
4/24/2015 7:01 am
Each party who was harmed needs an attorneys to sue RS individually. The fraternity, a couple of deans, the maliciously defamed “friends” of Jackie, roommates, the campus police chief, etc. Heck with a little creativity even Jackie and Renda could sue if they can prove satisfactorily that Erdely defamed them maliciously and made them look like loons. The Columbia student who is suing for harassment the university approved and an individual professor who sees malicious libel and defamation as a “art” project may be a template to go after UVa administrators and profs individually who encouraged and sanctioned the harassment at UVa. Social justice is so psychologically satisfying until the lawsuits fly.
4/24/2015 8:26 am
This was a declaration about the harm she sustained at the hands of a negligent publication, made to that publication. That’s all it was.
This is simply false.
From the letter:
It is hard to explain how much damage the Rolling Stone article has caused the University of Virginia community. The article portrayed UVA students as callous social climbers, undermined the work of our student advocates…
So while Eramo didn’t have to identify harm to others while establishing her own damage she chose to do so. In doing so she included certain groups and also chose to omit the fraternity. This is an odd choice because whatever you think of damages to Eramo and the other groups she identifies they pale in comparison to the accusation of actually committing gang rape.
4/24/2015 9:09 am
Not sure if anyone else read about the Belle Gibson news, but here is another example of why we cannot just blindly believe far-fetched stories from people who appear to be a victim of some kind (whether it’s sexual assault, cancer, or some other ordeal). People make stuff up all the time for their own personal gain. This woman painted herself as a cancer victim/survivor/hero and made a hugely successful career out of it! Why did she do it? Narcissism, lack of empathy for others, finding a “purpose” in life, and huge personal gain. Why did Jackie lie? Probably for some of the same reasons. It’s not difficult to believe that Jackie may have been hoping to build a career out of her victim/hero status. Incredibly, this woman’s story on its face was as far-fetched as Jackie’s. She some of the ordeals she claimed she survived include stroke, multiple heart surgeries (one resulting in “death”), a malignant brain tumor that gave her 4 months to live, and then cancer of the liver, uterus, spleen and blood. That’s a lot of bad luck for someone still in her early 20s. She “survived” all the maladies by eschewing traditional medicine, and “curing” herself via “wholefoods”, and other holistic treatment such as colonics, herbalism, etc. The publisher of her cookbook, Penguin, did not confirm any of her medical history. She amassed a following of over 200k people on Instagram, and it’s hard to imagine how much damage she has done to be people who are truly struggling with a cancer diagnosis.
The takeaway should be “trust, but verify”. I still believe that MOST people who say they have been sexually assaulted, or survived cancer, or survived some other ordeal, are telling the truth. But SOME people are pathological liars and sociopaths. Before we anoint the next national “hero” in the media, let’s do some appropriate due diligence to make sure their story checks out.
4/24/2015 9:38 am
@Eliott said “Social justice is so psychologically satisfying until the lawsuits fly.”
Yeah, I think you’re right. A lot of very naive people who’ve been enticed into jumping on the vengeful bandwagons of mob justice are going to start finding themselves on the wrong end of a subpoena, I’m afraid. You can’t run around recklessly smearing other people’s names and defaming their reputations and expect to walk away from that financially unscathed forever.
I keep thinking about what future historians will have to say someday about this very odd time in our culture, when the more amoral ranks of the social justice warrior brigades believed they were somehow entitled to concoct fictitious charges against their fellow citizens with impunity and to sacrifice innocent people’s reputations on the altar of their sacred causes.
It’s like we’re witnessing a secular Crusades, or something, with the almighty “Narrative” serving as a substitute deity.
4/24/2015 9:39 am
It would be nice if someone like George Will took on the task of people exploiting “victimhood.”
I doubt that anyone of his stature would be vilified for stating the obvious.
4/24/2015 10:54 am
As for Emily Renda, whose name is brought up several times in the comments, let’s not forget that THIS is her fourth year comment, after claiming to have been raped in a drunken stupor in her FIRST year:
Renda also proffered advice unrelated to issues of sexual assault. Last summer, someone told her to always “stay for one more drink after you want to leave” — advice she said is the best she has ever gotten.
“When you get the urge to go home and you say, ‘Ah, I am kind of tired. I am going to call it a night’ or you’re hanging out with your friends and you say, ‘Ehh I’m done for the night,’ stay for one more drink,” Renda said. “You will always find that new depth of friendship, that new relationship, that new anything.”
She claims to have been taken advantage of when she was drunk, and she is now counseling girls on rape issues.
4/24/2015 11:11 am
Any source for that Renda comment? Unbelievable… but it totally explains the mindsets behind the ridiculous “slut walks” and the absolute double standard between college men and women in regard to intercourse involving alcohol and consent.
She deactivated her facebook page when the shit hit the fan, which she had used in conjunction with her activism and position at UVA.
4/24/2015 12:38 pm
Has anyone noticed that Matress Girl’s victim is suing Columbia, accusing them of creating a hostile learning experience? That is classic — Saul Alinsky’s Rule #4, I believe. Good luck to him.
(I posted it here because that thread is kind of old and has no recent activity.)
4/24/2015 3:16 pm
Here is the harasser’s emailed comment on the lawsuit:
4/24/2015 4:22 pm
“I think it’s ridiculous that Paul would sue not only the school but one of my past professors for allowing me to make an art piece,” she wrote. “It’s ridiculous that he would read it as a ‘bullying strategy,’ especially given his continued public attempts to smear my reputation, when really it’s just an artistic expression of the personal trauma I’ve experienced at Columbia. If artists are not allowed to make art that reflect on our experiences, then how are we to heal?”
Jesus Christ. Smear HER reputation? Lot of thoughts on deconstructing this, but my god, this is very frightening. Mothers, protect your college-bound sons…. anyone could be the next victim with this sort of sociopath entitled mentality.
4/24/2015 4:58 pm
@ Roan
See today’s New York Post article on the suit.
<>
4/24/2015 4:59 pm
“f–k me in the butt,” Sulkowicz allegedly wrote.
“eehm, maybe not?” Nungesser replied.
“you don’t miss my lopsided ass?” Sulkowicz then asked in the exchange.
Sulkowicz told The Post the exchange was taken out of context.
4/24/2015 5:44 pm
Everyone lies. Most especially women. Look no further than the false paternity charge or false rape charges, everywhere. Most laughably, women apparently are passing ranger schools. What a joke.
4/24/2015 9:48 pm
I wonder why Nungesser isn’t suing Sulkowicz for libel.
4/24/2015 10:05 pm
……isn’t suing Sulkowicz for libel.” No money and she is a crazy girl. But she will be an invaluable witness in discovery and trial for Nungesser. For example she is still shooting her mouth off to the press. Columbia can’t shut her up since they have no leverage over her and the more she says and the more bizarre it is is good for Nungesser.
4/25/2015 11:16 am
Nungesser is correctly going after institutional forces. That’s what this whole issue is about. Sulkowicz’s actions were supported and encouraged by the university. This lawsuit seems like an attempt to attack the root of the problem, that the university officially sanctioned and then firmly stood by Sulkowicz’s extra-judicial punishment campaign, and openly violated their own official policies on student privacy, safety, harassment etc. in Sulkowicz’s favor.
When asked by the Washington Examiner why Sulkowicz was not included in the lawsuit, Nungesser’s attorney Andrew Miltenberg said: “This case is not about Emma Sulkowicz. It is about Columbia University and its ivy-covered halls, and the responsibilities it owes as a place of higher learning.”
He added: “Here, Columbia University, as an institution, was not only silent, but actively and knowingly supported attacks on Paul Nungesser, after having determined his innocence, legitimizing a fiction. Emma Sulkowicz is merely a footnote to this story, we already know that she cleverly crafted a story and rode it to celebrity on the back on [sic] someone found not responsible.” (Emphasis original.)
washingtonexaminer.com Columbia student defamed by mattress girl is suing.
4/25/2015 11:17 am
Nungesser is correctly going after institutional forces. That’s what this whole issue is about. Sulkowicz’s actions were supported and encouraged by the university. This lawsuit seems like an attempt to attack the root of the problem, that the university officially sanctioned and then firmly stood by Sulkowicz’s extra-judicial punishment campaign, and openly violated their own official policies on student privacy, safety, harassment etc. in Sulkowicz’s favor.
“When asked by the Washington Examiner why Sulkowicz was not included in the lawsuit, Nungesser’s attorney Andrew Miltenberg said: “This case is not about Emma Sulkowicz. It is about Columbia University and its ivy-covered halls, and the responsibilities it owes as a place of higher learning.”
He added: “Here, Columbia University, as an institution, was not only silent, but actively and knowingly supported attacks on Paul Nungesser, after having determined his innocence, legitimizing a fiction. Emma Sulkowicz is merely a footnote to this story, we already know that she cleverly crafted a story and rode it to celebrity on the back on [sic] someone found not responsible.” (Emphasis original.)”
washingtonexaminer.com Columbia student defamed by mattress girl is suing.
4/25/2015 11:17 am
Sorry for double post.
4/25/2015 11:59 am
What I find most interesting about the lawsuit is that it claims Title IX violations, as well as Columbia allowing — if not creating a hostile learning — environment to be used against the guy. Those two things are often used against males, but I don’t think they have been used against women, so this represents a first, at least to the degree that Columbia clearly took the woman’s side, aside from the original accusations.
4/25/2015 5:49 pm
A number of lawsuits by suspended or expelled students for sexual assault/rape have also implicated Title IX violations, so it’s not unprecedented or unusual. I prefer to avoid a combative perspective whenever possible, but your rule no. 4 is really not out of place here for Nungesser and other male students in similar situations. But is it an effective channel through which to hold colleges accountable for injustice? (And what would effective channels be?) At best, it’s still a big gamble, since gender discrimination is often tacit and indirect.
Another student’s lawsuit towards Columbia on the basis of Title IX violations was rejected by a judge, precisely citing this lack of proof, and going by the article below, determining gender discrimination under Title IX guidelines comes across as a frustratingly subjective and tunnel-visioned (i.e. only taking narrow aspects of the case as evidence) judgment call. (The article also hints at the judge being agenda-driven or even corrupt, although we must be very cautious of such claims). “Furman [the judge] concluded that even if John was unjustly found guilty or if Columbia sexual assault hearings have a disparate impact on men, there was not enough evidence to prove he was discriminated against. For this the case was dismissed.”
washingtonexaminer.com Due process denied: Judge dismisses lawsuit
Although Nungesser’s case appears more secure, as he broaches other policy violations in addition to Title IX, is it possible that a judge could reject it on the basis of one aspect not holding weight, as the article implies happened with the other Columbia student?
4/25/2015 7:32 pm
As for Eramo, Leili convincingly argues that Eramo has no obligation to exonerate the fraternity or anyone else, and in the context of the letter, I can’t argue with that. However, wider considerations of her letter, in which a the most significant portion is dedicated to describing the nature of her work on campus rape/sexual assault, remain very troubling, and her omissions glaring.
Eramo may speak for her interests alone in the context of this letter and pending lawsuit, but in the context of her job as associate dean, she speaks on behalf of all students. In and of itself, this means that in her capacity as a counselor of students alleging sexual assault/rape, she is working under a blatant conflict of interest. To be fair, Eramo touches (briefly) on the difficulty of the delicate balance she must strike between survivor advocacy and protecting student rights. Yet students who allege trauma ought to be referred to counselors whose role is not to question or call into doubt their account, but simply to offer psychological support. As dean of students, Eramo disfavors and potentially harms other members of the student body if she “listens and believes survivors” in accordance to advocacy, and as counselor offering unconditional support and guidance, there is substantial potential for causing psychological harm with any inquiry for further details, verification, etc.
Therefore, her job is severely compromised from the get-go, and from every direction. No matter how unfairly and wrongly she was depicted in the RS article, she remains part of a university system that by all indications (such as in its response to the RS article), itself thrives on a rape culture narrative. That’s what I got from her letter, and that’s the context where her letter’s omission of harm done to the fraternity(s) is very troubling.
Furthermore, and this is not meant to excuse SRE’s horribly dishonest reporting, but Eramo and UVA still have a great deal to answer for in their actions BOTH preceding and following the RS article, as far back as when Jackie first made her claims in fact.
“But it’s the role that UVa administrators played in providing “support” that needs to be examined. The Washington Post quickly came to the conclusion that the Rolling Stone article had gaping holes in it. It took The Post a whole day. Why did UVa ignore all the evidence? What is the university’s responsibility to determine what, if anything, is true in a claim? What is the university’s responsibility to protect the rights of all students?”
Comment by beansforbob
washingtonpost.com U-va. dean assails her portrayal in alleged rape story in Rolling Stone
4/25/2015 10:28 pm
I hope Nungesser wins a huge judgment against Columbia and I hope Sulkowicz gets called as a witness and subjected to a withering examination or cross examination about the disconnect between her allegations and her documented communications with Nungesser.
Columbia was insane to allow Sulkowicz to stage a public campaign with the stated purpose of forcing Nungesser to leave the school and earn academic credit in doing so. Columbia should pay dearly for doing so.
4/26/2015 1:56 am
[i]It would be nice if someone like George Will took on the task of people exploiting “victimhood.”
I doubt that anyone of his stature would be vilified for stating the obvious.[/i]
George Will is vilified for stating the obvious almost every day.
4/26/2015 1:57 am
It would be nice if someone like George Will took on the task of people exploiting “victimhood.”
I doubt that anyone of his stature would be vilified for stating the obvious.
George Will is vilified for stating the obvious almost every day.
4/26/2015 2:17 am
What I find most interesting about the lawsuit is that it claims Title IX violations, as well as Columbia allowing — if not creating a hostile learning — environment to be used against the guy. Those two things are often used against males, but I don’t think they have been used against women, so this represents a first, at least to the degree that Columbia clearly took the woman’s side, aside from the original accusations.
Accusations of Title IX violations aren’t used against “men” or “women,” they are used against institutions that accept federal funding (which, of course includes every accredited collage and university in the U.S. except for a very tiny handful like Grove City and Hillsdale). To the extent that they’re used against men or women, it would only be in their capacity as actors of the institutions ultimately being targeted.
So I presume you mean to suggest Title IX violations have not been used by men who have been mistreated by universities pursuant to questionable or false accusations made against them by female students. And if so, you’d be wrong. Recall for instance this tidbit from the Slate piece entitled “The College Rape Overreaction:
“The higher education insurance group United Educators did a study of the 262 insurance claims it paid to students between 2006 and 2010 because of campus sexual assault, at a cost to the group of $36 million. The vast majority of the payouts, 72 percent, went to the accused—young men who protested their treatment by universities.”
That number strongly suggests something the Slate piece dances around but is not quite courageous enough to say outright: The real story is the exact opposite of the RS/SRE/SJW narrative of campus administrations being indifferent to female students’ accusations of sexual assault — they’re actually giving those accusations undue benefit of the doubt at the expense of their male students’ academic and working careers.
4/26/2015 2:25 am
^^ Not to mention their personal reputations.
4/26/2015 7:15 am
I should have been more clear regarding my point about Title IX, including the context of it.
Its purpose was (is) to redress and prevent discrimination against women, which I not only have no quarrel with, I applaud. But as with many other things in our legal system, clever lawyers have used it in ways that it was never intended to be used for, and such corrupt usage appears to have been used predominately to favor women over men. As such, Alinsky’s Rule #4 seems appropriate… try using the systems own rules against it.
>> “Furman [the judge] concluded that even if John was unjustly found guilty or if Columbia sexual assault hearings have a disparate impact on men, there was not enough evidence to prove he was discriminated against. For this the case was dismissed.”
Somehow I think that if the case involved a black man being unjustly convicted (which is all too common), the judge would have had no problem in deciding that there was enough evidence to prove he was discriminated against.
From Wikipedia: In United States anti-discrimination law, the theory of disparate impact holds that practices in employment, housing, or other areas may be considered discriminatory and illegal if they have a disproportionate “adverse impact” on persons along the lines of a protected trait.
It seems on the surface that the judge’s ruling flies in the face of the law, although the whole disparate impact thing has never been ruled on by the Supreme Court, and if so, you would hope that the student would have the means to appeal and would do so.
(I understand that the Supremes are due to rule this session on it in “Texas Dept. of Housing vs. The Inclusive Communities Project”, after another case that was headed for them to decide — Mt. Holly vs. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action — was corruptly thwarted by the Obama administration.)
The Supreme Court has allowed statistical analysis to be used to prove discrimination where the statute reads “adversely affect,” which to me, a non-lawyer and non- English major, seems synonymous. If men are getting the majority of payouts under Title IX in cases involving accusations of sexual assault/rape, that would seem to be a statistical proxy for the system being discriminatory.
4/26/2015 8:02 am
The site ‘A Voice for Male Students’ has a database of litigation concerning lack of due process and other issues. It’s quite small, only containing 67 cases as of today, with many outcomes marked as ‘pending,’ which probably means that while it makes for interesting reading, it isn’t much use as a predictive tool.
4/26/2015 8:32 am
Mary —
>> I prefer to avoid a combative perspective whenever possible, but your rule no. 4 is really not out of place here for Nungesser and other male students in similar situations. But is it an effective channel through which to hold colleges accountable for injustice? (And what would effective channels be?) At best, it’s still a big gamble, since gender discrimination is often tacit and indirect.
Granted, it may be a big gamble, but what are better alternatives, to say nothing of it being almost beside the point. The more of these cases that go into the federal court system, the more likely it is that one or more of them will reach the Supreme Court, and anything other than an absolute loss on all points in that forum is likely to bring at least some needed changes to the system, up to and including the possibility of the Supremes disallowing the rules put forth in the Department of Education’s ‘Dear Colleague’ letter. Beyond that, these cases bring unwanted attention to the institutions that are being sued, and that fact has at least the potential for making those institutions change their behavior somewhat.
4/26/2015 10:51 am
From the letter it is apparent that Dean Eramo is an advocate for sexual assault victims. She states as much herself. In fact, after the RS story was published and before it unraveled, “Jackie” publicly supported Eramo in statements she made to the Cavalier Daily. If SRE knew that Eramo was an advocate and she decided to portray Eramo as the villainous university administrator anyway, then that would seem to be further evidence that Erdely is not a “social justice warrior” defending a cause, but an unscrupulous journalist interested in making a name for herself.
There is a problem with violence on today’s college campuses. I do not know how widespread it is, and do understand the politics involved in exaggerating claims of assault and violence. Nevertheless, four young women have been murdered in Virginia alone in the past five years: Morgan Harrington, Hannah Graham, Yeardley Love, and now Grace Mann. (For information on Grace Mann, see, Washington Post; 4/24/15; “At vigil, slain Mary Washington student recalled as a ‘force of nature'”)
The issue is obviously very volatile, re death threats to Eramo.
4/26/2015 5:25 pm
She needs to sue Erdely/
4/27/2015 5:35 pm
@Mary,
I am afraid you do not understand the “Dear Colleague” letter issued by the Department of Education, but I strongly encourage you to read it. It basically compels Universities to act on rape and assault cases and adjudicate them. In short they cannot simply pass these allegations on to law enforcement, they must act as judge jury, executioner, and counselor all at once. This is the impossible job Eramo is in. But this is not promoting a “rape culture” or in any way being unsympathetic, it is trying to balance impossible interests (how can you believe a victim and stand up for the rights of the accused)? I was myself shocked when I learned this is a federal mandate (and if you have seen the congressional hearings by Claire McCaskill it is only going to get worse). 20 Harvard law professors have written an open letter expressing concern that federal Title IX requirements deny even the most basic due process protections to the accused. Universities are required to do a job for which they have no resources and should not be in the business of to begin with. Eramo is trying to navigate an impossible situation. But this situation was foisted on Universities by our wonderful Federal government. UVA and other universities are not spending millions on consultants to help them navigate this minefield, while the libel lawsuits against universities are piling up. Its a complete and utter mess.
4/27/2015 5:36 pm
“now spending millions” (sorry)
4/27/2015 9:08 pm
But I have read it, and we are mostly expressing the same thing anyway. Eramo is in a conflicted position (“severely compromised from every direction”) and university adjudication on sexual assault/rape is a disaster. However, whereas you imply that people in roles such as Eramo’s are merely complying to federal mandates, I think administrators and professors are complicit and actually central to their formation. That’s what I mean by a rape culture narrative. Let me know, and I can explain this further.
A federal mandate alone did not place Eramo as head of UVA’s Sexual Misconduct Board AND Associate Dean. A mandate did not make her a survivor advocate AND mediator of the judicial process. Right when she was negatively portrayed by SRE, a student said in her defense, “For the student body, Dean Eramo is the go-to person who will do everything in her power to support the survivor.” The problem is, she is supposed to be the go-to person for every member of the student body. Eramo only speaks of herself in relation to her work with survivors. Judging her for being unsympathetic is of no interest to me, because willingness aside, she is unable to be impartial in practical terms and serve as a representative of all students, and it’s a mistake to assume she was finagled, arms twisted, into this (impossible, like you said) position.
And I’m not criticising her just for the sake of it. Her professional obligations have a real effect on students. What steps did Eramo and others take to verify Jackie’s allegations? What did they know and not know by the time the RS article was published? It absolutely could not have ended with Jackie refusing to file a police report early on. There are still questions for UVA administrators, and it may reveal dishonesty of their own, or maybe incompetency, but either way, their failure to protect the fraternity members and other deeply affected students/parents/alumni etc. goes beyond blame on the RS article.
huffingtonpost UVA Students Who’ve Admitted To Sexual Assault Haven’t Been Expelled, Says School Official
4/27/2015 10:57 pm
Moral of the story: Until this madness passes, tell your college-bound boys to date outside the student pool.
4/28/2015 6:12 am
I understand it only too well… schools are told (as if this is not what they wanted to do anyway) that they are to use the lowest standard of proof possible, and to use the lowest margin possible in meeting that burden.
Beyond that, we have the problem of schools expelling and/or otherwise punishing students who they couldn’t convict even under those Alice in Wonderland kangaroo courts.
Note the section head and subhead on the Huff Post story that Mary references:
Breaking the Silence
Addressing Sexual Assault on Campus
Just the fact that they have an existing structure in place tells you all you need to know about their objectivity (or lack of) on this issue. It reminds me of CNN running Flight370 coverage wall to wall… important but overblown, and designed for ratings/page views rather than informing the public..
As for the details of the story itself, it illustrates the need for these claims to be adjudicated in a court of law… if true, these guys should be in jail.
4/28/2015 11:06 am
“Until this madness passes, tell your college-bound boys to date outside the student pool.”
Won’t help. Townie girls can charge rape too.
4/28/2015 11:32 am
“Won’t help. Townie girls can charge rape too.” Yes, but the townie girls will have to use the judicial system with that due process thingy, actual laws and personnel professionally trained to handle sexual assault. Not to mention those townie girls aren’t being indoctrinated into the cult yet.
4/28/2015 12:25 pm
“Yes, but the townie girls will have to use the judicial system with that due process thingy, actual laws and personnel professionally trained to handle sexual assault.”
No, they can use the college procedure. It’s been done on a TV drama; it can (and will) spread to real life too.
4/28/2015 1:46 pm
i find it interesting that bradley-basher in chief anna merlan has decided not to write about dean eramo’s letter. you would think a feminist such as merlan would be leaping to the defense of a woman who was possibly a victim of libel from a magazine edited and owned by *gasp* males.
4/29/2015 2:46 am
Richard,
Any comment on the utter travesty of City Paper in Baltimore falsely claiming that a “protester” trying to snatch a purse from a woman was the victim of HER trying to grab HIS bag?
Details on iotwreport dot com, look for headline Caitlin Goldblatt - “Journalist”
Can’t you responsible journalists get together and TAR AND FEATHER these pretenders? And I don’t mean metaphorically.
4/30/2015 9:54 am
The Columbia lawsuit is very interesting. I hope this and the RS lawsuit can be an ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ moment for the social justice echo chamber. The pendulum has swung way too far and it is time for everyone to come back to Planet Earth for a bit.
This guy is 1000% right to sue and he did the right thing by focusing on the school and professor, and leaving Sulk out of it (as PKS will not sue Jackie). It’s not just a matter of deep pockets or re-litigating the question of whether a rape occurred. It’s a message to institutions that they have an obligation to act like grown-ups instead of jumping on the SJ bandwagon.
Columbia should fire the idiots who thought it was a good idea to give academic credit to a project whose sole purpose was to harass another student into quitting school. They should have told Mattress Girl to cut it out, and if she didn’t they should have sent her home instead.
4/30/2015 3:38 pm
The lawsuit is interesting, but i’m not sure about its chances for success. He’ll have to prove that the harassment was gender based, which is certainly uncharted legal terrain. But with Title IX legislation I suspect that anything is possible.
I think Paul’s strongest argument is probably the articles smearing him by name in the Columbia Spectator. I don’t know why more attention hasn’t been paid to that aspect of his claim. I assume that the school is directly liable for anything printed there.
4/30/2015 6:40 pm
rich,
Is there a way to contact you?
4/30/2015 7:14 pm
Maybe the contact button on the top of the page?
5/2/2024 9:16 pm
It doesn’t take law degrees and an appointment to the Supreme Court to see that there is OBVIOUSLY a plague of gender bias infecting every aspect of these Kafkaesque events on college campuses, but I don’t believe this is really the issue, and I think Nicole Eramo had to learn that the hard way.
The one thing we never see in the reaction to these events, regardless of the horrors of all the fraudulent accusations, dismal reporting, overzealous lynch mobs, kangaroo courts, and online or real world harassment, is any of the participants questioning the narrative that they have embraced with such conviction, that spawns the worldview of which the horrors are only a symptom. Unfortunately for Nicole Eramo, this current narrative is less about male aggressors and female victims than it is about the lure and rewards of simply BEING a heroic, innocent survivor facing down a vile, uncaring monster, and the satisfaction this brings. To many dissatisfied people, this narrative is as enticing as a hallucinatory drug, and they won’t let go of it for anything in the world.
Based on Ms. Eramo’s letter above, I would say she spent a lot of energy and passion serving and feeding this narrative beast; caring about the poor victims, while caring somewhat less about the accused, and feeling she was on the right side of this growling beast all the time. But she misjudged what she was dealing with, and she had to watch as the beast reared up and turned HER into the vile, uncaring monster, and devoured her without a thought or regret. The “narrative beast” needs to feel innocent, heroic, and oppressed, and it is in constant need of an enemy to prove its satisfying delusion. Nicole Eramo may very well be a good, sincere person, but in this narrative, that is absolutely irrelevant. It may have astonished her, but in the end she was as easy to vilify as all those innocent young men, and her vilification was equally ridiculous, but the truth is that she participated in her own way, and to this day, I still see no evidence of her challenging the absurd narrative that caused it.
Anna Merlan apologized for calling Rolling Stone doubters “idiots”, but she never questioned the narrative. Sabrina Rubin Erdely never questioned it in her apology either. Nicole Eramo’s letter doesn’t either. Teresa Sullivan didn’t. Almost nobody ever mentions the innocent young men of the fraternity, or makes an unconditional apology to them, because that might entail questioning the narrative. Any mention or apology to the fraternity members would imply that perhaps the monsters are not as vile and uncaring as originally thought, and perhaps the “survivors” are not so innocent and heroic. This is the one viewpoint that is absolutely unacceptable, and any discussion along these lines seems to be expressly forbidden.
My own reading of the Nicole Eramo letter left me feeling very little sympathy for her, though she was wronged horribly, and it made me feel that we have seen all this before, many times, and it reminded me that today’s heroes are just tomorrows villains, without reason, and in the end it is all complete nonsense and has no basis in anything but somebody’s deluded and dissatisfied self interest. Except for all the unnecessary pain and suffering it causes, it would be sad and funny.
5/3/2024 9:08 pm
[email protected], or [email protected].
5/12/2023 1:06 pm
AAAAAAAANNNNNNNDDDDD, the other shoe has dropped. Per WaPo, Eramo sued Rolling Stone today. Go get ’em, Nicole.