Rolling Stone blames University of Virginia for fake rape story

And they're right!

DRUDGE has a link to an article in The Hollywood Reporter on the defamation suit brought by University of Virginia (UVA) Dean  Nicole Eramo.   Rolling Stone responds by blaming UVA.

Rolling Stone was sued by Dean Eramo for defamation. The article by Erdely implied that Eramo and UVA did nothing to help "Jackie" and was "indifferent to rape on campus, and more concerned with protecting its reputation than with assisting victims of sexual assault."

Rolling Stone's lawyers said that it wasn't their fault that they got their facts wrong.  They claim that the UVA administration, faculty and students all aided Sabrina Erdely  as she wrote a totally fictitious story about a brutal gang rape in a UVA fraternity house.  For how the story unraveled go here.

Rolling Stone's defense is that a UVA staff member named Emily Renda referred Erdely to "Jackie," the victim of the imaginary gang rape.  

 Here's the Rolling Stone version:

"Ms. Erdely did not stumble on Jackie's story. She was directed to Jackie by Emily Renda, then working closely with Dean Eramo in the Student Affairs office the — same Emily Renda that included Jackie's account of being 'gang-raped' in her Congressional testimony about campus sexual-assault policies. There is no question that both the author and Rolling Stone had full faith in Jackie's credibility and the accuracy of its Article at the time of publication. In no small measure, Rolling Stone believed in the credibility of Jackie's story because it came with the imprimatur of UVA, and of Dean Eramo specifically."

The Rolling Stone story hit UVA like a thunderbolt.  Without waiting for an investigation UVA President Theresa Sullivan swung into action by banning all fraternities.  The UVA administration, faculty and students assumed the story was true.  There were marches on the fraternity, attacks on the building, and demands for the expulsion of the fraternity members.

 In other words, the leaders of UVA believed in their hearts that the story was true even before an investigation was conducted. They "knew" that the men at that school were rapists ... and worse. They believed because they were primed to believe. They "knew" the story was true because it fit the belief in "rape culture" that covers academia like a noxious mist.

People at UVA were complicit in attempted destruction of their own school's reputation.  But Sabrina Erdely is not an innocent victim of UVA women activists like Emily Renda.  Erdely is the author of a number of what appear to be "rape hoax" stories like The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer and The Catholic Church's Secret Sex-Crime Files that have a common theme:

The narrative in each case is used to advance the theory that the institution in question (college administrators in the UVA case, military command in the Blumer case) is indifferent to the problem of systemic sexual assault occurring right under their noses.

Sabrina Erdely may well be the most prolific published serial liar since Stephen Glass.   It's a sad commentary on the depth to which the media has fallen that Glass was exposed and his stories scrubbed while Erdely is still employed.  But perhaps it's a good thing.  It helps to put a face on evil.