Discrepancies in UVA Gang Rape Account Raise Doubts at Rolling Stone

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to note that Rolling Stone modified it’s statement regarding new questions about the article.

Allegations of gang rape at a University of Virginia (UVa) fraternity house, which sparked protest from the campus and garnered national attention, have come into doubt after claims of inaccuracy from the accused fraternity.

Rolling Stone, which published the original article accusing the UVa fraternity of rape, also posted a statement on their website Friday, Dec. 5 saying they misplaced their trust in the article’s main source and “there now appear to be discrepancies.”

As The Washington Post noted Sunday, Rolling Stone has since modified that statement to note the failings where in the magazine’s reporting, not in the facts presented by the victim.

The Rolling Stone article published last month tells a brutal story of a UVa freshman sexually assaulted by seven men during a Phi Kappa Psi party in 2012, and school officials unwilling to recognize the dangerous rape culture its greek system had promoted.

The story led UVa to temporarily ban fraternities and sororities on campus as the school’s practices are reviewed, according to NPR. It also sparked protests across UVa campus from faculty, staff and students and affected other schools in Virginia, keeping the University of Mary Washington from establishing a greek system on its campus.

The fraternity accused in the story, Phi Kappa Psi, released a statement Friday, Dec. 5, in which they say the fraternity has been working with the Charlottesville Police Department to investigate the allegations and have found several discrepancies in the victim’s story.

First, the fraternity states, the Aquatic and Fitness Center where the victim, Jackie, said she had met the boy who took her to Phi Kappa Psi’s party while they both worked as lifeguards does not have a Phi Kappa Psi member registered as an employee at the time of the alleged rape.

The fraternity also said Phi Kappa Psi did not have a party on the day Jackie said she was raped, that the fraternity’s pledging process only takes place in the Spring–while Jackie claimed she was raped during an act of rush hazing in September–and that Phi Kappa Psi’s rush process does not include ritualized sexual assault.

“This notion is vile, and we vehemently refute this claim,” Phi Kappa Psi said in the statement.

A friend of Jackie’s, and a sexual assault survivor, told The Washington Post that she hopes the discrepancies in this case will not damage credibility for future rape victims.

“This does not erase the somber truth this article brought to light: Rape is far more prevalent than we realize and it is often misunderstood and mishandled by peers, institutions, and society at large,” she said to The Post.

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