Remember the whole Rolling Stone/University of Virginia/faux rape story?
An investigation conducted by the Charlottesville Police Department found no evidence of rape at the accused University of Virginia fraternity.Months ago, Rolling Stone broke Jackie’s story. Jackie claimed she’d been gang raped by members of Phi Kappa Psi in 2012. When the Rolling Stone article sparked national outrage, UVA’s administration acted swiftly and without facts, punishing Greek life on campus.Then the Washington Post began to dig deeper into the Rolling Stone shocker. And that’s when the story began to quickly unravel and was eventually debunked in entirety.
TL;DR: Reporter has agenda, runs with unsubstantiated story, WaPo is on the case, debunks story, Rolling Stone prints retraction, UVA is all, “too late! we’re suing!” and sues, Rolling Stone is all, “nuh uh“, begs judge to toss out defamation suit.
Thursday, the AP reported Rolling Stone’s request to have the defamation suit thrown out was soundly rejected by the judge.
A Virginia judge has denied Rolling Stone magazine’s attempt to throw out a $25 million lawsuit filed by the fraternity that was the focus on its now debunked article about a gang rape.The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia filed a defamation lawsuit against the magazine last year over the now discredited article “A Rape on Campus.” The story described in chilling detail a student’s account of being raped by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in September 2012.Charlottesville Circuit Judge Richard E. Moore said in his decision released Thursday that the statements made about the fraternity in the story could reasonably be considered defamatory.
Good. Let this play out as it should. Rolling Stone and Sabrina Erdely took a work of fiction, pawned it off as fact, and insisted there was a national need to discuss the rape culture epidemic.
You know what they say about karma.
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