I pit the rape culture at the University of Virginia

The BBQ Pit
121

It appears that some people don’t really care if the accusations against the UVa, or the fraternity, or the accused student(s) are true or not. Blame them, don’t blame them, it doesn’t matter. “EVERYONE” :wink: knows what happened even if there was never any proof, evidence, eyewitnesses, forensic evidence, video recording, audio recording, etc. It appears that many people simply want it to be true and that’s good enough for them.

*Groups representing fraternities and sororities urged the University of Virginia on Sunday to end the suspension of Greek organizations it imposed last month after a magazine story about an alleged gang rape at a campus fraternity house.

…On Nov. 22, U-Va. President Teresa A. Sullivan announced a suspension of all fraternities, sororities and other Greek organizations until Jan. 9. The suspension, Sullivan said at the time, was meant to give the university time to “assemble groups of students, faculty, alumni, and other concerned parties to discuss our next steps in preventing sexual assault and sexual violence” on the campus.

Fraternity and sorority advocates say the unraveling of the Rolling Stone account means there is no reason to continue the suspension.

In a statement Sunday, the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee, the National Panhellenic Conference and the North American Interfraternity Conference said the “decision to suspend hurt the reputation of thousands of outstanding student leaders in our organizations who had nothing to do with the alleged events described in the article.”

…A U-Va. spokesman, McGregor McCance, has declined Saturdayto answer whether Sullivan plans to rescind the suspension.

The president of the Inter-Fraternity Council at U-Va., Tommy Reid, told The Post on Saturday that the suspension of Greek activities was not a concern for him and that he hoped the focus of the discussion would remain on preventing sexual assault on campus.

“Practical implications of the ban are negligible,” he said. “We are heading into exams and will not return to school until after Jan. 9. The suspension itself is not something the IFC is particularly focused on.”*

122

In the Daily Beast, Liz Seccuro writes that she was gang-raped in this same fraternity house in 1984. Hospital, university failed to do anything to help her and lies to her about the police jurisdiction.

In 2005, William Beebe, one of the rapists, who was in recovery, wrote her a letter apologizing. She submitted the confession to Charlottesville police and Beebe was eventually convicted.

The details of the rape at the frat house in this case seem remarkably similar to the “Jackie” case.

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I had a friend from highschool in recovery who contacted me and apologized for a whole bunch of shit he never did. He kept insisting, and I kept telling him, “no, you didn’t do that.”

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And that’s relevant because …?

An actual confession and a conviction in a criminal court is no longer sufficient proof that this particular rape actually happened?

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I could have accused my friend of pretty much anything, and he’d cop to it. Sad, really.

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But had you accused him of any of those things before his ‘confession’?

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I thought Beebe was the only rapist in that case?

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There were three.

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Two who pleaded the fifth, and no one from the fraternity would testify.

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Right, Beebe was the only one of the three who was not a member of the frat; he was just living there.

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I am certainly persuaded that the 1984 rape happened.

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And perhaps Jackie learned of this story at some point between when her story changed from “I was forced to perform oral sex on five men at a frat house I can’t remember the name of” to “seven men gang-raped me at Phi Kappa Psi as part of an initiation ritual”.

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Looks like it was all made up.

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I pity any person who has ever come into contact with this woman, and many who haven’t.

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Jesus H. Christ. Isn’t it about time for “Jackie’s” identity to be revealed?

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It’s been known for a while. Her name is Jackie Coakely.

137

Well if that’s her real name then the reporter also chose a lousy victim-protecting pseudonym for the article.

And ISTM when that case finally got cracked the reaction was “oh, but that was [then] 21 years ago – things are different now, of course this would not happen today” and it was let go at that. But really it’s not enough to say it’s 30 years later, things are different; there has to be something different to show for those 30 years.

BTW one thing that I expect in the aftermath of this is that there will be many people upset that there *was *any time and effort expended in challenging and unraveling the story at all. But I’d rather not have a situation where it could not be questioned.

As I said before, if there is a problem with how the institution addresses reports of sexual assault, that should be something that stands under scrutiny on its own merit, it should not require a fresh and egregious horror story to drive it. Are there sexual assaults on campuses? Yes. Are they dealt with appropriately? Not always and sometimes badly. Well, that needs to be put right even when it does not involve a particularly spinetingling tale.

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Jackie herself chose to use her real first name.

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Is anyone else picturing a XXX version of Jan Brady and her “boyfriend” George - George Glass?

In all seriousness, UVA supposedly has an extremely strict honor code that prescribes expulsion for any type of dishonesty even for violations much more minor than this. It it will be interesting to see if the school follows through with it in this case and who, if anyone, is still willing to circle the wagons to support her and their reasons why.

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Unless there’s more to come, I would be stunned if this woman suffered any official consequences.

For one thing, it would provoke a huge backlash from outraged rape victim advocates. It’s important to remember that while her friends think the details of her story are concocted, they do believe something extremely traumatic did happen to her. So she’s possibly still a victim of some sort.

For another, she didn’t falsely accuse any real-life person of raping her. She just spun a false story about a non-existent rapist to a few friends and a magazine.

And finally, while the story falling apart will convince many that it was fake, it’s difficult to pin down absolute proof of it. Most of the details fell apart, but she could have been mistaken about those, and in addition she could claim that the writer enhanced what she told her.