UVA Patting Itself on Back After Discredited Rape Allegation

Hat tip The College Fix and Virginia-The UVA Magazine


UVA President Teresa Sullivan
"We will lead."


"It took 11 months after Jackie reported her allegations to the school before the police “became aware” of them, the investigation found."
-The College Fix

For the past several months, the University of Virginia has been reeling from a Rolling Stone magazine article in which a female student identified as "Jackie" claimed that she had been sexually assaulted at a fraternity house. Rolling Stone later retracted the article when it determined that the charges could not be proved.

The below article is from The College Fix and charges that UVA is "patting itself on the back" even as it is revealed that it took eleven months between the time "Jackie" notified UVA of her allegations and the time the Charlottesville police were notified. The police have suspended their investigation.

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/21738/

And there is more. In the interest of full disclosure, I received a masters degree from UVA in 1993 after taking off-campus night classes for 2 years. If I'm not mistaken, the first time I set foot on the campus was when I went to the graduation ceremony. This week, I received in the mail a copy of UVA's spring 2015 edition, which is devoting several pages to all the great work UVA president Teresa Sullivan and the school are doing to combat sexual assaults-even though it seems no sexual assault occurred, and they seemingly mishandled the above allegation.

http://sexualassault.uvamagazine.org/

“THE ROLLING STONE ARTICLE PUT OUR UNIVERSITY IN THE SPOTLIGHT, and we are using this moment of national attention to provide strong leadership in the long-running effort to improve student safety on America’s college campuses,” Teresa Sullivan said in a Jan. 30 address to the University. “All colleges, the military and many workplaces face issues of sexual violence. But we have been put in a leadership position, and we will lead.”

Here is how UVA "led" when "Jackie" first made the allegation to a dean in May 2013.

"Nonetheless, our investigation revealed that Dean Nicole Eramo first learned from “Jackie” of an allegation of sexual assault on May 20, 2013. This disclosure came after “Jackie” was referred to the Dean because of poor grades. The disclosure was specifically that she went to a party at an unknown fraternity on Madison Lane and was sexually assaulted."

"The Charlottesville Police Department first became aware of “Jackie’s” allegations on April 22, 2014, when an officer met with “Jackie” in the company of Dean Eramo and a University of Virginia police officer." 

11 months! That seems rather cavalier (no pun intended).

What Chief Tim Longo seems to be gently saying in his press conference is that police need to be informed as soon as allegations are made.

As I have said before, sexual assault is a serious issue on college campuses including UC Irvine, where I teach part-time. I still maintain that binge drinking, also a serious college problem- plays a big hand in this. Yet, it doesn't seem to get the play it merits.