Editing, brief comments by Carolyn Bennett
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he University of Virginia was founded by America’s second
vice president (1797–1801) and its third president (1801–09), Thomas Jefferson.
It received its charter in 1819 with Jefferson as the first rector of its board
of visitors (the governing body). US Presidents James Madison and James Monroe also
served on UVA’s board of visitors. Aided by Virginia State Senator Joseph C.
Cabell (1778–1856), the school’s chief fundraiser, UVA was established as a public,
coeducational institution of higher learning in Charlottesville, Virginia, its
campus set on 1,000 acres (405 hectares) near the foothills of the Blue Ridge
Mountains. [Britannica]
Fairfax City, Va. 2005: 26-year-old woman assaulted while walking home from supermarket
Charlottesville 2009-2010: Morgan Harrington assaulted, murdered
Twenty-year-old Morgan Harrington had traveled with friends to
the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Va., to attend a concert. Police
reports said it was the night of October 17, 2009. The young woman went outside
the John Paul Jones Arena to use the restroom. She could not get back in and “became
separated from her friends.” FBI reports said she was last seen after 8:30 p.m.
trying to hitch a ride from passing motorists.
July 2010: DNA evidence links Harrington case to 2005 sexual assault case in Fairfax City, where an assailant grabbed the 26-year-old woman from behind, carried her from Rock Garden Drive to a nearby wooded area, assaults her then flees the scene of the crime. The young woman, according to police, had been walking home from a Giant on Jermantown Road around 10 o'clock on the night of September 24, 2005.
Charlottesville 2014: Hannah Graham, assaulted, murdered
18-year-old University of Virginia student Hannah Graham had
reportedly spent Friday evening September 12, 2014, close to campus “drinking
and socializing with friends.” She then headed “out on the town around midnight
[and] By 1 a.m., she was seen wandering the Downtown Mall, about a mile and a
half from her apartment. She sent messages to friends indicating that she was
lost.” Witnesses reportedly saw Graham with 32-year-old Jesse L. Matthew Jr. of
Charlottesville near Tempo restaurant shortly after 1 a.m. Hannah Graham is
reported to have vanished with this man in the early hours of September 13,
2014.
The body of U-Va. student Hannah Graham “was found about
five miles from a hayfield where the remains of slain Virginia Tech student
Morgan Harrington were discovered in 2010, 101 days after she went missing in
October 2009.”
A
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s to recent coverage of the issue of sexual assault, it appears that part of a Rolling Stone story failed due diligence. Its editors apparently rushed to press without sufficiently checking all the facts concerning another UVA case. Tom McKay speaks to the upshot of the story in terms of both journalism
practice and the human issue of sexual assault.
The case matters, he says, “since the story received
prominent national attention and a highly publicized response from University
of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan, who promised a full investigation.”
However, “the unfortunate reality is that any collapse of
the Rolling Stone story (viz., the telling of ‘Jackie’s’ story) will likely tar
the testimony of other rape victims who have stepped forward.” Nonetheless, other
stories “should not be written off….”
The University of Virginia, he says, “still has to answer
for its wretched record on sexual assault” and “the national media would do
well to remember that 1 in 5 college women will be raped during their time in
higher education.
“There are countless real victims whose stories need to be
told, and their importance has not diminished just because one story has some
pretty bad holes in it.”
America's violence is not just in and around and covered up on its campuses.
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eported December 3, 2014, in a USA Today was an update on the issue in an article by Tom
Vanden Brook. In the US military, “the number of troops reporting sexual
assaults jumped 63 percent” – from 2,828 in 2010 to 4,608 in 2014”. And, as in
2010, 2014 found “almost the same number of troops — 19,300 of them — reporting unwanted
sexual contact.”
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| US Drone war on Pakistan |
However, “Women who experienced and reported unwanted sexual
contact — anything from groping to rape” also reported that personnel retaliated
against them. Most of the women reportedly said, “They felt social retaliation
from peers or co-workers.”
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| Victims of US Drone war on Yemen |
Violence is violence is violence wherever it is and whoever
commits it.
It will not stop until it stops – whether in the acts of war and conflict, or by those at war; whether on campus or on streets or country roads.
When we stop tolerating violence, stop turning a blind eye to it, stop making excuses for it against anyone anywhere, violence will end.
It will not stop until it stops – whether in the acts of war and conflict, or by those at war; whether on campus or on streets or country roads.
When we stop tolerating violence, stop turning a blind eye to it, stop making excuses for it against anyone anywhere, violence will end.
Sources and notes
Washington Post reports
By Justin Jouvenal September 30, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/morgan-harrington-case-gets-major-break/2014/09/30/d796126e-48b5-11e4-891d-713f052086a0_story.html
By T. Rees Shapiro October 18, 2014, “DNA evidence to the
investigations of two violent crimes: a sexual assault in Fairfax City in 2005
and the abduction and slaying of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, 20,
in October 2009, police have said,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/police-to-hold-briefing-in-hannah-graham-case/2014/10/18/9a22d396-570a-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html
By T. Rees Shapiro October 24, 2014, “Authorities identified
remains as those of missing University of Virginia student, Hannah Graham”
(Reuters), http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/authorities-confirm-body-is-u-va-student-hannah-graham/2014/10/24/6b71988c-5ac7-11e4-b812-38518ae74c67_story.html
T. Rees Shapiro December 5, 2014: “The Rolling Stone
allegations shook the campus at a tumultuous moment, as the university was
still mourning the death of U-Va. sophomore Hannah Graham. Her body was found
five weeks after she disappeared in Charlottesville. Jackie’s story [in Rolling
Stone] empowered many women to speak publicly about attacks on them but it also
immediately raised questions about the decisions Jackie made that evening — not
going to a hospital or reporting the alleged crime to police or the school —
while some expressed doubt about her story altogether.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-fraternity-to-rebut-claims-of-gang-rape-in-rolling-stone/2014/12/05/5fa5f7d2-7c91-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html
News.Mic, Mic Report
By Tom McKay December 5, 2014: “The problem: In the original
story by Sabrina Rubin Erdely's, which
remains on the Rolling Stone website here, Jackie claimed that she had been
lured upstairs during a Phi Kappa Psi party and raped by seven men on top of a
broken glass table on September 28, 2012. Rolling Stone’s investigation claimed
that Jackie’s story was subsequently ignored by college administrators. It
further noted that the University of Virginia was among the 12 of 86 schools
under federal investigation for their response to sexual assault cases flagged
for a total ‘compliance review.’” http://mic.com/articles/105838/rolling-stone-may-have-set-the-fight-against-college-sexual-assault-back-decades?utm_source=Mic+Check&utm_campaign=cf0e40ad8e-Mic_Report_12_5_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_51f2320b33-cf0e40ad8e-285308977
Rolling Stone
By Sabrina Rubin Erdely November 19, 2014
“A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice
at UVA: Jackie was just starting her freshman year at the University of
Virginia when she was brutally assaulted by seven men at a frat party. When she
tried to hold them accountable, a whole new kind of abuse began,” Read more:
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119#ixzz3LL3EcGwp
“Last month, Rolling Stone published a story entitled A Rape
on Campus which described a brutal gang rape of a woman named Jackie during a
party at a University of Virginia fraternity house, the University’s failure to
respond to this alleged assault – and the school's troubling history of
indifference to many other instances of alleged sexual assaults. The story
generated worldwide headlines and much soul-searching at UVA. University
president Teresa Sullivan promised a full investigation and also to examine the
way the school investigates sexual assault allegations.…
“In the face of new information reported by the Washington
Post and other news outlets, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s
account. ...
“We published the article with the firm belief that it was
accurate.
“Given all of these reports, however, we have come to the
conclusion that we were mistaken in honoring Jackie’s request to not contact
the alleged assaulters to get their account. In trying to be sensitive to the
unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault, we made a
judgment – the kind of judgment reporters and editors make every day.
“We should have not made this agreement with Jackie and we
should have worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better
served by getting the other side of the story.
“These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie. We
apologize to anyone who was affected by the story and we will continue to
investigate the events of that evening.” http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119
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A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora
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