CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Three friends of an alleged victim of gang rape at a University of Virginia frat house say a magazine article wrongly portrayed them as uncaring friends who were more concerned about their reputations than her well-being.
The friends told The Associated Press that the Rolling Stone article was wrong on a number of key points, especially its assertion that they urged the victim to not report the attack.
Their alleged indifference was woven into a narrative that used the alleged attack to paint a picture of a culture of sexual violence on college campuses in the United States. The article set off an intense debate about sexual violence, alcohol, fraternities and journalism ethics.
One of the friends, a 20-year-old, third-year student referred to as “Randall” in the Rolling Stone article but whose real name is Ryan Duffin, told the AP that not only did he encourage the alleged victim to go to police, but he started to dial 9-1-1 on his cellphone until she begged off saying she just wanted to go back to her dorm and go to sleep.
“I couldn’t help but notice that everything that the article said about me was incorrect,” Duffin said.
University of Virginia student Ryan Duffin talks during an interview with The Associated Press in Charlottsville, Va.
The AP also spoke with the other two friends portrayed in the article: third-year, 20-year-old U.Va. students Kathryn Hendley and Alex Stock, known as “Cindy” and “Andy” in the article. None of the three friends was contacted by Rolling Stone’s reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, before the article was published; each of them rejected multiple assertions made in the article, which has since been retracted.
All three say Erdely has since reached out to them, and that she has told them she is re-reporting the story. Hendley told the AP Erdely apologized to her for portraying her the way she did.
Erdely and Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana did not respond to an email from The Associated Press on Sunday morning seeking comment.
The three friends say they continue to work on correcting the record about what happened that night, and at least one, Duffin, wonders to what extent he believes the victim’s own version of what happened — or whether any discrepancies in her story matter.
“People at U.Va. want answers just as much as I do,” Duffin says. “But if anything, the takeaway from all this is that I still don’t really care if what’s presented in this article is true or not because I think it’s far more important that people focus on the issue of sexual assault as a whole.”
Other news media have also interviewed the friends, but this is the first time that Duffin has allowed his full name to be used.
A lawyer representing the victim, who has been identified only as “Jackie,” has declined several requests by the AP to interview Jackie and did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article; the AP does not typically name alleged victims of sexual assault.
The Rolling Stone article, published last month, described a culture of sexual violence hiding in plain sight at U.Va. The article has roiled the campus and caused a huge backlash, with U.Va. suspending fraternity activities until January, the Board of Visitors appointing an independent investigator to look into the allegations and the university handing the case over to the Charlottesville police.
The main focus of the piece is an alleged gang rape that Jackie said happened on Sept. 28, 2012, during her first semester on campus. In the article, she said she had gone out on a date with a classmate named “Drew,” who later that night lured her into a secluded room at a frat house. Once inside the room, she said, she was raped by a group of seven fraternity brothers while her date and one other man watched.
As described in the Rolling Stone article, a distraught Jackie met her three friends at a picnic table in the shadows of the frat house and tearfully told them what had happened.
While the article said Duffin suggested they take her to the hospital, it described Stock and Hendley as carrying on a debate about what would happen to her reputation and theirs should word get out.
“The three friends launched into a heated discussion about the social price of reporting Jackie’s rape, while Jackie stood beside them, mute in her bloody dress, wishing only to go back to her dorm room and fall into a deep, forgetful sleep,” the article said. “Detached, Jackie listened as Cindy prevailed over the group: ‘She’s gonna be the girl who cried rape, and we’ll never be allowed into any frat party again.'”
However, Hendley told the AP that not only did she not say any of that, she had arrived with Stock to the picnic table only to have Jackie say she didn’t want her to be part of the conversation. She said she watched from afar while Stock and Duffin talked with Jackie.
Stock confirmed this account.
As described by Duffin to the AP, this is what happened: He had returned home from a party when he got a call from Jackie. He left to meet her and she was sitting on the top of a picnic table outside U.Va.’s Fitzhugh dorm. She was shaking and “it looked like she had been crying,” Duffin said. “Her lip was quivering, her eyes were darting around. And right then, I put two and two together. I knew she had been on this date and people don’t usually look like that after a date.”
Jackie eventually told Duffin her version of what she said had happened that night: that she was gang raped at a frat house.
“My first reaction was, ‘We need to go to police,'” he said. “I wanted to go to police immediately. I was really forceful on that, actually. And I almost took it to calling (the police) right there.” He said he had his phone out, prepared to call 9-1-1, “but she didn’t want to and,” he remembers thinking, “‘I can’t do that if she doesn’t want to do it.'”
Stock corroborated this version of events.
“Jackie’s response was, ‘I don’t want to,'” Stock said. “‘I don’t want to do that right now. I just want to go to bed.'”
Feeling hamstrung by Jackie’s refusal to go to authorities, Duffin said that days later he sought advice from his dorm’s resident assistant. Careful not to mention Jackie by name, so the RA wouldn’t be obligated to contact police, he said he asked if he should call police even though Jackie didn’t want him to. Duffin said the RA told him that he should encourage Jackie to talk with police, but that Duffin couldn’t force her to do so.
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A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the name of the dorm. The correct name is Fitzhugh.
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A previous version of this story reported that this was the first time each of the three friends had allowed their full names to be used; this was the first time Duffin allowed his full name to be used.
this situation is spinning further and further out of control. the conversation used to be about violence against women…now, it’s…i dunno…something to do with writing words maybe? too bad…violence against women should be what we’re talking about. rolling stone really screwed this up royally. I hope that ‘journalist’ is looking for work right now.
Sadly, this sort of excuse for “journalism” is nothing new. Back in my days as a Snivel Servant working for Uncle Sugar, I quickly learned that every time, and I do mean every time, there was an article in the Washington Post about the agency I worked for, the reporter had managed to screw up at least one pertinent fact. I’m not talking about misspelling someone’s name, or transposing the digits in some figures. I’m talking about some key element of the story, something that fundamentally altered its import. This has been going on for decades.
I didn’t notice a dispute over whether rape occurred. Rather, at what moment in time did Jackie’s friends’ own concerns for their own reputations come to outweigh their concern for Jackie? Rolling Stone says it happened immediately behind the frat house on a picnic table. The friends say no, we’re not like that, but their named interviews look a more like damage control than anything else.
“Spinning further and further out of control?” Nice meaningless cliche there. Out of whose control? Just who should be “controlling” the story?
Don’t you think a concern for the truth of what was in the story is evident here? The three friends are talking about what they know to be true and was misreported in the story. Did Jackie tell the reporter a pack of lies about her friends’ conduct, or did the reporter tailor Jackie’s story to fit a preconceived narrative about ingrained lack of concern about sexual assault on campuses? If Jackie’s lying about what her friends said and did, it certainly calls her credibility into question. My inclination is to think that the reporter slanted and misreported whatever Jackie told her about this incident.