You’ve no doubt heard of the highly controversial Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus” published in 2014, which recounts the story of “Jackie” (whose name was changed to protect her identity) and her alleged rape at a University of Virginia fraternity.
The problem is that it was just a story. Police, school, and even The Washington Post made its own investigations into the crime when it was learned that there was zero evidence to support “Jackie.” In fact, it became apparent that “Jackie” was a habitual liar who had made up everything from the party to her rapists.
So why are we bringing this old story up again? Because fraternity brothers from the fraternity that was accused and even a UVA Dean who was slandered are now suing Rolling Stone. And as part of that lawsuit, Jackie is being deposed.
Almost unbelievably, Jackie’s lawyers have asked that the judge cancel Jackie’s deposition because to avoid risk of “re-traumatization.”
Re-traumatization? For something that never even happened? That’s like some Better Call Saul bullsh*t. This person, Jackie, for whatever reason, intentionally lied to Deans of her school and national publications–fully knowledgable that her story would have damning consequences–and now she doesn’t want to be traumatized? Give me a break.
From The Washington Post, who’ve been doing A+ coverage of the story from the beginning:
“Forcing her to revisit her sexual assault, and then the re-victimization that took place after the Rolling Stone article came out, will inevitably lead to a worsening of her symptoms and current mental health,” Jackie’s attorneys wrote, citing “extensive support in the medical literature” that shows “sexual assault victims will experience trauma if they are forced to revisit the details of their assault.”
Let’s just rip this apart step by step:
A) First off, her sexual assault never happened. That’s been proven.
B) Re-victimization? How about just plain old victimization? The one that occurred the first time when you lied to everyone about how a bunch of fraternity brothers raped you?
C) It doesn’t matter how much medical literature you quote, she wasn’t a sexual assault victim!
To me, the worst part of this whole story is that this Jackie thinks she’s above the law. She thinks she can just avoid the consequences and go on with her life, somewhat how I imagine a rapist feels after he (or she) has just sexually assaulted a victim. Both the rapist and the victim know what really happened, but it rarely ever comes out into daylight.
