As a Charlottesville native, who grew up singing the “Wah-hoo-wah-VIRGINIA” anthem at uproarious Saturday football games, UVA has always been near and dear. However, The University (as locals and students refer to it) has recently come under fire for mishandling cases of sexual assault and rape and has since shut down Fraternity life until the spring. Many of you may have read the Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA,” which brought UVA’s practices, or lack thereof, to light. If you haven’t heard about it yet then it’s time to catch up.

The article described the brutal gang rape of freshman “Jackie” while she attended a date function at the Phi Psi fraternity house on frat row. Jackie went to “The University” for help and guidance but was discouraged from pressing charges as “The University” has never expelled a student for sexual assault. Meanwhile, “The University” has expelled 183 students since 1998 for honor code violations. Tell me something isn’t wrong here.

Rolling Stone has since issued edits saying that their trust in Jackie was “misplaced” as certain details of the violent gang rape have not been verifiable. This caused tremendous back lash as anyone who has ever listened to stories of survival understand that traumatic experiences are incredibly difficult to recount with one-hundred percent accuracy. This does not mean that Jackie’s story is not true, just that Rolling Stone failed their journalistic integrity by not fact-checking before publishing. The edit has since been re-edited to correctly assign the blame to the reporting of Rolling Stone magazine rather than victim-blaming Jackie.

All of this is to say that despite the inconsistencies within the article, false reports of sexual assault and rape make up between 3-7% of all reported cases. And most cases are never reported as students are often too scared or ashamed to come forward to accuse someone in their friend group. So I ask all of you, as members of the SLU community, to believe survivors when they tell their stories and help stop victim blaming.

Dub love.