Having worked as a journalist for years, and having graduated from the University of Virginia, I have paid close attention to The Rolling Stone magazine story about the alleged gang rape on campus of a young girl by members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
My first thought when reading the original story was, “Wait a minute, there was no attempt to contact or interview the alleged perpetrators of this crime? That violates Rule One of Journalism 101. You always get the other side’s story before you publish, even if (especially if), as Rolling Stone said in its defense, the alleged victim asked you not to interview these accused rapists.”
My second thought, as the story began unraveling, was that Rolling Stone has done harm to a very real, if somewhat exaggerated (according to government statistics), problem of rape on campus. Real victims who in the past have hesitated to tell their stories will probably be even more hesitant now. And I have two daughters, one of which graduated from UVa.
My third thought — especially after UVa President Teresa Sullivan shut down not just Phi Kappa Psi, but all fraternity activity at UVa — was that an alleged crime is not a proven crime, and the accusation of a crime, horrible as it may seem, is not sufficient grounds for punishment.
Which is why President Sullivan should not have taken action against Phi Kappa Psi, let alone the other UVa fraternities, until there had first been a criminal investigation conducted not by administrators of the university, but by the one body trained and equipped to conduct such an investigation: The police department. And as it happens, President Sullivan recently reinstated Phi Kappa Psi after learning from the Charlottesville police that there is no proof a rape took place at the fraternity.
My final thought was that this entire episode, including the university’s draconian response to an unproven crime in which the alleged perpetrators were not even asked to respond, would have appalled the man who founded the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, like the other Founding Fathers, was a stickler for the rule of law, having suffered mightily at the hands of a lawless, arbitrary British government that denied Americans their lawful rights right up until the American Revolution.
Granted, there is also no proof that a rape did not take place at Phi Kappa Psi. But our number one “Rule of Law” states: We are innocent until proven guilty, meaning it is not our job to prove our innocence. Rather it is the job of the state to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that we are guilty of a crime. Then, and only then, can the state punish us for that crime.
