National Organization for Women Defends Woman Who Made False Rape Charge at the University of Virginia

It was a celebrated case: a women named “Jackie” at the University of Virginia claimed to have been victim of a gang rape at a fraternity house. This perfectly fit the politically correct narrative about women as victims, the evil of fraternities, the evil of white males, and negligence by universities dealing with sexual assault.

But the whole thing proved to be bogus, debunked by The Washington Post.

Of course, lawsuits followed. According to Wikipedia:

On May 12, 2015, UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo, chief administrator for handling sexual assault issues at the school, filed a $7.5 million defamation lawsuit in Charlottesville Circuit Court against Rolling Stone and [author Sabrina] Erdely, claiming damage to her reputation and emotional distress. Said the filing, “Rolling Stone and Erdely's highly defamatory and false statements about Dean Eramo were not the result of an innocent mistake. They were the result of a wanton journalist who was more concerned with writing an article that fulfilled her preconceived narrative about the victimization of women on American college campuses, and a malicious publisher who was more concerned about selling magazines to boost the economic bottom line for its faltering magazine, than they were about discovering the truth or actual facts.”

On July 29, 2015, three individual members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity who had been named and shamed online after the publication of the story, filed a defamation suit against the magazine in New York City, stating that the published story, while not explicitly naming them, provided enough details for people to identify them. The following December, attorneys for Rolling Stone filed a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed, stating that the article “cannot reasonably be read as accusing all members of these groups [the University of Virginia chapter of Phi Kappa Psi] of committing rape.”

Phi Kappa Psi filed a $25 million lawsuit against Rolling Stone on November 9, 2015 on behalf of 54 undergraduates who were members of the fraternity at the time of the story's printing. The complaint reads, in part, “This defamation action is brought to seek redress for the wanton destruction caused to Phi Kappa Psi by Rolling Stone’s intentional, reckless, and unethical behavior.”

The woman who made the bogus accusation, Jackie Coakley, has of course been involved in the legal proceedings surrounding the suits.

In a bizarre twist, the National Organization for Women has come to the defense of Coakley.

You read that right, they have come to the defense of a woman who made a false accusation of rape, resulting in the suspension of all fraternities at the University of Virginia, the demonization of members of the fraternity (Phi Kappa Psi), some of whom received death threats, and the vandalizing of the fraternity house.

Here are some excerpts from their statement:

An open letter to UVA President Teresa A. Sullivan

01.06.2016
Dear President Sullivan,

We recently learned about deeply disturbing actions by one of your Deans against a sexual assault survivor and member of the UVA community. We are writing to request that you put a stop to what we regard as a re-victimization of this young woman.

A lawsuit has been filed naming as plaintiff Dean Nicole Eramo, an associate dean of students at the University of Virginia, and former chair of the Sexual Misconduct Board. The suit names as defendant the Rolling Stone Magazine and seeks damages for defamation relating to the November 2014 article about sexual assault at UVA. We have followed this case and reviewed the plaintiff’s filings. In our view, the filings display a very troubling pattern of abuse towards “Jackie”, a woman profiled in that article, which cannot be allowed to continue.

. . .

Your dean’s demands recite nearly every false argument made to undermine victims of sexual assault. It is exactly this kind of victim blaming and shaming that fosters rape culture, re-victimizes those brave enough to have come forward, and silences countless other victims. It is deeply disturbing to see what UVA students are now witnessing: A senior University official, whose job was to counsel and support rape survivors, publicly attacking one such survivor in court filings. We do not see how students who experience sexual assault at UVA will be able to trust University officials tasked with protecting them if this conduct is allowed to continue.

. . .

The National Organization for Women considers these court filings by a UVA official attacking “Jackie” as occurring with the approval and participation of the University. We believe that women on UVA’s campus, prospective students and their parents, and alumni will likely reach the same conclusion. We respectfully ask you to take the necessary steps to put a stop to these actions, make clear that the University does not support them, and to continue to foster a more positive environment where all students can feel safe and protected. We look forward to your response and are available to discuss this important matter with you at your convenience.

By all means read the entire statement.

Bizarrely, the statement calls Jackie Coakley a “survivor” in spite of the fact she was not raped!

And wanting a place were “all students can feel safe and protected” clearly doesn’t mean a place where falsely accused males are “safe and protected.”

NOW is conforming to the worst stereotypes of feminism. They want males punished, and don’t care too much whether they are actually guilty. Even questioning whether they might be guilty is evil misogyny. That females might victimize males is something they find inconceivable. And if forced to admit that such a thing happened in a particular case, they will explain that men deserve it.