A fraternity from the University of Virginia sued Rolling Stone magazine on Monday for publishing a dishonorable article in 2012 about a rape case that involved members of the fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi.
Members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity filed a $25 million lawsuit at the Charlottesville Circuit Court against both the magazine and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the writer of the article.
Three members of the fraternity who have already graduated from UVA are each seeking $225,000 in damages. An associate dean is suing for $7.5 million since the article characterized him as the "chief villain." They are petitioning against the article published in November 2014 entitled "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA," according to Fox News.
"Rolling Stone published the article with reckless disregard for the truth," the lawsuit states, according to Reuters, referring to the story turning out not to be true.
"This defamation action alleges that Rolling Stone set out in advance to find a sensational story of graphic and violent rape, searched for such a story at elite universities, and rejected other possible stories because the sexual assaults they portrayed were too "normal." Rolling Stone endorsed and encouraged Erdely's efforts to troll elite American college campuses in search of a sensational and graphic rape narrative, and rejected potential stories from universities such as Yale that lacked the sensational quality Rolling Stone sought," the rest of the complaint stated, according to the Wall Street Journal.
After publishing the story in November, Rolling Stone sought an outsider's point of view regarding the article. They hired Steve Coll, the dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, to investigate reporting errors. They officially retracted the article in April and issued a statement.
"With its publication, we are officially retracting 'A Rape on Campus.' We are also committing ourselves to a series of recommendations about journalistic practices that are spelled out in the report. We would like to apologize to our readers and to all of those who were damaged by our story and the ensuing fallout, including members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and UVA administrators and students. Sexual assault is a serious problem on college campuses, and it is important that rape victims feel comfortable stepping forward. It saddens us to think that their willingness to do so might be diminished by our failings," the statement said, according to the Rolling Stone.
