UVA Students Stay Focused On Combating Sexual Violence, Not False Rape Allegations

Article here. Excerpt:

'The University of Virginia community, already tested a number of times this fall semester, endured another seismic shock on Friday when Rolling Stone partially retracted a damning feature about on-campus rape. The initial publication of the article and subsequent fallout has sparked discussion on not just sexual assault, but also on journalism ethics. But as national news outlets swarm the Charlottesville, Virginia, campus for the second time this semester, many UVA students are staying focused on the main issue at hand: combating sexual violence and improving sexual assault advocacy at the storied university.

Sarah Surface, a junior who’s a member of the school’s Sexual Violence Prevention Coalition, added to the student newspaper that finger-combing through every detail in Jackie’s story should not take away from the reality rape victims must live through:

"Trauma does a lot of things to the brain and to memory. It is not uncommon for details to not 100 percent match up with what people believe to be a reasonable story. The thing is, most people don’t have to [be] hounded by reporters about that. This lack of recollection does not mean their stories are entirely false."'