Rolling Stone UVA Article: Phi Kappa Psi to Sue Magazine for 'Reckless' Reporting in 'Rape on Campus' Article

The University of Virginia's (UVA) Alpha chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity announced its plans to sue Rolling Stone magazine over its now-retracted "A Rape on Campus" investigative article.

The announcement comes the same day as the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism released its review of the piece written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely. The article implicated the UVA chapter of Phi Kappa Psi (PKP) as having hosted a party where seven brothers allegedly gang raped a female student.

Led by the Columbia Journalism School's dean, Steve Coll, the review team found Erdely and Rolling Stone's senior editors to have made a wide range of mistakes in reporting and publishing the article. The victim and the primary source in the story, a female student only identified as "Jackie," told Erdely a member of PKP lured her to a party and into a bedroom where seven men raped her as an apparent initiation task.

Coll stated Erdely and her editors did not provide PKP with enough information regarding the incident for the fraternity to have given a sufficient comment. Erdely said she assumed the fraternity knew of the incident she was inquiring about, though that did not prove to be true. Coll determined PKP could have legitimately challenged Erdely to verify Jackie's account.

"The report by Columbia University's School of Journalism demonstrates the reckless nature in which Rolling Stone researched and failed to verify facts in its article that erroneously accused Phi Kappa Psi of crimes its members did not commit," Stephen Scipione, president of the UVA PKP Alpha chapter, said in the fraternity's announcement. "This type of reporting serves as a sad example of a serious decline of journalistic standards."

Shortly after the article's publication, several others began pointing out the inconsistencies in Jackie's story. Chiefly among the critiques was that PKP did not host an event on the night in question and the man Jackie identified as her date was not actually a member.

UVA responded to the Rolling Stone article swiftly, by banning all Greek group activity and implementing a strict new set of guidelines for officially recognized social events. In their statement, PKP noted the Charlottesville Police's recent findings that cleared them of the allegations in Erdely's article. They also reiterated their "zero tolerance policy in regards to sexual assault."

In a statement of her own, Erdely apologized for the article, but did not offer one to the PKP fraternity or its members.