UVa Dean Sues Rolling Stone for $7.8M

Rolling Stone will likely take a hit to more than its reputation over its deeply flawed story about campus rape at the University of Virginia. An associate dean there today filed a $7.8 million defamation suit against the magazine, reports NBC News. Nicole Eramo, who handles allegations of sexual assault on campus, says the article falsely portrayed her as the "chief villain" who brushed off the alleged victim, Jackie. The article, for instance, says that Eramo told Jackie she couldn't release rape stats because "nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school." Eramo says the quote is a work of fiction, like much of the article. In fact, the Washington Post reports that Eramo is seen as a "force for good" on campus when it comes to helping sexual assault victims.

“Rolling Stone and (Sabrina Rubin) Erdely’s highly defamatory and false statements about Dean Eramo were not the result of an innocent mistake,” says the lawsuit. “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.” (More University of Virginia stories.)