AP Photo/Steve HelberStudents walk by the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house on the University of Virginia campus.A police investigation into the University of Virginia chapter of Phi Kappa Psi has "has not revealed any substantive basis to confirm" gang rape allegations raised in a controversial Rolling Stone feature on the school last November, the university announced Monday.
Student newspaper The Cavalier Daily reports that the fraternity has been reinstated on campus by both UVA and Phi Kappa Psi national. UVA rush week - where fraternities recruit new members - begins later this week.
"The reinstatement resulted after consultation with Charlottesville Police Department officials, who told the University that their investigation has not revealed any substantive basis to confirm that the allegations raised in the Rolling Stone article occurred at Phi Kappa Psi," the university said in a press release, The Cavalier Daily reports.
The UVA Phi Psi chapter had voluntarily suspended itself following the publication of a Rolling Stone article on UVA sexual assault culture. In the aftermath of the article, the Phi Psi house was vandalized with graffiti reading "UVA Center for RAPE Studies" and "SUSPEND US!," and was the target of several on-campus protests.
Since the Rolling Stone feature first went online in November, many questions have been raised about the veracity of several of its claims, including a harrowing story of a Phi Psi gang rape told to the magazine by a UVA student named "Jackie." The fraternity released a statement in December claiming that many of the facts included in Jackie's story were untrue.
Jackie also told Rolling Stone about two other current undergraduates who said they had been gang raped at the fraternity.
The Cavalier Daily also reports that Phi Psi will be the first UVA fraternity to formally sign on to new regulations for registered social events, including having "sober brothers" at frat parties and restricting the type of alcohol served.