UVA dean sues Rolling Stone for defamation
Eramo recently spoke out in April in an open letter to the magazine, writing that she remains "forever linked to an article that has damaged my reputation and falsely portrayed the work to which I have dedicated my life." In Rolling Stone's article, "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA," Eramo is depicted as indifferent to UVA student Jackie's alleged gang-rape at a campus fraternity party.
"As a woman who has dedicated her life to assisting victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse, Dean Eramo saw herself tarred in the national press as the chief architect of a conspiracy to suppress Jackie's assault in order to protect UVA's reputation," the lawsuit states.
The article's author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, is also named as a defendant in Eramo's defamation suit, as is Wenner Media.
"Rolling Stone and Erdely's highly defamatory and false statements about Dean Eramo were not the result of an innocent mistake; 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," according to the lawsuit.
Business Insider has reached out to Rolling Stone for comment and will update with any statement we receive.
More to come ...