One of the campus administrators at the center of Rolling Stone's now-retracted article about sexual assault at the University of Virginia lambasted the magazine for its portrayal of the school this week, in her first comments since the report appeared in November.
UVA associate dean of students Nicole Eramo addressed a fiery letter to Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, which the Washington Post obtained on Wednesday. In the letter, Eramo criticizes the magazine for indicating that she did "nothing" to assist Jackie, the survivor whose account of a brutal gang rape stood at the center of the report and the ensuing controversy, and calls Sabrina Rubin Erdely's article "false and grossly misleading":
[The] complex nature of supporting survivors, the structural and psychological barriers to reporting, and the difficult bind of higher education institutions who must balance support for survivors, due process for respondents, and community safety does not make for flashy headlines that sell magazines. Ms. Erdely squandered an opportunity to have a more nuanced and accurate conversation about [sexual assault] because she was busy filling in her preconceived narrative and ultimately setting back the cause of advocacy and support in ways that we are still only beginning to understand here in Charlottesville and across the country.
Eramo also details the damage wrought "personally and professionally" by her portrayal in the article, which she says cast her as "an unsympathetic and manipulative false friend to sexual assault victims."
"Using me as the personification of a heartless administration, the Rolling Stone article attacked my life's work," she writes, adding, "Rolling Stone's recent actions are too little, too late."
Read Eramo's letter in full at the Washington Post.
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