The Rolling Stone / UVa thing: what did the UVa President do wrong? [View all]

[Recursion]

Last edited Wed Apr 8, 2015, 01:29 AM - Edit history (2)

Since this is back in the news, I wanted to ask something that's been bothering me since last year. Leave aside the journalism shitshow and who does or doesn't deserve to wear a hairshirt for eternity: people keep saying the real point was how the university administration treated Jackie.

That's what I don't get. Jackie went to the Dean's office and told her story. The Dean (in person) told Jackie she could talk to the police if she wanted criminal charges pressed, and separate from that she could at her discretion initiate either a "formal" or "informal" campus discipline procedure, and that the administration would accept her decision about which of those (or neither) she wanted to initiate. Jackie even wrote a letter to the university paper praising the Dean's response to her.

What did UVa actually do wrong here? Is that not what you want a college administrator to do?

EDIT: it was the Dean of Students, not the university President.