Education

UVA Liberal Student Activist: ‘We Support Jackie’ [VIDEO]

Alex Griswold Media Reporter
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A member of the University of Virginia’s Alliance for Social Change said on MSNBC’s “The Cycle” that the “consensus in our community” was to support “Jackie,” the UVA student who made false accusations of rape in a now-debunked Rolling Stone story. (RELATED: UVA Gang Rape Story Falls To Pieces, Rolling Stone Admits It Was Fooled)

“When you have one bad actor that falsely accuses someone of rape, how much harder does that then make it for all the women out there that actually have been raped, not only in terms of being listened to, but being willing to go out and tell their story?” asked host Abby Huntsman.

But doctoral student Lauren Stark wouldn’t say that Jackie had made a false accusation to begin with. “I mean, I think we really don’t know the details about whether or not, you know, there is a bad actor. I think that with rape and sexual assault, we have so many issues of trauma that make it very difficult even for an individual to kind of piece together their story.” (VIDEO: Rolling Stone UVA Reporter: I Shop Around For Victims)

“I really personally — I’m very uncomfortable with the focus on Jackie’s story,” Stark continued, “And I think the consensus among the community here is that we support Jackie, we support all survivors, and we want to look at institutional issues and the need for change.”

“I think that right now we’re seeing a lot of energy to move forward for change at the university,” she said. “I think this story has actually helped with that. And I would love to see the media kind of shift focus to that change.”

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