Rolling Stone beats 1 of its lawsuits over University of Virginia gang rape story
Rolling Stone beat a defamation lawsuit filed against it by three fraternity brothers who said they had been implicated in a retracted story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia.
The article, which claimed a female student identified as "Jackie" was raped by several members of Phi Kappa Psi at a party, prompted public outrage when it was published in 2014. It was later discredited.
While not named in the article, three members of the fraternity sued the magazine because they claimed that the public might assume they were involved in a gang rape based on the details in the article.
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The lawsuit was dismissed on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel, who said the details in the story were "too vague and remote from the plaintiffs' circumstances" to implicate them, according to court documents.
They also claimed that the article suggested that everyone at the fraternity participated in rape as part of an initiation ritual. The judge rejected those claims, too.
"While the statements may portray Phi Kappa Psi in a negative light, they do not expressly or impliedly state that the fraternity required all initiates to participate in a rape, or impute any knowledge of such a requirement to the plaintiffs," Castel wrote.
The magazine, however, isn't in the clear yet. It still has to beat a separate $25 million lawsuit from the UVA chapter of Phi Kappa Psi.
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Keith Wagstaff is an assistant editor at Mashable and a terrible Settlers of Catan player. He has written for TIME, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, NBC News, The Village Voice, VICE, GQ and New York Magazine, among many other reputable and not-so-reputable publications. After nearly a decade in New York City, he now lives in his native Los Angeles.
