Students at the University of Virginia opened Monday’s edition of their student newspaper to find a letter from junior Emily Clark, a former suitemate of “Jackie,” the now-junior who claims to have been the victim of a brutal gang-rape in her freshman year. Clark wrote in to defend Jackie, who touched off a firestorm when Rolling Stone published her story as part of a larger look at UVa’s disturbingly inadequate response to rape and sexual assault on campus. However, when it emerged that Rolling Stone hadn’t adequately fact-checked key details in her story, Jackie faced accusations that she made the whole thing up. Most chillingly, Charles C. Johnson has claimed to have revealed Jackie’s true identity.
In a letter that appears to have been in the works before Johnson’s despicable stunt, Clark–who was one of Jackie’s suitemates during freshman year–wrote that sometime in December 2012, she noticed Jackie’s personality had changed dramatically. She’d gone from “bright, happy and bubbly” to “withdrawn and depressed.” She started watching TV for hours on end–something Clark couldn’t understand given the typical homework load for a freshman at UVa. She only got an inkling of how bad it was for Jackie when later that month, Jackie abruptly went home the night before finals. Whatever was going on, it was serious enough that she had been allowed to take her finals over winter break.
Later that year, Clark says that Jackie told her that she’d been attacked by several men at a party. She didn’t elaborate. However, that was enough for Clark to feel saddened that she hadn’t reached out to Jackie sooner. Apparently Jackie has revealed more since then, because Clark is convinced that Jackie is telling the truth.
“While I cannot say what happened that night, and I cannot prove the validity of every tiny aspect of her story to you, I can tell you that this story is not a hoax, a lie or a scheme. Something terrible happened to Jackie at the hands of several men who have yet to receive any repercussions.
“Whether the details are correct or not, and whether the reporting was faulty, or the hazy memories of a traumatizing night got skewed?the blame should never fall on the victim’s shoulders. Jackie is a victim, as are so many others, men and women, young and old. So many stories have gone untold and so many perpetrators have been allowed to walk free.”
Clark also reveals that the campus, or “grounds” in Wahoospeak, has already undergone a sea change. There have been a number of discussions about “rape, rights, consent and justice” in the weeks before winter break, but Clark thinks that talk needs to turn into action. She sees it as a chance to “let the nation know we are not a scandal school, but a school that does not tolerate injustice.”
I don’t think anyone else could have said it better. Lost in this whole affair is that UVa has a serious rape problem–serious enough to make the school the target of two separate federal investigations. The kind of change that needs to happen is something that starts from the bottom up. And if that change results in preventing even one horror like what happened with Jackie, it will be worth it.
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Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
