The bigger omissions are on Rubin Erdely’s side. She doesn’t mention Jackie’s case during the entire 40-minute conversation with Sullivan. The conversation happened late in her reporting, so she must have known that the incident was going to be the centerpiece of her story. If she had told the university about Jackie, it’s possible their reaction would have been different. They might have, for example, made Eramo available to the reporter if they knew the gravity of what she was about to report. They might have panicked. They might have immediately investigated. They might have tried to minimize the incident or refused to talk, which would have revealed something significant about how they handle such cases. But Rubin Erdely never mentioned it, so we don’t really know. (It’s possible that Rubin Erdely did mention Jackie’s story to the university at another time, but based on listening to her interview with Sullivan, it seems this was her big chance to air her major allegations and get the official response. Also, the emails cover six months of interaction between the university and the reporter, and Rubin Erdely doesn’t lay out the details of the incident there either.)
In the Rolling Stone story, Rubin Erdely builds her case of university negligence around Eramo. Several times she puts words in Eramo’s mouth, expressions on her face. “As Jackie wrapped up her story, she was disappointed by Eramo’s nonreaction. She’d expected shock, disgust, horror,” she writes. Also: “If Dean Eramo was surprised at Jackie’s story of gang rape, it didn’t show.” There is also a too-perfect quote in Eramo’s voice. When Jackie asked the dean why UVA doesn’t publish statistics on sexual violence, “she says Eramo answered wryly, ‘Because nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school.’ ”
Whether Eramo actually reacted or nonreacted or said anything like this, we don’t know.
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