Nicole Eramo, associate dean of students at the University of Virginia, has filed a lawsuit against Rolling Stone and one of the magazine’s contributors.
The suit levels a defamation claim stemming from a now-discredited article, “A Rape on Campus,” that purported to recount a gruesome gang rape in a U-Va fraternity house. The article sparked a national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses that soon curdled into a public outing of journalistic malfeasance when many of the article’s key claims could not be supported with evidence.
According to a release distributed by Clare Locke LLP, the firm representing Eramo, the complaint alleges that Rolling Stone made “defamatory statements about Dean Eramo recklessly and in purposeful disregard of facts, witnesses, and evidence, in order to present a preconceived storyline.”
Eramo is seeking $7.5 million in damages, according to The Washington Post, which first reported news of the lawsuit.
In April, Eramo sent an open letter to Rolling Stone that bashed the magazine for incorrectly painting her as the “personification of a heartless administration.”
Rolling Stone retracted the article after a lengthy and damning report from Columbia University that revealed a massive institutional failure at the magazine. No one at Rolling Stone was fired as a result of the article or its fallout.
