The University of Virginia chapter of Phi Kappa Psi intends to sue Rolling Stone, calling the magazine's discredited reporting of an alleged gang rape by some of its members "reckless".
The lawsuit comes a day after Rolling Stone editors retracted a story, "A Rape on Campus", that presented a chilling account of a brutal sexual assault that allegedly occurred in the Phi Kappa Psi house at the university in 2012.
A Columbia University report described significant lapses by the magazine's staff while reporting the gang-rape allegations, and the story's writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, and the publication's managing editor, Will Dana, apologised for the deeply flawed account. But the fraternity noted that Erdely did not apologise directly to the Phi Psi chapter at the university.
"The report by Columbia University's School of Journalism demonstrates the reckless nature in which Rolling Stone researched and failed to verify facts in its article that erroneously accused Phi Kappa Psi of crimes its members did not commit," said Stephen Scipione, the fraternity's chapter president. "This type of reporting serves as a sad example of a serious decline of journalistic standards."
