A UVA sexual assault report - in the form of a Rolling Stone article - has caused a major stir in the University of Virginia that lead to the school's re-examination of its responsibility on the rather frustrating case.
According to CNN, the UVA administration has decided to suspend all fraternities and all associated parties until the 9th of January while it continues to evaluate their policies and such .
"The wrongs described in Rolling Stone are appalling and have caused all of us to re-examine our responsibility to this community," school President Teresa A. Sullivan said in a statement.
Sullivan then went on by describing rape as an "abhorrent crime" that apparently has no place in this world, especially in schools, colleges and universities all over the country.
The UVA sexual assault report was first publicised through an article that appeared in Rolling Stone titled "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA."
The report featured the story of a student who was gang raped after accepting an invite from an upperclassman to come to a party at the Phi Kappa Psi house in the fall of 2012.
The student claimed that at least seven men sexually assaulted her in a span of three hours in one bedroom.
What's even more striking about the student's story is that she has never found the courage to disclose her grim experience since she found out that being raped at fraternities is common among campuses; hence, no one has really received disciplinary action for it.
"At UVA, rapes are kept quiet, both by students -- who brush off sexual assaults as regrettable but inevitable casualties of their cherished party culture -- and by an administration that critics say is less concerned with protecting students than it is with protecting its own reputation from scandal," the UVA sexual report stated.
Rolling Stone further noted that University of Virginia was not at all willing to investigate on the case until the higher-ups learned that they were to publish the said UVA sexual assault report.
Since the school's announcement that it will be evaluating its "responsibility to the community," students leaders have decided to take part in this action by holding a news conference at 10 a.m. Monday on the campus to "give voice to the student perspective, as per a notice from the Student Council of UVA.
Students who are expected to join the conference include the Student Council president, the Inter-Fraternity Council leader and the presidents of One in Four and One Less - support groups for campus sexual abuse victims.
Meanwhile, the writer of the UVA sexual assault report published on Rolling Stone, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, gushed Sunday that the victim in the story - identified as Jackie in the published output - is pleased with the national response though she is still traumatised of the incident.
Rolling Stone also wrote a follow-up article titled "Rape at UVA: Readers Say Jackie Wasn't Alone" where they featured the the stories of other students who contacted them to reveal that they, too, were victims of sexual abuse in their own school.
On the other hand, Sullivan said that they are working to ensure that before the suspension of the fraternities and social activities is lifted, they are to gather students, faculty and alumni to come up with "our next steps in preventing sexual assault and sexual violence."
UVA currently has 21,238 students and 15,000 of them are undergraduates, according to the school's official website.
UVA spokesman Anthony P. de Bruyn said in a response to CNN that the school's suspension affected over 3,500 students belonging to the 31 fraternities and 16 sororities, as well as the seven multicultural Greek Council frat and the eight Pan-Hellenic Council fraternities and sororities.
Additionally, the school has asked Charlottesville police to investigate on the story in the UVA sexual report published by Rolling Stone involving the Phi Kappa Psi house, reports 6ABC.com.
The fraternity has announced that it was suspending their UVA chapter, calling the alleged sexual assaults "vile and intolerable."
"I write you in great sorrow, great rage, but most importantly, with great determination," Sullivan noted in her statement.
"Meaningful change is necessary, and we can lead that change for all universities. We can demand that incidents like those described in Rolling Stone never happen and that if they do, the responsible are held accountable to the law," Sullivan added. "This will require institutional change, cultural change, and legislative change, and it will not be easy. We are making those changes."
Amid the school's announcement, two men and two women were arrested on Saturday for trespassing the Phi Kappa Psi house as a form of protest, NBC News has learned.
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