Emily Irwin is a student at the University of Virginia who penned an opinion piece on the Rolling Stone mess for The College Fix, an online student-reported source of national campus news and commentary.
In expressing anger at the way her school and fellow students have been damaged by Rolling Stone, she writes:
I am mad … that people are afraid to speak their minds for fear of being labeled and attacked.
Although many of us readers, especially those at UVa, questioned certain aspects of the story, everyone seemed afraid to challenge it publicly at first.
In the back of our minds we asked ourselves: Why would this girl just make up this story? If I do speak out publicly asking for more evidence, will people accuse me of being pro-rape? What if people say I am ignoring the real problem at hand of sexual assault and rape and the way universities handle them by questioning the story’s reliability?