If she had joined a saner and more healthy cult than a university indoctrination or Leftist camp, things might have been different. If the Authority is evil, then everyone that follows the orders of said Authority becomes guilty of evil, whether they like it or not. But alternatively that means if the Authority they follow is good and wise, then they themselves can participate in good works.

Unfortunately for the people who like to follow authority in America, there are fewer and fewer sources of good and legitimate authority. Only evil authorizes can continue to survive in the war. Everybody else is getting conveniently wiped out, because they refuse to fight, they even refuse to recognize that a war is going on.

CV, perhaps I have a skewed sample and it may not be as close to universal as it seems to me. The situations are structurally very diverse, too. The example you cite is really sad, if the girl has no close friends than all we can hope for is that she grow out of it on her own, preferably soon.

Public exposure has acquired a whole new dimension in the internet era. Google, for example, Jackie + étudiante + viol. You will get pages upon pages of foreign media, comments, and analyses. Remember that the content you are consulting is only in French and very recent. By inference, the actual worldwide content relative to this story, generated up to this point, must be exponentially greater and that is without addressing the *potential* content that will accrue over the years as somebody digs up the issue, debates it anew or uses it as a reference point in discussions of some other issues.

In a situation in which the whole WORLD is discussing (and web-archiving for future reference) the events that took place at a fairly obscure American campus it is unrealistic to imagine a “Scarlet Letter” variety of public humiliation, confined to a community. There really are only two varieties of humiliation left today: an entirely private (unregistered) one and one that is at least *potentially* GLOBAL (because once it is online, it is not predictable – only a matter of luck and circumstance – whether it will fall into obscurity or become an international sensation). The latter variety is not only not proportional to how far “Jackie” went with her fabrications (she never named a real person, never went national of her own initiative, much less international; not structurally analogous to the Brawley case), but it is also highly psychologically destabilizing and potentially dangerous. Lives have been lost over lesser unwanted exposure. Especially young lives.

None of this is aimed at disculpating “Jackie”, mind you, it is just some disconnected thoughts on why I think that the public humiliation you advocate may be more cruel than just.

I think your post at 5:39 AM is spot on.

Jackie wove a tangled web of deceit that got way out of hand from the way she initially conceived it.

I have come to believe that many (most?) young people do something analogous at some point during the very intense and turbulent period encompassing high school, college, and the very first post-college years that are transitory into real adulthood. Not necessarily fully developed fantasies, online or offline, but *some* sort of trouble on the fertile territory of lies, half-lies, and ambiguities is all too common. Additionally, consider that young people overestimate their ability to deal with consequences of their imprudence and indiscretions, of any sort, all the time (I am 24, I would know – I can still evoke that particular “invincible” frame of mind, although it has been dissipating over the years as I was naturally growing up and gaining some maturity and perspective).

It is my impression that few young people are truly disturbed in ways that would necessitate professional help – rather, nearly always it is juvenile excess gone out of control. I disapprove of the friends’ reaction in the example you cite (provided those were friends indeed, rather than mere acquaintances). Withdrawing in silence is an easy and an apparently elegant way out of the situation, but it also cowardice and betrayal; privately cornering your friend with the mess of his own creation, insisting that he cut it immediately and that he mend the torts where possible is difficult, but it is the right thing to do. Much trouble can be prevented from growing and escalating if caught and addressed early.

The difference is that for a long time Jackie’s lies were meant mainly for one person only: Ryan. Also, she did not accuse an actual person. Also, she went public slowly, and in terms of the Rolling Stone article she tried to withdraw before publication, asking Erdely to remove her, but Erdely dug in.

That does not absolve Jackie of a heavy responsibility for her lies. But it does (at least for many people) make her a more sympathetic figure than Brawley.

By the way, Brawley is a somewhat sympathetic figure as well, because at least initially she didn’t name names either, she was only 15 years old, her case was taken up and exploited by the usual suspects, and she was in a dire family situation. Again, this does not excuse her at all. But this was the situation:

A detective from the Sheriff’s Juvenile Aid Bureau, among others, was summoned to interview Brawley, but she remained unresponsive. The family requested a black officer, which the police department was able to provide. Brawley, described as having an “extremely spacey” look on her face, communicated with this officer with nods of the head, shrugs of the shoulder, and written notes. The interview lasted 20 minutes, during which she uttered only one word: “neon”. Through gestures and writing, however, she indicated she had been raped repeatedly in a wooded area by three white men, at least one of whom, she claimed, was a police officer. A sexual assault kit was administered, and police began building a case. Brawley provided no names or descriptions of her assailants. She later told others that there had been no rape, only other kinds of sexual abuse. Forensic tests found no evidence that a sexual assault of any kind had occurred. There was no evidence of exposure to elements, which would have been expected in a victim held for several days in the woods at a time when the temperature dropped below freezing at night…

Much of the grand jury evidence pointed to a possible motive for Brawley’s falsifying the incident: trying to avoid violent punishment from her mother and her stepfather, Ralph King. Witnesses testified that Glenda Brawley had previously beaten her daughter for running away and for spending nights with boys. King had a history of violence that included stabbing his first wife 14 times, later shooting and killing her. There was considerable evidence that King could and would violently attack Brawley: when Brawley had been arrested on a shoplifting charge the previous May, King attempted to beat her for the offense while at the police station. Witnesses also described King as having talked about his stepdaughter in a sexualized manner. On the day of her alleged disappearance, Brawley had skipped school to visit her boyfriend, Todd Buxton, who was serving a six-month jail sentence. When Buxton’s mother (with whom she had visited Buxton in jail) urged her to get home before she got in trouble, Brawley told her, “I’m already in trouble.” She described how angry King was over a previous incident of her staying out late.

There was evidence that Brawley’s mother and King participated knowingly in the hoax. Neighbors told the grand jury that in February they overheard Glenda Brawley saying to King, “You shouldn’t have took the money because after it all comes out, they’re going to find out the truth.” Another neighbor heard Mrs. Brawley say, “They know we’re lying and they’re going to find out and come and get us.”

So as far as appropriate punishment goes, I think for Brawley the people who needed the most punishing were her parents, Sharpton, etc.. For Jackie, I hold Erdely and the Rolling Stone editors most responsible, and I hope the fraternity sues the pants off them, and that Erdely’s career as a journalist is finished. That won’t happen. But I’m really not sure what I think the punishment for Brawley or Jackie ought to be. There have been money judgments against Brawley; here is a fairly recent article about her.