What Jackie, The University Of Virginia, Rolling Stone And Bill Cosby Can Teach Us About Rushing To Judgment On Rape - The Atlantic

Rape And The Rush To Pass Judgement

As Rolling Stone was disavowing parts of its story on rape at the University of Virginia, lawyer Zerlina Maxwell argued in The Washington Post that "we should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says." Her logic: "The costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist," she wrote. "Even if Jackie fabricated her account, U-Va. should have taken her word for it during the period while they endeavored to prove or disprove the accusation. This is not a legal argument about what standards we should use in the courts; it’s a moral one, about what happens outside the legal system."

To whom is "we" is referring in her article?

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