Advocates are concerned that rape victims could be discouraged from speaking out about their experiences, after Rolling Stone retracted its now-debunked article detailing an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house, NBC News reported. "I do worry about survivors feeling like they should come forward," Rebecca Weybright, executive director of The Sexual Assault Resource Agency in Charlottesville, Virginia, told NBC News last month. Teresa Sullivan, the president of the University of Virginia, said that the article "did nothing to combat sexual violence, and it damaged serious efforts to address the issue." The magazine retracted the story by Sabrina Rubin Erdely after the Columbia Journalism Review issued an independent review of the story saying it violated "basic, even routine journalistic practice."
