Professor William Anderson of Frostburg State, who carefully followed and wrote much about the infamous Duke lacrosse hoax has an excellent piece here comparing it with the recent UVA hoax.

“Instead of building her narrative around evil and brutish lacrosse players, Erdely decided to construct her story around the narrative of evil and brutish UVA frat boys,” Anderson writes. “All of the stereotypes were present and Erdely might have been able to get away with her work of fiction, but then she decided to paint Jackie’s friends as beholden to the evil and brutish social atmosphere that she wanted to believe dominates UVA and about every other college campus.”

Once the story fell apart, of course, university officials who had eagerly embraced it, especially president Teresa Sullivan and the school’s sexual assault awareness officer Emily Renda (what a great story to capitalize on from her perspective!) naturally continued to act as if it were true because, even if technically false, it supposedly proves a “greater truth.” Sullivan has offered no apology to the people wrongfully accused and Renda, despite playing “a major role in smearing her alma mater and both male and female students there, will keep her job,” Anderson notes.

For all their self-professed intellectual sophistication, progressives are easy marks for false stories that appear to fit in with their desire for more government control almost everywhere.