ANDREA Pino Claims She’s a UNC Rape Victim. But Does Her Own Story Hold Up?
A case that helped jump-start a wave of campus sexual assault activism across America has ended in a big win for the UNC Chapel Hill complainants. Among those celebrating is former UNC student Andrea Pino, the co-founder of the national organization End Rape on Campus and the best-known of the five women behind the complaint. But her victory comes with an asterisk. While Andrea Pino’s role in the UNC complaint propelled her to national visibility, there are also serious questions, unanswered and largely unasked, about the credibility of her own story of sexual assault. The Campus Rape Frenzy, describes Pino’s complaint against UNC as “the highest-profile questionable Title IX claim.” While the authors stop short of calling Pino’s story a hoax, they note that it has startling parallels to that of Jackie, the faux victim in Rolling Stone‘s retracted story of a brutal fraternity rape at the University of Virginia…A TitleIX activist advocating for campus sexual assault survivors said this about Andrea Pino. “There have been some of us who have been frustrated for years by her web of lies.” Danielle*, who has interacted personally with Pino on a number of occasions, told me that she began to suspect her of being untruthful shortly after the Title IX complaint was filed. “I noticed that her ‘story’ became more and more graphic each time she told it to the press,” Danielle wrote. “She also loved being ‘in the limelight’ so much more than other survivors. And then other students began to tell me discrepancies in her story, such as the fact that the date she says it happened was when the dorms were closed for a break, so she could not have returned to her dorm room. Several students shared that her story was a ‘mash-up’ of three other students’ stories.” Danielle believes there is a “conspiracy of silence” that shields Pino’s credibility problems. “Many people in the movement are aware,” she wrote, “as well as some in the press whom I’ve spoken with.” She says that “there are powerful pressures to keep silent about potential hoaxers, and this hurts the movement in the long run.”
reason.com By Cathy Young
