…via a public Facebook posting.  She is persuasive and sensible on points 2-4, but not on the first point, concerning her false description of Ronell as "a literary scholar and philosopher at New York University" who is "by all accounts, one of the great academic minds of our time."  Gessen writes:

The idiom "by all accounts" actually means "by all accounts by people in a position to judge." If I were writing about a topologist, I wouldn't ask a numbers theorist about this person's abilities. If I were writing about a neuroscientist, I wouldn't ask a geneticist. I think it works the same way in the humanities. I mean, it should. In her field, AR is a superstar. This is not the first time I've seen academics dismiss entire fields, but I still find it shocking.

But the point is precisely that Gessen obviously didn't consult literary scholars and philosophers, just friends of Ronell.  I heard from a literary scholar at Yale who told me that no one discussed Ronell's work anymore.  And I've yet to hear from a single philosopher who had anything favorable to say about her work–most had never even heard of her, the situation I was in when this story first broke in June.  So on this point, Gessen engaged in myth-making, not reporting or analysis.

UPDATE:  Marjorie Perloff's views, published just today, confirm the weakness of Gessen's defense of her mischaracterization of Ronell's status.