Over the past week I’ve been spending some time with The Badger Herald, a student-run newspaper out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. On Wednesday, March 4, the Herald broke the story of one student who chose to come forward about being raped in a University frat house last fall. Her story is truly horrifying (and very, very triggering):
“The last thing I remember was saying to [my friend], ‘Wow, this pineapple vodka is really good.’ I don’t remember one thing after that,” the victim said.
Around 2:30 a.m., the victim awoke in a room on the first floor of the Sigma Chi house with no recollection of how she had arrived there.[...]
When she woke up the next morning, she went to the bathroom and found she was sore and bleeding profusely. Crying, she called her mother and said she believed she was raped.
“At first it was like, ‘No this cannot be possible — this cannot happen,’” the victim said. “I put two and two together, and I just started bawling. A whole part of my soul was just immediately taken. No words people say were what [could] have comforted me on that day. I cried, and then it was over and then I was numb.”
By 11 a.m., she arrived with her roommate at Meriter Hospital. Health officials collected DNA, took pictures and performed other procedures necessary to collect evidence.
The doctors then confirmed she was raped, most likely by more than one person.
“[The doctor] said I was one of the worst cases she’s seen with how violent it was,” the victim said. “The next day I had a fat lip, I couldn’t move my jaw and I had a bruise on my face. I had bruises up and down my legs and by my vagina, so it wasn’t consensual or anything — it was really violent.”
To this day, the victim has no idea who her assaulters were.
This is one of those stories that makes you feel ill.
It’s difficult to say how appropriate the University’s response to this assault has been. According to the victim, after reporting the attack she was never asked if she wanted the school to investigate further, and her professors were not informed of the rape by the Dean of Students Office (as school policy dictates). The Dean of Students defended her office’s actions:
[The Dean of Students] responded the university’s actions are a result of very intentional efforts to help the victim regain control of his or her life.
“If someone doesn’t act like they need [help] or articulate what they need, it’s again one of those things where we don’t want to force ourselves on it. That’s one of the last things you want to do when someone’s been a victim — it’s a re-victimization,” [the Dean] said.
The Dean has scheduled a campus-wide forum for this evening to discuss sexual assault issues on campus. The Director of the Dane County Rape Crisis Center will also be in attendance. While the Dean has repeatedly stressed that her Office takes campus rape very seriously, as an observer it’s hard to make any conclusions. Currently, the Madison Police Department is investigating the incident and the Frat whose house the rape occurred is on social probation.
What is clear is that this IS an issue on campus. Another campus newspaper, the Daily Cardinal, reports that in 2007 there were 42 reported sexual assault cases on campus. 42. Reported. In a follow-up story with the Badger Herald, the victim said that she chose to came forward after hearing more stories about frat house rapes:
The victim said she decided to come forward to the Herald after an interaction at a bar with another woman who said she was raped at the Sigma Chi house.
She added at the time of their conversation, the woman had yet to contact police or the Offices of the Dean of Students. After meeting the woman at the bar, the victim said she was so distraught she “almost threw up.”
A friend of the victim, who also chose to remain anonymous, was present during the Herald’s interview for emotional support.
She told a story of how she attended a party at the Sigma Chi house last spring and a member dropped a pill into her drink while she was looking away.
I have now read four editorial responses to the Herald’s coverage. Three of them are written by men. (One, Two, and Three.) The same three outline the same basic argument: “IF a rape happened, and it seems like it did I guess, THEN the men responsible are dispicable and should be punished terribly. BUT we need all the EVIDENCE before we can make assumptions, don’t blame Sigma Chi, don’t blame frats in general, some of my best friends are frat boys, remember what happened at Duke!”
Now, I’m all for the proper functioning of a justice system that says “innocent until proving guilty.” I’m glad no names are being used, and I completely understand that because the victim cannot remember the event, we don’t even know if the rape occurred in the frat house in question (she started her night in a different location). However, it’s important, too, to remember the point of the fourth editorial, written by members of PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment), the University’s student organization dedicated to anti-sexual violence activism. They write:
PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment) was saddened by the front-page article, “Alleged Rape at Sigma Chi,” published Wednesday, March 4 in The Badger Herald. While the report of the assault itself was extremely disturbing, some of the comments posted by UW students on The Badger Herald website in response to the article were equally troubling. Many of these responses reveal we live in a culture in which we are more apt to blame sexual assault victims than to hold perpetrators accountable.
“How does she know she didn’t consent the night before? I often find credit card bills for pizza or drinks I don’t remember and retrospectively did not want but likely assented to in my intoxicated state.” — An anonymous comment posted to the Badger Herald website at 12:38pm on March 4.
The whole editorial is really great, and worth a read. Unfortunately, PAVE’s assessment of the online comments is fairly accurate. While there are a number of supportive statements for the victim, there are also a number of claims of “What evidence is there? all that can be proven is that sex occurred. that doesn’t mean rape.” Clearly, some Herald readers didn’t get the memo that states “if a person is this intoxicated or drugged, HE OR SHE CANNOT POSSIBLY CONSENT TO SEX.” It’s not that complicated.
The PAVE editorial also makes a point of mentioning that the courage of the victim who spoke up is to be commended, but we cannot judge those who have chosen not to. One of the “we need evidence!” editorialists has this to say of the women who are making allegations of sexual assault but not reporting it:
These implied accusations serve no one. If these events are true, then the accusers owe it to themselves and the campus community at large to file police reports, name names and notify university officials. If they aren’t, then the accusers owe it to the victim to shut the hell up. Tossing around potentially false accusations not only defames innocent people but disrespects the victim as well. This very serious crime deserves our full attention, unless the crime is part of a larger problem, in which case an investigation deserves the accuser’s full cooperation.
Something tells me that the victim isn’t “disrespected” by her peers’ silence. Something tells me that she understands entirely why a rape victim wouldn’t want to come forward when her school may or may not support her, or when she is guaranteed to be faced with a community of peers who think she might just be making it up, since, ya know, she was drunk and all. It is profoundly sad that so much concern is being shown for the men whose images may be tarnished because they happen to belong to a frat, when in 2007, 42 women reported being assault on campus. Where is the concern for them? Where have all of the frat-defenders who also feel so strongly about rapists to the point that they hope the guilty parties “rot in hell” been since 2007? Rape victims don’t owe anything to anyone in terms of reporting. We owe it to them to make sure it doesn’t happen in the first place.
I consider myself lucky to have gone to a college without a Greek System. While I don’t believe that all frats or sororities are inherently bad news, and recognize the value of “brotherhood” and “sisterhood,” I’m uncomfortable with the extent to which brothers seem to stand by one another in cases like these. You can’t judge fraternities by a few bad apples, but you can judge them by their refusal to insist that those responsible to come forward, if indeed it was men from the frat, or to offer up DNA evidence to the police if it wasn’t.
There was also another response to the online comments by the editorial board chairman: http://badgerherald.com/oped/2009/03/05/victim_deserves_symp.php
On another note, about the general value (or lack thereof) of the Greek system, I think the question to ask is not whether the Greek system is all bad, or whether there is any redeeming value to the Greek system. Clearly they do some good things, both for their members and for the community. Rather, the questions to ask are these:
1. Does the good they do outweigh the bad?
2. Are there alternative ways to achieve the good, without the bad that the current Greek system seems to entail at most universities?
I think the answer to the first question is “Maybe, maybe not,” and the answer to the second is “Probably yes.”
Why not have “brotherhood” and “sisterhood” based around shared interests and passions rather than being based around being exclusive and exclusionary? For example, many Catholic colleges ban the Greek system but have “houses” dedicated to various saints that are kind of like sororities and fraternities, where the residents still get to know each other really well, but where community service (as well as shared prayer) is front and center rather than just being evidence that the fraternity has some redeeming value. They might even focus on particular kinds of service that the saint was especially known for.
It obviously doesn’t have to be based around religion though–it could be certain sports, academic interests, or things I haven’t even thought of. And even when everyone in the house has one shared interest or if everyone is the same religion–there is still room for a lot of diversity.
Al, I tend to agree with you. I think that houses based on interests, such as a language, academic discipline, or lifestyle (vegan, etc) can do the same good work with less of the bad stuff (i.e., no hazing, no implicit superiority and privilege, no focus on gender norms). That is actually a kind of housing I wish my school had more of.
Thanks for pointing out that other story. It was refreshing to read.
I agree with your assessment of the Greek system. I think that at least one chapter of Incite! that I am aware of is working with the greek system, attempting through reach outs and organizing to intervene on the violence Greek systems are prone to–which I think is fabulous work. But I’ma telling you, I’m terrified of my kids (who will be college age after a bit), getting mixed up in that shit. And there’ll definitely be some major educating going on about the greek systems and group mentality.
While a few fraternities and sororities do contribute to their community, most do not in my eyes.
In my 4 years of college and visiting various campuses and frats, I’ve found that the majority of frats are islands of apathy. They have a hollow organizational structure, no leadership, and the frat houses commonly have illegal drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, shrooms, oxycontin and adderol to name a few. Many — not all — but many — frats are just a breeding ground for sexual assaults and the attitudes that foster all of the things I’ve just listed.
Frats do serve a good purpose — brotherhood and camaraderie — but without any real leadership, they have drifted dangerously far from fraternities of the past.
How many pledges must die during hazing and how many girls must be raped to get the universities to implement a new system of accountability? How about random inspections? How about mandatory community service? The fraternities’ silence on these situations is a clear sign that they condone this behavior and would rather look the other way instead of doing the right thing.