Yale lawsuit
 

This lawsuit perplexes me. It's like the plaintiffs want the university to take the Harvard approach, and I don't see Yale hopping on that band wagon, considering the backlash and legal action. What I really don't get is their rejection of sororities as a means of female empowerment.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yale-fr...tegrate-women/

I absolutely fail to believe that there were no other places to party other than at fraternity houses for the first months of school. Don’t they have housing that includes all classes? Why not ask an upperclassman about alternatives?

I also don’t get where they say “our friends are holding parties in these spaces.” If they really are friends with guys in the fraternities, why don’t they ask them to look out for them?

The only conclusion I can come to is that they think making the fraternities coed will lessen interest and they will die out. A better tack to take would be to create a local sorority that is not bound by the alcohol restrictions that NPC groups have. Side note, do the NPC sororities have houses? Not to try and bust anyone but is the letter of the law really followed?

Lawsuit makes no sense at all. None. If you don't like what happens at (btw, private) fraternity parties.... DON'T GO!!! How difficult is that?

Don't whine that there is nothing else to do. Make your own entertainment. Sheesh.

12(b)(6)….

^^^ Well, their attorney looks like he's about 25.

This link has more information. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/...ue-yale-frats/

I

Yeah, he doesn’t even shave yet.

When the analyst said “this case is extremely complicated” I thought she said “this case is enormously knuckleheaded.” I’m thinking my first impression was right lol.

If there are fraternities who are amenable to the idea of going coed, why don’t they just turn in their charters and become a local group? If the school and the Greek system would say they’d support them, why not? It works at Dartmouth.

But I think these girls want to have their cake and eat it too - they don’t just want a coed organization, they want the big houses and what they perceive as networking opportunities.

I "sort of" get this. Having worked in New Haven, I can tell you that there is a very high crime rate - not so much in the immediate area of the Yale campus and town green, but go just a couple of blocks away and you're liable to be mugged, or worse. If you're unfamiliar with New Haven, and you're new to campus and haven't made a lot of friends yet, you might very well think that the only "safe" place to party is at a fraternity house near campus.

Then again, like you said, these freshmen most likely are living in dorms, so why not grab your roommates or the folks down the hall and go out for dinner or something? Obviously the freshmen wouldn't be able to get into bars, and I know nothing of the club scene in NH, but there are some pretty good restaurants near campus. Or find a TV show that a lot of people like, and host watch parties. If social activities other than fraternity parties "don't exist", take the initiative!

And if you look at the situation at Harvard, as I understand it, many of the men's groups (fraternities and finals clubs) are still men-only. It was the sororities that went coed or disbanded. If this lawsuit goes through, that very well might happen at Yale.

I'm guessing if forced to admit women the local chapters would shut down before allowing women?

Well according to this, Sig Ep invited women to rush the last 2 years.

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/...ents-to-women/

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/...-rushes-sigep/

What grinds my gears is the people saying “just let women in, who cares what your nationals say” and don’t get that the consequences are quite a bit more than “provoking” them. They don’t seem to understand that making that decision is a big deal. I know I kind of said that below, but only because it seemed some groups were looking to that route as well. There is a coed fraternity there already, so these women can’t argue the option doesn’t exist.

It really frosted my cake when the one plaintiff dismissed sororities as not having the same networking (read "old boys network") opportunities.

In my opinion, if they feel Yale hasn't addressed their repeated complaints about sexual assaults and misogynist/rude/hateful comments, file assault/harassment police reports. Don't sue to join the groups that you supposedly can't stand, because they have good parties and great networking opportunities. Start your own group and forge a new path with like-minded peers. Empower yourself. That's how sororities started. It makes me sad that they don't realize this/dismissed the journalist's suggestion.

If you look up the engender group in the Yale link, they sound like another group that wants to end all single gender organizations.

I did that - seems that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are officers in Engender.

I wonder if one of the fraternities would give their nice big fancy house to Engender if they would just go away and shut the hell up.

Sorry that sounds harsh, but to me this is nothing but whining that someone has something that you don’t. Guess what! Life is hard! The people who have been around a city or town or school the longest usually have the most and the best. I’m sorry but that’s a fact of life. If you didn’t want to go to school someplace full of traditions - some admittedly archaic - why on earth did you pick one of the oldest universities in the nation?

Unless there is some rule compelling students to live in campus housing unless they are Greek, find a house off campus, move a bunch of people into it, and create the living and social space you want, instead of trying to destroy someone else’s.

I wouldn't get too worried about this one. I can't imagine a theory that this case could succeed on. Any idiot can file a lawsuit for anything.

My husband went to Bowdoin which had a longstanding fraternity tradition. In the 1980s the chapters had to go coed or close. The coed chapters became "associates" of the national organizations. At the end of the 1990's the college closed all the fraternities citing that they led to a culture of exclusivity, etc. Last summer we happened to be in Brunswick when his chapter's alumni/house corporation had its annual meeting, so we attended. The president of the alumni assn. (a woman) told us that what happened was that "private" clubs have sprung up (facilitating partying) that are not regulated at all...... IMO the college did a great disservice when it went coed by not inviting NPC groups to join the Greek system. (Alpha Phi tried but the colony was not chartered.)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/evanger.../#1c4f02bd3516

"Understanding The Dueling Lawsuits Against Yale And Harvard Over Fraternities And Sororities"

Forbes article about the Yale and Harvard lawsuits. I only skimmed parts of the article (should have been grading papers), but my favorite part is:

"The plaintiffs claim that Yale should act more like Harvard, which has aggressively discouraged single sex social clubs by banning their members from leadership positions on campus among other sanctions. This brings us to the “rock and a hard place.” Yale is being sued for not acting more like Harvard, while Harvard is being sued by male and female students for, well, acting like Harvard. They want Harvard to end their sanctions against single gender organizations"

Did the colony not charter because of lack of interest or because of roadblocks the college put up?

What is this f***ery????

I'm hearing the Beastie Boys sing "you gotta fight for the right to party" as I type this. That's what it's all about. They don't want to go to dinner or watch TV. They want access to the best parties...which, apparently are an adult version of Megan's List, filled with sexual offenders. But they're mad because they're not invited. What the...and they might need to networking power fraternities offer, because GOING TO FREAKING YALE isn't going to offer them any networking opportunities.

Someone hired a lawyer for this. We've reached critical mass.

Me thinks they didn't get selected to go into said party and internalized it due to lookism, so now they're back with lawyers.

All of this wouldn't even be an issue if the drinking age was 18. These bitches could just go to the bar and leave everyone alone.

I would never let these girls in my bar...they’d probably sue for not having access to the liquor so they can make their drinks the way they want them.

What kills me is ...if they win...what do they really think it’s going to be like? Do they think they’ll be the most popular people in the history of Yale and every single white shoe employer is going to be beating a path to their door? Will there no longer be any crime, sexual assault, snobbery or unpleasantness because every single gathering on every single square inch of campus at every single minute will include all genders?

I’m sure that will be exactly it.

If they win, and all the organizations become co-ed...do they think they're getting a bid? Then, they will just have to sue then...again.

I will admit, I read AR's book. She was another one who seemed to think co-ed fraternities were the way to go. (Not putting them down, technically I was in one, but our particular chapter was all female). The example fraternity she used in her book- it was at an Ivy, can't remember which one, was filled with sex, drinking and partying, just like she claimed were the corrupting forces of single sex organizations. It's COLLEGE.

I wonder if now is the time to bring Alpha Phi Omega back. From what I understand, Alpha Phi Omega went inactive in an odd way. The chapter basically got eaten by its largest service project (spent all year preparing), Communiversity Day and eventually became an organization devoted to that (Yale Undergraduate Philanthropic Society).

I'm not saying that Alpha Phi Omega is equivalent to a social greek, but a push from some students to have co-ed greeks can't hurt Alpha Phi Omega expansion...

Oh hells no. It would get turned into a mouthpiece for “no single gender organizations” and the most important parts - leadership, friendship, service - would become secondary.

I think that Fence is taking the brunt of that. But the staff in the area would have a much better read than I.

This is correct. There are some nice sections of New Haven but it’s far too easy to end up in a rough section.

When I was in college there were a couple of fraternities that made me nervous. One had the reputation of being a "date rape" fraternity. Another one just felt aggressive. Guess what I did? I went elsewhere. Other girls didn't feel the same, so they partied with those houses plenty.

Because that's what you do at College. You find your niche and you enjoy yourself. This idea that the world is a comfortable place for all has GOT to end.

I'm not condoning the behavior of the fraternities, far from it. But give me a break. The culture of toxic masculinity does not begin and end around a fraternity charter on a college campus.

I truly don't understand why people outside of a greek system can't or are unwilling maximize those same opportunities through other organizations. It's not like you graduate and this network just opens up and hooks you right up with a career, house, spouse, 2.5 kids, white picket fence and a savings account. You still have to work it, greek or not.