Dartmouth sororities announce new policy
 

http://thedartmouth.com/2011/05/12/news/sororities

Sorority presidents agreed to boycott fraternity house if a member assaults a female student and no internal adjudication is taken.

I read the article; more importantly, I read the comments below the article. Just as I suspected, there's way more to this story than meets the eye.

I'm thinking the same thing.

I wonder if there was inspiration from The Trojan Women.

I like that these women are organizing about something that is important, but I'm not comfortable with dictating how another organization handles their business by not socializing with them.

Why is it only assault against women? Why not assaults against anyone? I wouldn't want to hang out with people who are violent and throwing bottles regardless of the gender of the target or victim.

I like the idea behind it/unified NPC community it attempts to create

Yeah, Hitler created a unified community too. (I know I just Godwined the thread. I'm tired and don't care.) If the fraternity is that bad overall, women will stop going there without a Panhel mandate. Unless I knew the parties involved and/or had personally witnessed the incident...sorry, but bull shit. I'll hang out with whomever I want.

And I don't know why anyone is mentioning "sexual assault" unless there's some kind of kinky new water sport where you throw drinks in people's faces.

Not only that...if this guy's a member of the Class of 2011 isn't he graduating like, um, now?

You nailed it!!

LOL.

I agree with VandalSquirrel and 33girl.

From the article (emphasis added): "The sorority presidents’ Wednesday decision was influenced by the public act of violence that occurred at the fraternity in question on Saturday, Levin said. The fraternity had not informed the sorority presidents of any actions taken against the male student since the incident, according to Levin."

I appreciate the symbolic nature of sororities uniting together; however, this bolded part really bothers me. A GLO should never "inform" sorority [or fraternity] presidents of internal investigations or sanctions. This is a slippery slope with which I am not comfortable, not only from a PR and internal governance perspective, but potentially from a legal one as well. And, what are the sororities going to do if they don't agree with the results or sanctions (or lack thereof) of the internal investigation? It turns it from an internal investigation into a Greek community one...

Well, while it leaves much to be desired, I think it's definitely a good thing that the Greeks are taking active and public steps to combat sexual assault within their community. That goes for both fraternities and sororities as it's fairly obvious that educating only one side gets us nowhere.

Update on story:
Fraternities to review bylaws and include a clause about assaults.

"Panhellenic does not intend to dictate exactly what the fraternities' bylaws include, but rather ensure that they are 'proportional to the crime,' Levin said"

http://thedartmouth.com/2011/05/13/news/policy

From the article

Quote:

The organizations also agreed to review and possibly revise bylaws of each individual Greek organization to ensure that internal adjudication procedures are in place to address incidents of assault, Sandmeyer said.

I'll be damned if a council tries to change my particular GLO's bylaws. How our business is handled isn't a concern of other GLOs.

I applaud everyone for trying to take a stand, but this is getting too Big Brother-esque.

Exactly, k_s. Discipline is internal. We do not have all the facts in this situation, and I will say this: stay the **** out of my chapter's bylaws. It is no one's business but our own. Finished.

But it's not like they're holding them at gunpoint. Sororities can socialize with whomever they choose to socialize with. If they all agree that they don't want to socialize with a certain fraternity because of the way the fraternity operates, then that's their prerogative. The fraternity doesn't HAVE to change, they just have to change if they want to continue having socials.

It's not like they're working with the school and saying "you'll be kicked off campus if you don't change your bylaws."