Now this is getting scary
 

Fraternities Lobby Against Campus Rape Investigations

The political arm for fraternities and sororities, known as FratPAC, is lobbying Congress to make it harder for colleges to investigate rape allegations

By David Glovin

College fraternities and sororities, concerned that students accused of sexual assault are treated unfairly, are pushing Congress to make it harder for universities to investigate rape allegations.

The groups' political arm plans to bring scores of students to Capitol Hill on April 29 to lobby for a requirement that the criminal justice system resolve cases before universities look into them or hand down punishments, according to an agenda reviewed by Bloomberg News.

"If people commit criminal acts, they should be prosecuted and they should go to jail,” said Michael Greenberg, leader of 241-chapter Sigma Chi, one of many fraternities participating in the legislative push.

The Fraternity & Sorority Political Action Committee, or "FratPAC,'' and two other groups will ask Congress to block colleges from suspending all fraternities on a campus because of a serious incident at a single house. In addition, the Greek representatives want a rule against "any mandate'' for chapters to go co-ed.

These Washington efforts come as colleges have shut fraternity chapters or required them to admit women after sex-assault allegations. Activists representing rape victims say that universities don't take complaints seriously. A new documentary, The Hunting Ground, singles out fraternities for creating an environment that enables assaults.

Yet there's a growing backlash from critics—including some Harvard and University of Pennsylvania law professors—who say university sexual-assault proceedings are stacked against the accused. The law professors urged the universities to adopt stronger protections for accused students facing campus tribunals.

The U.S. Education Department requires colleges to investigate complaints and discipline students found responsible for sexual assault. University disciplinary boards can take action, including suspensions or expulsions, far more quickly than courts and, unlike criminal proceedings, don't require a finding "beyond a reasonable doubt.'' To sanction a student, allegations must be found more likely than not to be true.

"Campus judicial proceedings'' should be deferred "until completion of criminal adjudication (investigation and trial),'' according to an e-mail sent to students selected to lobby for fraternities.

Joelle Stangler, the University of Minnesota student body president, said the fraternity groups' efforts are "extremely problematic.''

"Adjudication on campuses is incredibly important for victims and survivors, to make sure they receive some sort of justice,'' said Stangler, who has worked with a Minnesota advocacy group for sexual-assault victims.

Ten-year-old FratPAC, which has raised about $2.1 million in donations for congressional candidates, invites students every year to Capitol Hill to lobby for tax breaks for fraternity houses. In 2012, it fought against federal anti-hazing legislation.

Two other groups—the North-American Interfraternity Conference, which represents 74 national fraternities, and the National Panhellenic Conference, which represents 26 sororities—will join FratPAC's lobbying effort.

Fraternities and sororities are concerned about assailants going unpunished and victims lacking support services, as well as the rights of students facing a disciplinary process "that is not fair and transparent,'' said Washington lobbyist Kevin O'Neill, who is FratPAC's executive director, in a statement on behalf of the fraternity and sorority groups.

"Fraternities and sororities intend to be a leader in offering ideas for how Congress can provide a safe campus for all students,'' O'Neill said.

Along with activists, Greek groups will be taking on many college administrators, who say they need campus proceedings to keep potentially dangerous students off their campuses before criminal cases are resolved.

"Imagine a situation where a young women is sexually assaulted, and it has to go through the state judicial process,'' said Mark Koepsell, who heads the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors, which represents faculty and administrators. "Meanwhile, the alleged perpetrator is walking around campus.''

The Washington-based Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, a trade group, will oppose the Greek group's agenda.

"The criminal justice system has been a virtual failure in its ability to address sexual assault,'' said Kevin Kruger, president of the group. "It's a really, really, really bad idea.''

Jennifer Waller, executive director of the Association for Student Conduct Administration, which represents the staff of sexual-assault hearings, said the goal of campus proceedings is to weigh whether a student violated university rules, not the law. The accused has a right to present a defense, she said.

Dozens of men have filed lawsuits claiming they have been unfairly treated in campus hearings. Fraternity groups also point to cases of what they call a rush to judgment against Greek houses. University of Virginia suspended activity at all houses after Rolling Stone magazine published a since-discredited article in November claiming fraternity members had gang-raped a student. On Monday, police in Charlottesville, UVA's home, said they found no evidence supporting the Rolling Stone account and were suspending their investigation.

Beginning April 27 in Washington, the fraternity groups will provide two days of training to the student lobbyists, who will then split into small groups for visits with lawmakers and their aides. Members of congress, including recipients of FratPAC donations, will speak at its April 29 dinner.

In her summary of the Greeks' positions, Jennifer Kilian, director of member services for the interfraternity conference, said the student lobbyists will also call for more data and education about sexual assault and new prevention programs.

"Students and alumni participating in the Greek Hill visits will be lobbying on the unified position fraternities and sororities have adapted [sic] on Title IX issues,'' Kilian said, referring to the federal law that bans discrimination on the basis of gender, in an e-mail to those selected to lobby.

All these campus feminist extremists who are demanding that we bypass the criminal justice system for certain rapes and sexual assaults but not others...I think they need to "check their privledge".

Could not agree more! A rape or an assault by one member is tatamount to suspension of a whole chapter nor a Greek system.

So if a single independent student rapes someone should the whole student body be suspended? Or say in a town, should the whole town be razed?

Sounds funny that way doesn't it?

I'd say the other comparison would be with the various sports teams, such as Duke Lacrosse!

I don't understand the reference to Duke Lacrosse. The charges against it were found to be completely fabricated, totally bogus. Poor choice for a comparative.

The title and subtitle of the article Tom quoted is very incendiary. Although it's technically correct, it makes it sound like this PAC is just trying to interfere with sexual assault investigations… period. If I understand this correctly, their intent is to steer alleged victims through the established criminal justice system (which is obligated to follow due process) rather than have these charges be investigated and adjudicated by the university administration. I have mixed feelings about this, to be honest. I don't doubt that a university investigation is often unduly influenced by the desire to protect their brand and/or the desire to appease large donors (read: Greek alumni), but if my daughter were the one who was assaulted I would expect SOME sort of investigation by the university itself.

I welcome the perspective of the legal experts on this site.

I think it was very unwise for FSPAC to involve themselves in this issue right now. I get what they're trying to do, but there's no way in hell that it's going to be interpreted as anything other than wanting to make it easier for fraternities to cover up sexual assaults. We don't need to be adding that kind of fuel to the fire in the midst of the Oklahoma/Penn State/NCSU incidents.

The other things that they're working towards don't seem to be particularly productive uses of their time, either. The part about making it harder for campuses to suspend the entire Greek system in the wake of allegations against one group isn't a terrible idea, but it'll be impossible to enforce--Greek judiciary systems are always investigating multiple incidents at a time, and the administration will just be able to say, "We're not suspending the system for this one thing that happened, it's about all these other things that have happened recently too." And the "no forcing Greek organizations to go co-ed" thing sounds good in theory, but in reality campuses who want to eliminate single-sex organizations will find a loophole just like Wesleyan did--housed chapters can't be single-sex but unhoused ones can, etc.

Yes, they were fabricated, but the *initial* reaction of taking action against the *entire* team even though at most 5 members of the team were involved stands as a comparison to the situation with this charge. An entire organization having action taking against it for the actions of no more than 20% of its membership...

The headline here is just irresponsible.

I have over and over stated my case on this board as to why I believe Title IX investigations likely violate the civil rights of the accused (and the accused is not always guilty).

And of course the article makes some inflammatory (and wrong) statements such as "Activists representing rape victims say that universities don't take complaints seriously." Which activist said that? That's not a quote, that's just a "some people say."

For our groups not to be lobbying on these matters would be organizational malpractice. UVA was instructive. A false allegation of gang rape by a fraternity against a student resulted in the entire system being penalized. We're looking at a similar situation at Penn State where Greek Life is being "reevaluated." Some schools have forced fraternities to go co-ed.

Some of these quotes are taken from some absolutely clueless individuals, such as:

That victim of domestic violence, as far as I know, in all 50 states and Washington D.C. is going to qualify for some sort of restraining order through her local courthouse which will require the perp to stay away from her and have no contact with her, or else, face criminal penalties. If those faculty and administrators don't know enough about their jobs to steer victims in that direction, they are grossly incompetent.

Ultimately, the Oklahoma/Penn State/NCSU incidents are sexy stories with good video and racially/sexually inflammatory situations which get people up in arms. That sells. A story about lobbyists lobbying? Yawn. No one is going to care.

Wesleyan is private, so they can do what they want to do. Suspending entire systems for the actions of one or a few violates the hell out of due process unless there is some notice and an opportunity for a hearing, which in UVA's case or in the case of Oklahoma SAE, I don't think there was either of those things (although in both cases, there are other factors which tend to indicate no one has much of a case).

The problem as I see it, and why schools might want to punish entire chapters for the actions of a few is because of a real or perceived culture of acceptance of these behaviors. So ABC fraternity has a few guys who commit a heinous assault on an innocent young lady. OK, the chapter shouldn't be punished. But really, did they do it because of a fraternity culture that this behavior is accepted, even honored by the brothers? Maybe, maybe not. But it's worth investigating and throwing the book at the damn lot of them if it's found to be true. The only way to nip this culture (that appears to me to have gotten worse over the last decade, or is it just more widely publicized?) is to make its punishment so over the top that fraternities will teach its members to behave correctly, even if it is merely to save their own skin, and god forbid because they should treat women with dignity and respect.

From what I've seen, organizations tend to police themselves better than schools do. I can only speak for my own organization, but I know that if, for example, the above hypothetical was to occur at my chapter, unless we were reporting everything we knew to law enforcement, the school's Title IX department and the general fraternity and seeking to immediately terminate the offending member(s)' membership, we'd quickly have our charter revoked.

On the other hand, let's look at the UVA case. The organization could not have expected to be doing anything before the school took unilateral action because nothing had in fact happened.

Had the events transpired and the alleged victim reported what she claimed happened to the police and the university put its action on hold as FratPac suggests, it would have avoided becoming the go-to example for university overreach. As schools start to react more strongly, we are starting to see a need for federal law to protect us from overreaching universities who would deprive us of our due process and free association without so much as a hearing.

You must have missed the part where it garnered a decent bit of mainstream news coverage and was fairly poorly received.

Sometimes I feel like you don't even read the things you respond to. None of the things you said addressed any of the things I said in any way.

Yup. CSUN didn't suspend their entire system because the actions of one chapter lead to a pledge's death. They did it because they've been ignoring a culture of hazing in all or most of their fraternities for years and now the pledge's death is forcing them to do something about it. Clemson didn't suspend their system because of one pledge's death, they suspended it because one pledge's death drew attention to the fact that their system was rife with hazing and sexual assault allegations. UVA didn't suspend their system because the RS article alleged one rape; it suspended it because the article suggested (truthfully or not, who knows at this point) that the UVA Greek system was rife with uninvestigated sexual assaults. None of these shut-downs happened because of "one incident."

I don't necessarily think suspending the entire system is the fix to system-wide drinking/hazing/rape cultures, and it's certainly not going to change much of anything if it's not followed up with other steps. But that's sort of irrelevant to the fact that even if FSPAC manages to successfully lobby for a law change, it's not going to stop these kinds of shut-downs from happening. They aren't happening because of one incident, and the schools will easily be able to prove it.

So what is wrong with requiring the school to provide notice and an opportunity for some sort of hearing before taking that action? It certainly would help make investigations go more smoothly as the school could potentially exclude some groups where there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. These suspensions aren't meaningless. They can cost organizations entire pledge classes, which in some cases can mean serious lost revenue for our organizations.

It is not enough to leave this nuclear option on the table because rape culture.

If shutting entire systems down can throw into question a school's reception of federal dollars, it sure as hell might think twice.

Then make them prove it. That's all I want.

Nice post Kevin and you are correct!

But this last year there seems to be so many problems across the organizations and schools that it is raising so many eye brows. I have said many times, we are our own worst enemis and we need to clean up our own mesases asap.

Mediam and small organizations cannot afford to lose to many chapters or there could be mergers in the future to sirvive at all. One reason is that those nationals cannot afford to play watch dog over chapters, ergo they feel they can do things against national rule and get away with it.

Within the last 5-10 years there have been more laws enacted about greeks than ever before. How long can it be before there are national laws?

If you are an Alum working with your chapter remind them all of the time that they reflect on the whole greek world.