Phi Kappa Psi at U of Virginia Voluntarily Suspends Activities

[honorgal]

Originally Posted by sugar and spice

I think the thing that Greeks don't really seem to understand yet is that the recent push for universities all over the country to take sexual assaults on campus seriously/be more proactive about them is going to have huge ramifications on the Greek system (even without stories like this one coming out, but it certainly doesn't help). Regardless of whether or not you believe the statistics are legit when they suggest that fraternity men are more likely to sexual assault someone than non-fraternity men--Greeks are a conspicuous target and one that is much easier to engage with on this issue than the college community as a whole, so they're going to be a linchpin in these discussions.

Already, the number of universities who have been willing this year to push these temporary bans into place suggest that schools are prepared to take more drastic steps than they previously had been, and that will continue to escalate as more and more of them are being held legally responsible for student deaths and assaults. The Greek community needs to show that it's open to taking steps to decrease the rates of campus sexual assaults if they want to have any chance of surviving over the next few decades--I don't think Greeks seem to understand how close some campuses are to a permanent ban or drastic reform of the system right now (UVA included, but they're certainly not the only ones). It's bizarre to me that so many people on this board seem incapable of recognizing that we're in the midst of a momentous change in campus culture right now, and that Greeks will suffer serious ramifications from it if they can't show that they're able to change along with it.

Have there been credible studies done to measure the difference in assault rates on campuses without a Greek system?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by honorgal

Have there been credible studies done to measure the difference in assault rates on campuses without a Greek system?

Studies have been done.. whether they are credible is up for debate.

[sugar and spice]

Originally Posted by honorgal

Have there been credible studies done to measure the difference in assault rates on campuses without a Greek system?

References to this study have been making the rounds in the news in the wake of the UVA article. It studied only one campus, so it's impossible to extrapolate those results to the Greek population at large, but its results are worrisome regardless. According to the author of that study, other studies have found similar results. (Another previous study found less of a link, but that study is almost 20 years old at this point, and things may have changed.)

The plus side of that first study is that it suggests that when fraternities are exposed to proper rape intervention programming, the rates of sexual assault decrease to be comparable with the rates of non-Greek students--so it seems fairly obvious that rape intervention/bystander intervention should be included in fraternities' new member ed programs as soon as possible (and it probably wouldn't hurt to add them to sororities', either). That's an easy, not-incredibly-expensive way to be proactive about the problem.

Originally Posted by TSteven

The legal folk should be able to address this.

Aren't there federal laws that state that the university must provide all students - regardless of sex - the right to equal campus activities? (I know the wording is off.) What I mean is, does a university that allows GLOs for one sex have to allow GLOs for the other sex? If so, then it seems that the university would not be able to ban male-only GLOs while allowin female-only ones.

Colorado has NPC sororities, but the only school-sanctioned fraternities there are cultural, right? They banned the IFC system around ten years ago (although it still continues to exist off-campus, obviously). If it was a legal problem, I imagine it would have come up at some point in the last ten years. Maybe the existence of cultural fraternities is enough to cover their asses legally? Don't know. Anybody who does, please weigh in.

Originally Posted by MysticCat

I think that depends on what we're talking about when we talk about rapes and sexual assaults for purposes of the comparison Kevin was drawing. Are we talking about any instance where alcohol abuse by both parties makes consent murkey or meaningless, or where consent is withdrawn? Or are we only talking about those instances where there is a deliberate and conspiratorial intent and plan to rape or assault, such as what has been described at UVA. I think when Kevin made the school shootings and terrorist attacks comparison, he was speaking only of the latter kinds of rapes and assaults, not date rape and the like.

Which is not say one is a problem and one isn't; not at all. But they're not exactly the same problem.

The UVA article included references to a study that suggested that the vast majority of those "murky" date-rape situations don't actually exist as such; in reality, they involve serial predators who prey on incapacitated women and then, if caught, paint the situation as a he said/she said misunderstanding in order to escape prosecution.

[honorgal]

Originally Posted by sugar and spice

References to this study have been making the rounds in the news in the wake of the UVA article. It studied only one campus, so it's impossible to extrapolate those results to the Greek population at large, but its results are worrisome regardless. According to the author of that study, other studies have found similar results. (Another previous study found less of a link, but that study is almost 20 years old at this point, and things may have changed.)

The plus side of that first study is that it suggests that when fraternities are exposed to proper rape intervention programming, the rates of sexual assault decrease to be comparable with the rates of non-Greek students--so it seems fairly obvious that rape intervention/bystander intervention should be included in fraternities' new member ed programs as soon as possible (and it probably wouldn't hurt to add them to sororities', either). That's an easy, not-incredibly-expensive way to be proactive about the problem.



Colorado has NPC sororities, but the only school-sanctioned fraternities there are cultural, right? They banned the IFC system around ten years ago (although it still continues to exist off-campus, obviously). If it was a legal problem, I imagine it would have come up at some point in the last ten years. Maybe the existence of cultural fraternities is enough to cover their asses legally? Don't know. Anybody who does, please weigh in.



The UVA article included references to a study that suggested that the vast majority of those "murky" date-rape situations don't actually exist as such; in reality, they involve serial predators who prey on incapacitated women and then, if caught, paint the situation as a he said/she said misunderstanding in order to escape prosecution.

Thanks for the links. I've read quite a bit of Lisak's research. (Last link). He's considered the gold standard. As you say, Lisak's conclusion is that a large majority of rapes are committed by serial rapists who use predatory behavior (vulnerability and/or alcohol) to facilitate their rapes. He also concludes that these predators are not amenable to education or "teaching them not to rape" and that there needs to be criminal prosecution and incarceration. He advocates that we teach the police and prosecutors how to do this effectively, by focusing not just on the small window of time during which the rape occurred, but by a thorough investigation of the accused.

So what specifically should authorities do differently in these cases?

It’s challenging. But if you just take the data we have on serial offending, one of the clearest implications of this is that whenever you receive a report of a nonstranger sexual assault, that is a window of opportunity. When a case initially comes to your attention, there may be complications or difficulties, maybe no good leads. But one of the investigative avenues needs to be a comprehensive investigation of the alleged offender, and not just putting blinders on looking solely on the alleged 45-minute interaction between these two people.

If someone comes to law enforcement and alleges someone is pushing drugs, you do not just walk up to the drug dealer and ask him, Are you selling drugs? And if he says no, then just throw up your arms. What we do is investigate that guy, to find out if he’s dealing drugs, find out where he hangs out, where he lives, who knows him, who he talks to, who doesn’t like him, all of those things. This is what detectives do every day. We don’t expect to solve a drug case like that by doing a couple of interviews and walking out with a slam dunk. But we don’t apply that sort of basic investigative procedure to these sexual assault cases.

The starkest data from my study and the Navy study is that in both, over 90 percent of all sex assaults are perpetrated by serial offenders. Every report should trigger an investigation of that alleged offender. Who is this guy? What is his background? Talk to people who know him. Find out where he hangs out. When investigators do that, you’d be amazed by how many leads emerge. Very often, what starts out as an investigation of a single incident turns into an investigation of multiple victims and multiple incidents.

There are also other cases that involve intoxicated (not incapacitated) consensual sex or hookup sex where the accused obviously feels victimized after the fact. I don't know what percentage they are, but they certainly do exist and I would be interested in opinions on how they should be dealt with by colleges and/or law enforcement. Interesting that no one has commented on the example I gave from Swarthmore.