Wesleyan Mandates Residential Fraternities Become Co-Ed

[33girl]

LMAO at how the article is illustrated with a picture of a sorority house.

I also don't get how schools think women living with men is going to prevent sexual assault.

[archangel689]

I doubt a group could get away with initiating females at one college and no where else. Nationals worry about law suits regarding females suing for membership. Other groups will worry that those law suits would affect them as well. I think this is a politically correct way of telling them they're not allowed to be there at all. This is an outright ban, without actually coming out and saying it.

If this Roth guy thinks that this will end any other way, he's out of his mind.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by archangel689

I doubt a group could get away with initiating females at one college and no where else. Nationals worry about law suits regarding females suing for membership. Other groups will worry that those law suits would affect them as well. I think this is a politically correct way of telling them they're not allowed to be there at all. This is an outright ban, without actually coming out and saying it.

If this Roth guy thinks that this will end any other way, he's out of his mind.

Actually, the Psi Upsilon chapter wouldn't have any problem. Psi Upsilon is local option and there are several co-ed chapters. It is DKE that would have to give up housing and become an unhoused single sex fraternity and I believe that there are others at Wesleyan that are in that state.

[Low D Flat]

I also don't get how schools think women living with men is going to prevent sexual assault.

The theory is that the culture of the organization changes when there are female members, and it won't promote sexual assault the way it did before. Individual psychopaths will still do their thing, but they won't be getting trained in sexual assault by older members.

I don't know if there's any data about how that works or doesn't work to change culture. It's hard for me to imagine a co-ed group instructing its pledges to chant "No means yes, yes means anal" the way a male fraternity did down the road at Yale. But who knows?

[thetalady]

Originally Posted by Low D Flat

The theory is that the culture of the organization changes when there are female members, and it won't promote sexual assault the way it did before. Individual psychopaths will still do their thing, but they won't be getting trained in sexual assault by older members.

I don't know if there's any data about how that works or doesn't work to change culture. It's hard for me to imagine a co-ed group instructing its pledges to chant "No means yes, yes means anal" the way a male fraternity did down the road at Yale. But who knows?

You know what?? Collegiate women are NOT there to teach idiot fraternity boys what is acceptable and what is not.

[pinksequins]

Hmmmm. The calibre of the self-professed "investigative" journalism of the linked article is called into question when the headline reads "Colleges Forcing Fraternities to Accept Women ..." And the accompanying picture is of a sorority house... :/

[Low D Flat]

Collegiate women are NOT there to teach idiot fraternity boys what is acceptable and what is not.

From the point of view of the college, all the students are there to teach all the others. That's the purpose of a residential college, especially a highly selective one where they're hand-picking each student to bring something to the class. This college thinks that a group of its students are isolating themselves in a way that's reinforcing their worst instincts, and it doesn't want to support that any more. I don't know if the change will work, but it is logical.

[PeppyGPhiB]

I'd rather my sorority pull charters than initiate men at respective chapters. If that's the way colleges want it, so be it. They can face any consequences of their decisions. I would hope male fraternities would do the same.

[WhiteRose1912]

Would this be a situation where the national organizations don't really care if the campus doesn't recognize the chapters and keep the chapters running regardless?

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB

I'd rather my sorority pull charters than initiate men at respective chapters. If that's the way colleges want it, so be it. They can face any consequences of their decisions. I would hope male fraternities would do the same.

False equivalence. Allowing women to have spaces of their own is not the equivalent of allowing men to have spaces of their own.

[maconmagnolia]

If fraternities and sororities start allowing members of the opposite sex to join, then WHAT is the point?! Ugh.

[KDMafia]

Do they have to let women join? or do they just have to allow women to live there as well?

[33girl]

Originally Posted by KDMafia

Do they have to let women join? or do they just have to allow women to live there as well?

It sounds like they have to let women live there as well.

Honestly, if they don't want fraternities, I'd rather they just did away with them and went full out on these dumb "living learning communities."* I'd hate to be the person who applied or worse, went to this school thinking they had Greek life and got this bastardized version of it.

*Friends and I were talking a few weeks back about how their kids' schools are sorting people in the dorms by major, interest, etc. I can't imagine anything more awful. Who wants to meet nothing but carbon copies of yourself? These kids are never going to get anywhere in life if they never are forced out of their comfort zones.

[Sciencewoman]

I'm curious...I thought sororities and fraternities have a Title IX exemption that allows them to remain single sex (see link). Sooooo, couldn't Deke challenge this edict? I seem to remember that Psi U already has (a) coed chapter(s).

http://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/titleix.htm

[33girl]

It's up to the school to recognize them or not. Nothing compels the school to recognize.

Honestly, there are lots of things that happen that are illegal and infringing on rights, but when it comes down to threats of expulsion it's pretty hard to ask a 21 year old to be the poster child for free association.