TRIGGER WARNING: The following discusses the issue of sexual assault at Wesleyan and may be triggering for some readers.
At the present time, there is an unprecedented political atmosphere on campus that affords our community a tremendous opportunity to take meaningful and effective action to combat campus sexual assault: co-educate and drastically reform our campus’s three all-male residential fraternities or forbid them use of their residential facilities.
This action has long been necessary, and in pursuit of this action there are a few facts that require illumination:
1. Institutional structures matter.
2. Dozens of sexual assaults will likely be perpetrated on our campus before the end of this semester, not the one or two reported assaults that will appear in our Clery statistics.
3. Because fraternities are male-exclusive and the possessors of some of our campus’s largest party spaces, they explicitly and implicitly cultivate a gender-based power dynamic that privileges men, the hosts, over women, who are among the guests. This power dynamic engenders sexual assault because women are institutionally encouraged to “repay” men for their hospitality, often with sex, and men are institutionally provided with a control over their guests, especially women.
4. Objectification of women and goal-oriented language around sex undermine the importance of consent in our campus culture and promote an environment in which sexual assault is acceptable. Although rape culture exists all over campus, it is particularly reinforced by the institutional structures of fraternities.
5. The co-education of the residences is insufficient to effect meaningful change. The societies themselves must substantially co-educate, affording equal privilege and control to individuals of all genders, in order to eliminate the gender-based power dynamics by which sexual assault is promoted within fraternities. Moreover, drastic and continuous reform to practices and culture within fraternities is needed to adequately address the rape culture they explicitly or implicitly endorse.
6. We understand that such action will not eliminate sexual assault at Wesleyan. No single action will do so. Consent training and bystander intervention training for fraternity members will not do so. More co-hosted events will not do so. More party patrolling will not do so. However, we reject a course of inaction simply because action is imperfect.
7. We understand that rape culture is present—and sexual assault is perpetrated—outside of fraternities. This does not negate the complicity of fraternities in supporting rape culture. Moreover, as institutions, fraternities are manipulable in ways that the intangibility of rape culture is not.
8. We understand that Wesleyan University, its campus, and its culture are different from other colleges, universities, and their campuses and cultures. This does not negate the applicability of a broad range of studies conducted nationally which explicitly link fraternities and high rates of sexual assault.
9. We understand that not all sexual assault is perpetrated by men against women; nevertheless the vast majority of sexual assault is perpetrated by men. Thus the particularly exclusively male nature of fraternities matters in a way that Wesleyan’s all-female Program Houses’ exclusively female nature does not.
10. We understand that fraternities offer opportunities for men to bond and join a broader community of peers, provide valuable community service and support, hold and support admirable values, and are capable of reform. Fraternities are not the only campus organizations which offer such opportunities, but moreover these positives do not negate the fact that fraternities contribute to sexual assault on campus, and must reform.
11. We understand that Wesleyan’s Greek societies, including the three all-male residential fraternities, have made valuable and admirable efforts to address sexual assault and their contributions to rape culture. This does not preclude the immediate need for further and drastic reform, including meaningful co-education of Wesleyan’s residential fraternities, to eliminate gender-based power dynamics and address the rape culture that fraternities explicitly or implicitly promote.
With these facts in mind, we strongly urge Wesleyan University to seize this opportunity for action. We cannot support the official validation of organizations and spaces which institutionally perpetuate sexual assault.
We urge the University to redact its current endorsements of male-exclusive residential Program Houses by delivering an ultimatum to its three all-male residential fraternities: these fraternities must either choose to co-educate and drastically reform their societies to be welcoming and safe organizations and spaces for students of all genders, or choose to lose all affiliation with Wesleyan University and be forbidden use of their residential facilities.
Signed,
Andrew Trexler ’14, Mari Jarris ’14, Chloe Murtagh ’15, Olivia Horton ’14, Alton Wang ’16, Anya Morgan ’14, Sarah Lerman-Sinkoff ’14, Benny Docter ’14, Eero Talo ’16, Brendan O’Donnell ’14, Lily Herman ’16, Danny Blinderman ’14, Sophia Massey ’15, Ryden Nelson ’16, Lynn Ma ’16, Ashe Kilbourne ’14, Chris Martinson ’14, Aileen Yeung ’14, Shivani Kochhar ’14, Ben Jacobs ’14, Julia Vermeulen ’15, Natalie Robichaud ’14, Matt Fine ’15, Isadora Dannin ’14, Max Seppo ’14, Michael Massone ’14, Ethan Hoffman ’14, Olivia May ’14, Aron Chilewich ’14, Emily Greenspan ’16, Yael Horowitz ’17, Abigail Friedland ’17, Hannah Ryan ’16, Rachel Kaly ’17, Bruno Machiavelo ’16, Jacob Seltzer ’17, Nicole Updegrove ’14, Nicki Softness ’14, Emily Sannini ’14, John Ludlow ’14, Mike Greenwald ’16, Bulelani Jili ’16, Samuel Leiva ’16, Eva Ravenal ’15, Sadasia McCutchen ’17, Dana Leib ’14, Aletta Brady ’15, Richard Fessler ’15, Zacko Brint ’16, Alma Sanchez-Eppler ’14, David Whitney ’16, Catherine MacLean ’14, Dan Storfer ’15, Adriana Brau-Diaz ’16, Arthur Halliday ’16, Nina Stender ’16, James Carter ’14, Alicia Gansley ’15, Deren Ertas ’16, Carolyn Tusa ’14, Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein ’15, Will Wiebe ’14, Lillian Holman ’15, Michael Migiel-Schwartz ’14, Emily Hoge ’15, Mao Misaki ’15, Chazelle Rhoden ’15, Olayinka Lawal ’15, Ibironke Otusile ’15, Monique Siaw ’16, Dara Robinson ’15, Julia Báez Valentín ’14, Jackie Soro ’14, Nisha Grewal ’17, Jay Benedith ’14, Esi Quagrainie ’14, Juliana McLain ’14, Morgan Scribner ’16, Arnelle Williams ’17, Katherine Cohen ’14, Aliya Lyons ’17, Marieme Diouf ’17, Opraha Miles ’14, Daniella Martinez Jimenez ’17, Trinity Russell ’17, Caroline MacNeille ’16, Savannah Turner ’16, Cherkira Lashley ’15, Quinta Jurecic ’15, Etenish Abebe ’17, Mariana Quinn-Makwaia ’14, Zoe Toulouse ’16, Lizzy Elliot ’16, Talia Baurer ’15, Vanessa Carvajal ’14, Kanaiza Imbuye ’17, Lauren Nadler ’14, Ella Lindholm-Uzzi ’17, Jessica Seidman ’16, Rachel Sobelsohn ’17, Tanaya Srini ’15, Ariane Turley ’15, Mariama Eversley ’16, Josh Krugman ’14, Michael Linden ’15, Wyatt Hodgson ’14, Kota Uno ’16, Siri Carr ’15, Neo Sora ’14, Raphael Linden ’15, Cynthia Tong ’14, Laura Brown ’17, Adam Watson ’14, Charlie Kaplan ’14, Becca Caspar-Johnson ’15, Dana Louie ’15, Hibiki Mizuno ’15, Evan Keyes ’14, Michael Sheldon ’17, Abby Cunniff ’17, Eli McClintock-Shapiro ’17, Alexandra Stovicek ’17, Jennifer Siranosian ’17, Adam Ruth ’17, Nick Murphy ’16, Tessa Houstoun ’17, Sally Rappaport ’17, I. 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