U.S.
Sorority Anti-Rape Idea: Drinking on Own Turf
WASHINGTON
— Walking past some fraternity parties on the George Washington
University campus Saturday night, Sivan Sherriffe wondered about a
longstanding tradition at her school and colleges nationwide.
“I’ve
always thought, ‘Why aren’t there sorority house parties? There are
only frat parties,’ ” she said to a friend, Dania Roach, a fellow
senior. Ms. Roach replied: “I would definitely feel safer at a sorority
party. It’s the home-court advantage.”
For
decades, national sorority organizations have banned alcohol in their
houses. But as debate intensifies over how to address sexual assaults on
college campuses, many of them occurring at fraternity house parties,
some female students are questioning that rule, asserting that allowing
alcohol would give women — not just sorority members — the option to
attend Greek house parties that women control, from setting off-limits
areas to deciding the content of the punch. The move would by no means
eliminate sexual violence on campus, they said, but perhaps provide a
benefit.
“It’s this hard-and-fast rule that you take at face value, but it’s finally sort of surfacing,” said Martha McKinnon, a University of Michigan sophomore who lives in the Delta Gamma
house there. “It pushes us into the fraternities. The whole social
scene is embedded in the fraternity house, and makes us dependent on
them. I find this a dangerous scenario.”
The portion of campus sexual assaults that occurs during fraternity house parties is unknown, several experts said, but a 2007 study
financed by the Department of Justice found that women who frequently
attended fraternity parties were significantly more likely than others
to be sexually assaulted. Multiple studies
have found that students in fraternities were significantly more likely
to have committed rape than non-Greek men; heavy drinking by both
sexes, a characteristic of most fraternity parties, was also strongly
tied to the incidence of many forms of sexual assault.
Colleges
across the nation are grappling with allegations of sexual assault at
fraternity houses. Since September, authorities at California State University, San Marcos; Cleveland State; and Kansas
have investigated instances of sexual assault at fraternity parties.
Late last year, Brown University suspended a fraternity after a female
student drank punch spiked with a date rape sedative, after which she said she was sexually assaulted.
At Texas Tech, Phi Delta Theta was suspended
last fall for appearing to encourage rape with a “No Means Yes” banner,
and in 2013 at Georgia Tech, Phi Kappa Tau was suspended after a member
distributed an email titled “Luring your rapebait,” which ended, “I want to see everyone succeed at the next couple parties.”
At the University of Virginia, where a Rolling Stone article about a gang rape at a fraternity has been discredited, fraternities have nevertheless agreed to new limits
to how they serve alcohol, including serving beer only in cans and not
from kegs, requiring at least one fraternity member to be sober during
parties, and disallowing punch.
George Washington,
which has had no recent high-profile episodes, features a fairly
typical Greek presence: About a quarter of its 10,000 undergraduates
belong to 42 Greek organizations, many with rowhouses on the Northwest
Washington campus. While students have options for where to imbibe, from
dorm parties to off-campus bars, fraternities have a disproportionate
presence in campus social life, some students said, mostly because of
the free-flowing alcohol.
“It’s
what we know,” Ashley Alessandra, a freshman, said while walking to a
Kappa Alpha fraternity party with three friends on Friday night. “We go
to frats.”
Several
female students said fraternities often served alcohol to people who
were already drunk, had layouts and exits known to the male hosts but
not to the female guests, and often valued raucousness over
responsibility. Parties hosted by sororities, many suspect, would
probably be more tempered.
“I’ve
been to parties run by girls, and they’re much more protective — they
keep an eye on each other,” said Amber McLeod, a George Washington
junior. “At frat parties, it’s more of a hunting ground. Not all guys
are like this, of course, but sometimes it feels like the lions standing
in the background and looking at the deer. And then they go in for the
kill.”
Added Fielding Williams, a member of the Delta Chi
fraternity at Cornell: “It would change the party power. It would be
interesting to see how the date rape and so-called rape culture would
change when you put the alcohol in their space, and they can go upstairs
and lock the door and not have to wonder how to get out.”
Many
students attributed sororities’ alcohol ban to a persistent myth — that
archaic local laws consider any home with more than four or five women
with alcohol present to be a brothel. In fact, it has always resulted
from the voluntary policy of each of the 26 sororities in the National Panhellenic Conference to preserve more placid living environments with lower insurance premiums.
In
contrast to fraternity houses, sorority houses are generally unsuited
for serving alcohol to larger groups, said Kyle A. Pendleton, the
director of harm reduction and education for Zeta Tau Alpha,
one of the nation’s largest sororities, with 165 chapters. Mr.
Pendleton said that because sororities tended to be smaller and more
intimately decorated, members should hold events with alcohol at outside
venues like dance halls, which have trained bartenders, proper security
measures and liability insurance.
Sororities slash costs by banning alcohol. Cindy H. Stellhorn, a broker at MJ Insurance
in Indianapolis who handles policies for 19 national sororities,
estimated that policies cost $25 to $50 a year per sorority member.
Fraternity members pay about $160 apiece, according to the Fraternity Executives Association, largely because of accidents fueled by alcohol, like fights and people falling off roofs.
“The
insurance companies I deal with wouldn’t even consider taking the risk
of college students mixed with alcohol,” Ms. Stellhorn said. “That would
be perilously close to a men’s fraternity.”
Some
advocates and experts in sexual violence doubt that allowing alcohol at
sororities would significantly reduce campus incidents, and could
backfire by expanding the rampant underage drinking that leads to many
sexual assaults.
Antonia Abbey, a professor of psychology at Wayne State University,
said that so many sexual assaults had occurred away from fraternity
parties that colleges should improve educational programs and crack down
on all drinking, regardless of gender or venue.
Sarah Grossman, a Drake University junior who lives at the Kappa Kappa Gamma
house there, said: “I don’t think saying there should be more alcohol
is the solution to sexual assault. As women, have friends around you,
and don’t drink too much. Be safe. Be surrounded by people you know and
care about you.”
Added Kathryn Miller, a member of Delta Gamma at the University of Southern Mississippi:
“People would be more mindful of what they’re doing in a sorority
party, and there would definitely be someone chaperoning it, that’s for
sure. But there still could be sexual assault upstairs. When people are
under the influence, they’re going to do what they want to do. It can
happen anywhere, even in a sorority.”
An interesting case study exists at Dartmouth, where Sigma Delta,
a sorority with no national affiliation, does hold parties with alcohol
in its well-kept house. Events feature female bartenders, female
members at the doors and women designated to remain sober and monitor
the scene. A social chair at Sigma Delta, Molly Reckford, said that
female students routinely have said they preferred parties there rather
than at fraternities.
“Especially
younger girls feel much more comfortable coming to our sisters for help
if they need it, rather than men having almost all the power,” Ms.
Reckford said. “That dynamic is one of the key reasons fraternity
members feel so entitled to women’s bodies, because women have no
ownership of the social scene. You can’t kick a guy out of his own
house.”
Still,
women in sororities say the tradition will be hard to change. Julie
Johnson, an officer at the National Panhellenic Conference, said she
preferred to preserve the relative calm of sorority houses, and continue
to let fraternities assume the cost, risk and cleanup of house parties.
That
plan sounded just fine to a fraternity member, who declined to give his
name, outside the Kappa Alpha party at George Washington on Friday
night.
“It’s just the way it is,” he said. “We buy the alcohol, we serve the alcohol, they drink it. We all have a good time.”
