<p>Yeah, I guess. I wish I knew the solution. </p>
<p>I think the important thing is that schools are just now even admitting this is a huge problem. They are being forced into it, but still they are. </p>
<p>We can’t think we’ve been trying to solve a problem when what we’ve done is spend decades pretending we didn’t have a problem. Now that we know, maybe we can start to fix it instead of covering it up. </p>
<p>My daughter did some required alcohol education as an entering freshman. I don’t know what material was presented to them. But we all know that these kids think they are so mature because they’ve just turned 18 and they aren’t inclined to listen to lecturing by real adults. Fitting in with the college crowd and proving their independence by violating a few adult rules is what they care about. So I’d like to see a video made with these women–their peers–telling their stories being required viewing for entering freshmen. I think that might change some attitudes a lot more than any lecturing by old people who they think don’t know anything.</p>
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<p>Perhaps more analogous is noting that a certain part of town is a high crime area, but only on certain blocks. After all, the set of fraternities as a whole is probably a high crime area (serving alcohol to underage people, involuntary drug use, drunken fights, sexual assaults and rapes, etc.), but mainly in specific “animal” houses. It does seem strange that many people will tell people to always avoid entire neighborhoods or cities that are “high crime” even though the crime is localized to specific sections, but oppose warning new frosh at colleges about the risks of crime at fraternity parties.</p>
<p>I don’t know. I think these kids ALREADY get a lot of alcohol and sexual assault warnings and trainings and signing this code and that – far more than in my day, which was to say absolutely nothing. </p>
<p>But on behalf of the “good” fraternities whose members wouldn’t dream of doing these things, it’s more than a little offensive to have your university come out with a video warning against you, suggesting that you are up to no good. </p>
<p>I don’t think the problem is we need to spend more time on alcohol and assault awareness.</p>
<p>The problem at this point, is we need some supervision in place and some responsiveness. We need the adults on campus to stop with the charade. The truth is we need the idea of objectifying women to become as abhorent to young men as the idea of racism has become in our culture. </p>
<p>Men rape when they don’t see women as people. Men cover for their friends for the same reason.</p>
<p>Men who see women as people don’t do this. </p>
<p>Look, rape is a hate crime. It’s not sex. Men who beat up gay men often also rape them. It’s a hate crime and it has nothing to do with sex. But, nobody thinks beating up a gay guy is a “normal” thing to do any more. Nobody thinks it’s normal to be in the KKK, and we need to get to the point where the healthy men begin to understand that these animals are NOT like them. </p>
<p>Education on the tiny percentage of men responsible for serial rapes is highly effective. It helps these young men to understand that this is not some thing that is happening with normal guys. It’s something done by sex offenders, predators.</p>
<p>Bystander prevention is the best cure. But the young men need to be on board. And the adminstrations need to stop CYA and address the problem when it happens.</p>
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<p>What do you have in mind? Cameras in dorm rooms?</p>
<p>ucb,
Maybe fraternities are not actually the “high crime” areas on campus, since 90% of rapes occur elsewhere. It would be helpful to know where those other locations are on each campus. </p>
<p>Those who coerce others into sex, escalating to rape, do so with those they feel they can get away with what they are doing. Very few UVA grads, if any, are doing time for rape, have done time for rape. Given how many are raping (and I am just using UVA as an example because it’s on the hot seat right now), and given the stats for how many are serial rapists out there in a closed community of that size, you would thing they’d get caught eventually, would’t you? I don’t know a single grad of my school getting charged, much less convicted of rape. So is this a fleeting thing? </p>
<p>It’s not a freshman problem, or a college problem, It’s a problem everywhere. I think we are making some movement in the right direction. We are taking some of the stigma away from it. But we aren’t close to where we should be. </p>
<p>Most students are 18 when they go to college. They are adults. No supervision for adults. They could be sent to war, as some have gone. We have raised the drinking age because too many of them were killing themselves and others beyond what the stats show would be average for a given 3 year age grouping. That protects them a bit there, though how strictly we enforce this, how much regard people have for that rule is up in the air. It did bring the numbers down, however.</p>
<p>A big first step would be colleges pushing student waivers of info flow to parents and having that as a forefront issue instead of something parents need to seek out. Make it easy. Another would be to mandate reporting of rape, just as one would any other crime that occurs. It’s up to LE, not any university official, student, whoever to decide if the case should be pursued. So if someone reports a rape, the phone should be picked up and LE notified. Counseling services and with student waiver of info flow to parents, parents notified so that they can decide what they want to pursue. Rape counseling for victim and disciplinary venues for the perps. Again, I don’t give it a pass when it comes to insufficient evidence, but it will be put on record that someone so accused the student. Heck, if a prof accuses a student of cheating, it goes on record, doesn’t it? Whether the kid did it or not, there is a process. That the schools are giving rape less attention is ridiculous. </p>
<p>@Pizzagirl, the problem is that these young women don’t understand that not all fraternities are “good”. So, either they get told by sources they may believe or we just throw them to the wolves. We know how well that’s working.</p>
<p>I also don’t understand why it’s controversial to expect student organizations not to violate the law. </p>
<p>I agree with cptofthehouse. Nothing is likely to change until offenders or more appropriately, criminals, face consequences for their actions. Since there seems to be some conflict of interest in pursuing offenders for the colleges, it should be taken out of their hands. Mandatory reporting to LE of any reported offense. Like people in certain professions are obligated to report suspected child abuse. It’s really too bad that the friend who initially wanted to take the young lady in the UVA case to the hospital didn’t prevail because by the description of what happened it seems like there would have been ample physical evidence to pursue charges, including dna evidence. I don’t think anything is going to change until some of these offenders start landing in jail.
Anybody else creeped out by the idea that men who have perpetrated these crimes then graduate from college, likely get decent jobs and get married and have families and then are raising children? Ick!</p>
<p>Wife this morning: Did you read that horrible article about UVA, and the one about hazing at Dartmouth? Why do we have fraternities, and what would make people want to join? Which schools that S is applying to DON’T have fraternities?</p>
<p>These activities are going to negatively impact admissions to certain schools, which may, ultimately, force administrations to take firm action.</p>
<p>“Why we have fraternities” is that for the majority of students who participate, they are benign to good organizations. The stuff that is described at UVA is so far removed from my actual experience in the Greek system, it’s like talking about another planet. </p>
<p>But, really, Pizzagirl, why do we have a greek system in this day and age? They are elitist and segregate different groups within a college community. People like to point out the charitable work done by fraternities and sororities, but the greek organizations don’t have a monopoly on charitable work. Many colleges exist with zero greek life and do so just fine. How about those kids that can’t afford greek dues? </p>
<p>Yes, @Pizzagirl, and the allegations described at the fraternity at UVa do not jive with my son’s experiences at another UVa fraternity. Issues about sexual misconduct, Title IX are evolving over time at many colleges (and will continue to do so at UVa given the current activism there). Here are some of the policies already in place. It will be interesting to see what will change in the coming months. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/sexualviolence/”>http://www.virginia.edu/sexualviolence/</a>
<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/justreportit”>http://www.virginia.edu/justreportit</a>
<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/justreportit/sexualmisconduct/students/”>http://www.virginia.edu/justreportit/sexualmisconduct/students/</a></p>
<p>I am glad the allegations are finally going to be investigated by the police. </p>
<p>Post #488. bravo! And thank you.</p>
<p>Test results from the fraternity death at SUNY Genesco show cocaine and fentanyl. </p>
<p><a href=“Drugs involved in SUNY Geneseo death”>http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2014/11/26/alex-davis-suny-geneseo/19527695/</a></p>
<p>I could probably post an article every single day about a college student dying in an incident not related to fraternities. Should we just ban college?</p>
<p>Is there a pattern involved and a chance that these other deaths are preventable?</p>
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<p>Could you post an article every single day about a student dying <em>in an accident that was preventable</em> and not related to fraternities? Nope. Students die of cancer and falling off horses and the flu and meningitis, but none of those sad events are relevant to the present discussion. </p>