<p>I really don’t tend to lead with the statistic. I don’t think it’s the important thing. I do think the statistic of the number of young women being discouraged from reporting by Colleges is relevant, if only to the population on this board. the tendency to act as if getting raped after a few drinks is your own fault is the new mini skirt. Can you imagine someone saying, “Well, he shouldn’t have been in the bars that night if he didn’t want to get mugged. If he hadn’t been drinking or been at that bar or party, he never would have been beaten up.”</p>
<p>heck, even in the cases of hazing crimes, nobody says, “Well, he shouldn’t have pledged a frat if he didn’t want to get hazed and drink himself to death.” They say, “Jeez. What needs to be done to protect these freshman boys?”</p>
In fairness, I think people defending fraternities do often say something like that. In particular, they often say, “If he didn’t want to be hazed, why didn’t he just walk away?”</p>
<p>The school does not say that. The police do not say it. The media does not say it. The courts do not say it. the nationals do not say it. The culture does NOT say that a man joining a fraternity should be aware he might be signing up to be hazed. They say it’s illegal. They prosecute. They close the organization.</p>
<p>They don’t do this when a woman is raped there, though. </p>
Occasionally. I think it’s likely that hazing is also a vastly underreported crime.</p>
<p>Is it better for sexual assault to be unique, or is it better to think of it as we do other crimes?</p>
<p>I think one issue here is whether the focus should be on catching and prosecuting criminals, or persuading people not to commit the crime. With respect to hazing, it seems to me that much of the focus has been on getting Greek organizations to stop doing this–to persuade them, both from principle and from threat of punishment. I think a lot of the discussion of campus rape presupposes that rapes can be reduced by persuading men not to commit rape–but is this true? I think it depends on who is committing the rapes. If they are being perpetrated by sociopathic serial rapists, persuasion won’t work–although maybe a greater risk of discovery and punishment will help.</p>
<p>I tend to think that training in bystander responsibility may be the most important element, because it could protect against all kinds of nonconsensual sex, whether done by a serial rapist or by a couple of drunk people. It’s worth noting that in the HWS case in the NYTimes article, a friend did attempt to prevent the situation, by telling the woman that she shouldn’t go off alone with the accused person (but she went anyway). He also later went looking for her. Perhaps he should have done more, but what?</p>
<p>On a different evidentiary point about the HWS case: when I read the article, my first reaction was that this has to be rape, because of the situation of the woman having sex with multiple men–it seems unlikely that this is consensual. But it occurred to me that I don’t know if this is evidence one way or the other about consent, because I don’t know if it is frequent or rare for women to consensually have sex with multiple men in situations like this. This is a frequent problem with evidence–something that may seem to be obviously rare may not be.</p>
<p>Poetgrl nailed it, imo: "heck, even in the cases of hazing crimes, nobody says, “Well, he shouldn’t have pledged a frat if he didn’t want to get hazed and drink himself to death.” They say, “Jeez. What needs to be done to protect these freshman boys?”</p>
<p>First thing I thought of was the case “The Accused” was based on. Gang rape on a pool table, bystanders not intervening (with the modern addition of freaking cell phone cameras and video being taken by those bystanders). </p>
<p>I have to say @consolation that it is so excellent that Dartmouth has decided to pay attention and get in the prevention business. This is what happens when a school listens and decides to become a change agent. And, it was the girls at the school, and I’m sure the men who supported them, insisting on this which is making such a difference. Similar groups are starting at H and Y and P, etc… But, clearly D will lead in this.</p>
<p>You are completely wrong about this. Yes, the culture does say that a man signed up for a fraternity should expect to be hazed. Unless someone actually dies, schools basically will not do anything. And that’s basically what it takes to change anything. About 5 years before I got to my college, a couple of students wrote to the president and various administrators about the extreme hazing they experienced. Some of these issues were noted in the evaluation of the fraternity system, but in the end they decided to do nothing. Those same students predicted that someone would have to die before the system got changed at all. </p>
<p>Hunt is also correct on his point that frat members that end up getting hazed don’t come forward. But one of the reasons they don’t report it is because the <em>culture</em> is that getting hazed is no big deal. </p>
<p>When a freshman boy died of intoxication in a pledge drinking ritual at my school, there were a chorus of voices that didn’t draw any distinction between a pledge drinking requirement and drinking on one’s own. Even the president of the university said that. Trust me–most blame the kid because they think drinking is fun and therefore “hazing” just means drinking too much at an out-of-control party. People acknowledge that the fraternity is “out-of-control,” but they usually don’t understand the partial loss of free will that comes with being in the subordinate position in an organization.</p>
<p>I am fairly sure that many of the steps they mention, such as bystander training, were put in place BEFORE last year’s decline in applications. The broad-based coalition addressing drinking certainly was. The rule forbidding freshmen from attending fraternity parties at the beginning of the school year (until after Homecoming Weekend) certainly was. The main source of bad publicity for Dartmouth was Andrew Lohse and Rolling Stone and hazing at SAE.</p>
<p>Collegealum314 - I suspect the students you mention in #71 would likely have seen a different result if they
had contacted their fraternity headquarters and local alumni association. I was a travelling leadership consultant for my college fraternity, and I can tell you that in most cases, the fraternity headquarters has far more power over local chapters than university officials do. The worst thing most universities will do is suspend a chapter’s IFC membership for a year or two. That can be an effective tool against weaker chapters, but it’s often counterproductive with the more established chapters. Kicking an established fraternity chapter out of the IFC just means that chapter is no longer subject to the university’s rules on hazing, dry rush, etc… </p>
<p>In contrast, fraternity headquarters can and will revoke a chapter’s charter if it finds the chapter is exposing the national fraternity to liability by hazing, having kegs at parties or tolerating predatory behavior towards women. My fraternity pulled several charters during my tenture as a leadership consultant, and one of those chapters was considered a “top house” at its campus. In each case, headquarters staff and the local alumni association conducted a “membership review” at the chapter, kicked the bad actors out of the fraternity (and struck them from the national register) and placed the rest of the chapter on alumni status. It was essentially a death sentence for the chapter. Four years later, after most of those chapter members would have graduated, the fraternity would recolonized the campus. </p>
<p>My fraternity is not unique in this regard. It is one of about a dozen fraternities whose national headquarters are located in Indianapolis, so I had plenty of interaction with leadership consultants from other fraternities. Liability is a huge issue for fraternities. They have to self-insure because no company is willing to ensure them. I was hired as a leadership consultant, but my primary duties were to ensure that chapters under my watch weren’t hazing and didn’t have common sources of alcohol at parties (i.e. no hazing, no kegs). </p>
<p>Many people who don’t have experience with the greek system assume a fraternity’s national headquarters and alumni association would fight tooth and nail to defend a chapter accused of hazing or rape. This is not the case, at least it was not the case in my experience. Yes, most fraternities care about maintaining a presence on campus, but they also take a long-term view, and they have no problem wiping the slate clean at a bad chapter and recolonizing three to four years down the road. </p>
<p>This isn’t a thread about hazing, so I won’t go further off topic. I simply wanted to respond to post nos. 71 and 72. Everything I’ve said about chapters losing their charter for hazing applies equally to chapters that turn a blind eye to predators in their ranks. </p>
<p>I looked at the 2013 Common Data Set and it looks like applications were pretty evenly split between men and women…alittle over 100 more men applied, but historically Dartmouth has been a favorite for the guys so perhaps the decrease in apps were more women then men. Middlebury had 2000 more women than men apply. I know decades ago as a female I preferred Middlebury to Dartmouth. It doesn’t mean much except that in recent decades almost all colleges that admit men and women have tried to maintain as close to a 50/50 balance as reasonably able. </p>