<p>I agree with you, PG. I’m glad that more women are sharing their stories because it helps girls and young women to understand the reality of the world, and not just at frats. I hope that this propels changes in the way rapes are handled and that more perpetrators are held accountable and punished accordingly. Our culture needs to change. I don’t know how those college administrators sleep at night.</p>
<p>Just so heartbreaking. =(( Yes, girls should be careful, but how are they all to know what ‘careful’ is? And how can they be expected to truly comprehend the danger, when they were probably fortunate enough to grow up in a world, like most of us, where this type of behavior is incomprehensible?</p>
<p>It is so beyond most decent peoples’ ability to understand this behavior that, even when confronted with it, the victim still wonders if it ‘really’ happened, and those who hear about it seem to automatically downplay it because it ‘couldn’t’ have happened like that. </p>
<p>Many describe figuring out which houses to avoid. Why should students have to figure this out from year to year? If ‘everyone knows’ about these bad houses, with the bad reputations, why do they still exist? Why aren’t they at least marked, tagged, plastered with the reports of the activity that has been reported? If the schools can’t officially label them the students can certainly take care of that on their own. The ‘good’ Greek houses should do everything in their power to remove these notoriously bad houses…a stain on the Greek culture.</p>
<p>We read about people blaming those in ‘bad’ neighborhoods for their own plight, for not snitching on their neighbors, not cooperating with police, not cleaning up their own neighborhoods. Well, it’s high time for the Greek community to clean up its own neighborhood.</p>
<p>“The ‘good’ Greek houses should do everything in their power to remove these notoriously bad houses…a stain on the Greek culture.”</p>
<p>I don’t think you understand how little power individual Greek houses have over other ones. It’s rather like saying that the tennis team can police the lacrosse team if the lacrosse team acts up. </p>
<p>In the same way that everyone is shocked to hear that a coach at a middle school turns out to be a pedophile… “Oh my gosh, he’s working with kids!”, we are all shocked to discover that rapists join fraternities to make it easier to pray on young women. Predators affiliate with an eye towards gaining access to their preferred victims. A man interested in young kids becomes a choir leader at church; athletic coach; etc. A man who rapes young women joins a frat- where life is a party from Thursday at 6 pm through Sunday night, with dozens of new potential victims showing up for toga night, taco night, “we lost the football game but we still have our keg” night, etc.</p>
<p>Why is this a surprise?</p>
<p>I think what is new and shocking is that just as society’s attitude towards sexual crimes has shifted- it’s not longer fair game for a defense attorney to describe a rape victim’s sexual history on the stand as a way to legitimize “she was asking for it”, the attitude on campus seems to have headed back to the 1950’s. Good girls should be able to avoid being raped. </p>
<p>I remember a couple of horrific rapes on my campus in the 1970’s. One likes to think that after we marched to “take back the night”; got campus police to stock rape kits, etc. there has been some progress made. But no.</p>
<p>Yes- tell your daughters NOT to go to a party alone. NOT to accept a drink unless it’s a diet coke in a can where she pops the top. Always have a buddy and don’t leave your buddy alone because you’ve found another group to hang with. Don’t drink until your vision is woozy and your judgement is impaired. Etc.</p>
<p>Or we prosecute men who rape with the full force of the law. If and when they are exonerated- great. Welcome back to campus.</p>
<p>"Yes- tell your daughters NOT to go to a party alone. NOT to accept a drink unless it’s a diet coke in a can where she pops the top. Always have a buddy and don’t leave your buddy alone because you’ve found another group to hang with. Don’t drink until your vision is woozy and your judgement is impaired. Etc.</p>
<p>Or we prosecute men who rape with the full force of the law. If and when they are exonerated- great. Welcome back to campus"</p>
<p>I see no reason we can’t do both! </p>
<p>I wasn’t sure where to post this <a href=“http://www.providencejournal.com/news/education/20141128-fraternities-back-in-spotlight-at-uva-rape-report-spurs-outrage.ece”>http://www.providencejournal.com/news/education/20141128-fraternities-back-in-spotlight-at-uva-rape-report-spurs-outrage.ece</a>, considering there are several threads dedicated to the “problem.” But, I suppose this is as good as any. My apologies if this has already been posted…it’s hard to keep track. </p>
<p>Chatted with my kid about this topic while he was home for Thanksgiving. He’s not in a frat, but has a HS acquaintance who is. This semester a girl was raped at a frat party. Girl came forward.</p>
<p>Each frat bro got a personal email from the University dean informing them that they would be summoned for an interview with the local police. Email told them that truthful cooperation was required. If not, there would be consequences (criminal and scholastic) for them personally and their fraternity.</p>
<p>Bros ratted out the perp, who was expelled and is now facing criminal charges. That’s how these incidents should go down. Only problem was that this happened after the third incident involving the perp.</p>
<p>I was talking to another parent at a recent college visit. He is ant EMT in another state, near a big college and talked about how they repeatedly have to transport some of the same students, or from the same frats, to the hospital due to drinking, etc, but they cannot report it to the parents because the students are over 18.
I wonder if the colleges can make a rule, in order to be a sanctioned (or official…or whatever it’s labeled) fraternity or sorority, all members need to sign the form allowing those sorts of things be reported to parents.
I suspect many parents would pull the kid out if they got repeated calls. And if an organization or individual doesn’t want these dangerous activities reported, it would be a big red flag, that they PLAN to engage in that sort of behavior. I wonder if these calls are reported to the college, and are on record at all?</p>
<p>A little about Jackie…</p>
<p>Looks like she is having a tough time.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sabrina-rubin-erdely-woman-behind-rolling-stones-explosive-u-va-alleged-rape-story/2014/11/28/89f322c2-7731-11e4-bd1b-03009bd3e984_story.html?tid=hpModule_1f58c93a-8a7a-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sabrina-rubin-erdely-woman-behind-rolling-stones-explosive-u-va-alleged-rape-story/2014/11/28/89f322c2-7731-11e4-bd1b-03009bd3e984_story.html?tid=hpModule_1f58c93a-8a7a-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e</a></p>
<p>I asked my daugher, who was in a sorority, if she knew anybody who was given a roofie, or raped and she said, “No”.</p>
<p>That’s good.</p>
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<p>Or the college could record the number of incidents at each fraternity when emergency services (i.e. police, fire/rescue, EMT/ambulance) were required. The number of such incidents (with links to descriptions of each incident) at each house for each of the last several semesters can be required to be prominently displayed on the university or fraternity council web site so that potential pledges know how much trouble each house gets into. Of course, too many incidents, or a severe incident, would result in penalties like derecognition.</p>
<p>Although I’d like to know how often drunk students from fraternity X are taken to the emergency room, I don’t want to do anything to discourage the brothers at X from taking people to the emergency room if they need to be seen. So I’m afraid amnesty is necessary.</p>
<p>Then, in that scheme, delayed calling of emergency services in an actual emergency could be treated as a greater violation with much more severe penalties than just running up the count of incidents on the web page.</p>
<p>If the post #529/531 accounting scheme were adopted, I’m afraid the brothers would look at this drunk unconscious guy who should be taken to the emergency room, and weigh the unlikely case that this was the student who wasn’t going to wake up if they didn’t take him to the emergency against the certainty that if they did take him to the ER, it would be held against them, and decide the wrong way. Remember, the people who are making this decision are drunk too, or at least many of them are. I don’t want anything persuading them to do the wrong thing.</p>
<p>I finally read the Rolling Stone article. I don’t know which is more disturbing…the article or the comments afterwards.</p>
<p>Basically, there seem to be many people who just refuse to believe in rape if the alleged victim knew the accused. It’s pretty much “regret sex” every time. Or that both are drunk, therefore the sex is “consensual.” </p>
<p>I could believe that the story is not as Jackie tells it, in one way or another. Maybe the incident never happened. But that a freshman agreed to have sex with six guys and to be penetrated with a beer bottle by a seventh, but then changed her mind the next morning? That I have more trouble accepting. </p>
<p>Dtark said “I asked my D if she knew anyone who had been given a roofie or raped and she said no”</p>
<p>My D knows at least one roofie victim but D and friends saved her and took her home (and never went back), and another victim who was drugged and thinks they were assaulted or raped</p>
<p>TV4caster, I am glad your daughter and her friends saved the young woman.</p>
<p>I was reading an article about the U.Va. situation, and one of the people said that he didn’t think they need to return to the days of “house mothers.” My reaction was: why not?</p>
<p>In my experience, house mothers work better in theory than practice and tended to be chosen for their obliviousness or ability to turn a blind eye. On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt.</p>
<p>adding clarification: at tailgate U, in the 70s, young women were raped in fraternity houses with house mothers. Our sorority house mother was shocked, just shocked, when a mother showed up at 7am one weekday to see for herself if her daughter was really “in the shower” and it was “discovered” half the women supposedly living on the third floor never spent the night there. oops.</p>
<p>adding:</p>
<p>For a few months we had men spending the night on the third floor. Not many. It didn’t last long because it made the majority of those living in the sorority house uncomfortable. So men were banned from upstairs, by group decision, but nothing to do with house mother oversight. I wondering if rapes will be dramatically reduced when we get a consensus it’s just not okay. That’s my hope.</p>