For as long as you say “boys will be boys,” they will be.
As reported, a woman named Jackie claims she was gang-raped at a University of Virginia fraternity party on Sept. 28, 2012.
After Rolling Stone published “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA” in November, many people were outraged by the alleged incidents. UVA president Teresa Sullivan suspended all of the university’s Greek chapters and any other
Greek-related organization until January 2015.
The Phi Kappa Psi chapter at UVA was suspended the day after the article was published but was reinstated in January. The Charlottesville Police Department said there is still an on-going investigation, but they have no evidence the incident took place at the fraternity house.
UVA has strongly recommended that fraternities sign off on a new set of rules, and they should, regardless of whether the allegations are true or false. One of the rules states that a sober fraternity member must monitor each bedroom in the house during social events.
Making necessary precautions to ensure safety for Greek members is a step in the right direction.
Sororities and fraternities nationwide, including the ones active at LSU, should consider adopting these new rules so a tragic event like this doesn’t happen in the future.
The National Panhellenic Conference is not allowing the women in sororities at UVA to attend “Boys Bid Night,” one of the biggest nights of the year. Instead, the girls must attend mandatory dinners at their sorority houses, and that’s just a tad too much.
If LSU banned the girls from attending Greek social events because of alleged sexual assaults, it would leave many girls feeling discriminated against.
Keeping girls away from the parties is not the right approach to take, said architecture freshman and Pi Beta Phi member Daniela Hurtado.
“I don’t think that’s a sensible way of keeping girls safe at all,” she said. “I think the smartest thing to do is inform us, let us know how to protect ourselves.”
UVA should make it a priority to enforce the new rule of keeping all of the parties monitored. The answer to sexual assault shouldn’t be to lock women in sorority houses. This is placing the responsibility on them instead of on the men who allegedly committed the assaults.
Thousands of the girls belonging to the sororities signed a petition showing their disapproval of the new mandate. They believe that preventing them from attending the party for their safety labels the men as dangerous and the women as powerless.
In the conference’s attempts to keep the women safe, it is coming off as a punishment. It would be more understandable if both the women and men had to stay in their houses, but to let the men still go out and party isn’t fair.
At the end of the day, this can happen to any man or woman. All genders should take the same precautions.
“Regardless if it’s a fraternity or sorority, it doesn’t matter. You can get gang raped by anybody,” Hurtado said.
There shouldn’t be certain restrictions that only the women have to follow. Both sororities and fraternities should set the same rules as a combined effort to eliminate sexual assaults among all Greek organizations.
Clarke Perkins is a 19-year-old political science freshman from New Orleans. You can reach her on Twitter @ClarkePerkins.