Chloe Lew: Greek community should work together to address sexual assault

In the three weeks since a Rolling Stone piece – now being questioned for its accuracy – described the horrific fraternity gang-rape of a female student at the University of Virginia, few have been safe from blame.

Our nation is scrambling to point fingers – at Rolling Stone for its lack of journalistic integrity; at the source, Jackie, for the discrepancies in her account; at UVA campus administrators for not responding to Jackie’s story years ago and at the Greek community for allegedly fostering a culture that is complicit with sexual violence.

But straightening out the damage the bad press wreaked on Greek life’s image or shaming Rolling Stone and the young woman at the center of the story for their questionable reporting are not priorities here. Focusing on those side notes only brushes off the fact that sorority women and fraternity men are more likely than other students to be survivors and perpetrators of sexual assault.

Regardless of the potential discrepancies in the Rolling Stone story, I still think something horrible and unjust happened to a young woman who did not ask for it, and it’s not fair to so quickly disregard her story as fiction. Greek communities should be implementing the preventative measures for sexual assault that could have curbed the need for UVA President Teresa Sullivan to immediately suspend Greek life for the rest of the semester. This suspension was a reactive response not to the story itself, but to the nationwide bad press, that reeks of panic and ill-preparation, and merely pushes the ineffective pause button on an issue that is neither new nor isolated.

The need for more preventative rather than reactive measures regarding sexual assault is not a new concept for colleges. Our campus and UVA are both currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for possible mishandling of sexual assault complaints, and a state audit this June found UCLA’s sexual assault training inadequate. But in improving our sexual assault education efforts following the shortfalls these reviews have brought to light, we need to rally the support of new communities.

The Greek community needs to acknowledge that sexual assault is a problem particularly relevant to its members, and students should work together to address the problem internally.

This is not a ludicrous request. If anything, the Greek system has an advantage in rallying its members to support sexual assault awareness: Fraternities and sororities are intimate and connected in a way we can’t expect incoming freshmen at new student orientations to be. These communities have the potential to take matters into their own hands and launch campaigns and philanthropy events that may be more effective than presentations enforced by the administration.

Greek members are closely networked together, and the support of a cause by one sister or brother, or one sorority or fraternity, could quickly turn into the support of an entire system, just based on the simple logic that we like to be involved in the causes our friends are involved in. It would be easy to collectivize the Greek community against sexual assault in its own campaign, or in support of sexual assault awareness efforts that already exist on our campus, such as 7,000 in Solidarity and 7000’s Consent Week. And more than that, individual houses can take on sexual assault awareness as a philanthropy event.

Criticism from the state has already prompted change in UCLA’s Greek system. In response to this year’s state audit, starting this fall, the Fraternity and Sorority Relations office now hosts mandatory sexual assault presentations each year for both new and active members of Greek-letter organizations, said Kevin Dougherty, interim director of fraternity and sorority relations.

But another mandatory presentation, even if it is specifically tailored to the Greek community, is likely as helpful as the one we already sit through as new students during orientation our first year – which is to say, not very helpful at all.

To be clear, sexual assault is not a problem confined to the Greek community, just as it isn’t one confined to college campuses. Asking the Greek community to be proactive about sexual assault education is not stigmatizing fraternity row as a breeding ground for sexual assault. Tailoring and initiating efforts within communities will allow groups like our enormous Greek community to play a part in ensuring its members’ own safety.

That’s why we must take preventative measures toward ending sexual assault on our college campuses, such as campaigns led by our peers rather than policies implemented by our authorities. Regardless of how much truth there is to the Rolling Stone piece, sexual assault is our problem.

That’s one truth that in the midst of all of the scandal we should never dispute.

Email Lew at [email protected] or tweet her at @chloelew8. Send general comments to [email protected] or tweet us at @DBOpinion.