Also, a Tumblr was created where students and alums could anonymously post information about harm done to them by the fraternities.<\/p>\r\n
I was especially impressed with the public statement that Phi Psi made about their decision to disband. They had previously pointed out that the current members were in middle school when the 2013 minutes were created, and they had said that Phi Psi has reformed and this kind of thing doesn\u2019t go on there any more. But that rang kind of hollow, given the revelation that Phi Psi had previously said the same thing during the period when the minutes were written. So I figured that Phi Psi was going to just continue to maintain that there wasn\u2019t a problem. But instead, they disbanded, and made a public statement saying that they could no longer in good conscience stay affiliated with an organization that had done so much harm. I feel like that was a remarkable thing to do.<\/p>\r\n
(I should note that if the stories on the Tumblr are true\u2014and I have no reason to disbelieve them\u2014then at least some current DU and Phi Psi members have continued to behave badly, including engaging in sexual assault. So I don\u2019t mean to absolve all current members of all wrongdoing by praising their action and statement.)<\/p>\r\n
Here are a bunch of links about all this. I\u2019ll repeat the content warning from Voices<\/cite>: most of these pieces quote from the fraternities\u2019 \u201cracist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, classist, and transphobic comments (including curse words and slurs).\u201d<\/p>\r\nThere have been plenty of other articles as well; these are just the ones that caught my attention and that I thought were worth linking to.<\/p>\r\n
\r\n - Cult of Misogyny: Leaked Internal Documents Reveal Silence Around Harmful Culture at Phi Psi<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (April 18) Main Phoenix<\/cite> article about the archives. Content warning: includes extensive awful quotes from the documents. And the top of the page includes an unlabeled photo which turns out to be an unpleasant reference to urinating on the Intercultural Center.<\/dd>\r\n
- Phi Psi Leak Suggests Evidence of Hazing<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (April 18) The Phoenix<\/cite>\u2019s discussion of the tasks that Phi Psi assigned to pledges, which may meet the college\u2019s definition of hazing. Content warning here, too, for both the article and the photo at the top.<\/dd>\r\n
- Editorial Note: Our Process on the Phi Psi Coverage<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (April 18) The Phoenix<\/cite>\u2019s discussion of the editorial choices they made in publishing the above two articles, and the verification process that they went through.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201cPhi Psi Historical Archives\u201d Leaked Amidst Campus Tensions Around Fraternities<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (April 18) Voices<\/cite>\u2019s main article about the Phi Psi archives. Long article; includes a fair bit of information that isn\u2019t in the Phoenix<\/cite> article. Not clear to me whether the two news organizations each knew that the other had also received the archive material.<\/dd>\r\n
- Phi Psi Leak Sparks Questions About Fraternity Culture<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (April 25) Followup article from the Phoenix<\/cite> about the question of whether the fraternities really have changed since 2014. Among other things, a current woman student says: \u201cI think there\u2019s an emphasis on being a chill girl and being okay with a lot of the stuff that happens and I definitely felt that pressure.\u201d The same student says that her ex, who was a Phi Psi member, told her that he couldn\u2019t stand up against his frat brothers\u2019 behavior because if he did, \u201cthey won\u2019t be my friends anymore.\u201d<\/dd>\r\n
- Why Swarthmore's Fraternities Must Go<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- A Tumblr for people to anonymously share their experiences with the fraternities. Content warning for descriptions of rape and lots of other bad behavior.<\/dd>\r\n
- Swarthmore College Students Are Occupying a Frat House to Protest Fraternities on Their Campus<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (April 29) Teen Vogue<\/cite> article says that \u201cstudent advocacy groups Organizing for Survivors (O4S) and Swarthmore Coalition Against Fraternity Violence staged a sit-in and protest inside and outside the Phi Psi house.\u201d<\/dd>\r\n
- Swarthmore Students Demand Closing of Fraternity That Boasted of \u2018Rape Attic\u2019<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (April 30) New York Times<\/cite> article about the situation. Among other things, a current student notes that she has tried to tell the college administration what\u2019s been going on with the fraternities, but they haven\u2019t listened.<\/dd>\r\n
- Phi Psi disbanding announcement on Facebook<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (April 30) \u201c[\u2026] the brothers unanimously voted to dissolve Phi Psi fraternity on Swarthmore\u2019s campus following a week of deliberation. [\u2026] We cannot in good conscience be members of an organization with such a painful history. [\u2026] the wounds are too deep to repair, and the best course of action for all those involved is to disband the fraternity completely and give up the fraternity house. We condemn sexual violence, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and discrimination in all of its forms, and we will continue as individuals to work to create a campus where these issues are eradicated completely.\u201d<\/dd>\r\n
- Swarthmore Delta Upsilon Disbands after Decades of Harm Accusations and Anti-Frat Activism: \u201cNewsletters\u201d Circulated in 1983, \u201cMinutes\u201d from 2013 Leaked, Tumblr Story Revealed<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (May 2) Followup article from Voices<\/cite> about the disbanding. Focused primarily on DU rather than on Phi Psi. Includes discussion of the DU minutes that someone anonymously sent to Voices<\/cite> a few days after their article about Phi Psi.<\/dd>\r\n
- Swarthmore College Fraternities Disbanded After Student Organizers Held a Multi-Day Frat House Sit-In Protest<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (May 2) Followup article from Teen Vogue<\/cite>. Includes some discussion of the need for the administration to take a stand.<\/dd>\r\n
- We don't need fraternities. Swarthmore was right to shut theirs down<\/a><\/dt>\r\n
- (May 4) Followup opinion piece in the Guardian<\/cite>, by Jill Filipovic, about fraternities in general.<\/dd>\r\n<\/dl>\r\n\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-improving-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17839"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17860,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17839\/revisions\/17860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}