The Daily Pennsylvanian :: Lisa Zhu | Education, not litigation

From force-feeding pledges various mysterious substances to quaffing copious amounts of alcohol in creative ways, the fraternity initiation process has always been one of the more curious practices of American college culture.

However, this rite of passage took a turn for the worse at Yale, where a recent Zeta Psi pledge event resulted in a spate of controversy when the Women's Center threatened to file a lawsuit against the fraternity.

For those of you unfamiliar with the incident, here are the facts. Essentially, the current pledge class rallied outside the Yale Women's Center one night, chanting "Dick! Dick! Dick!" in some absurd parody of the classic elementary school "Penis Game."

This ruckus deterred one Women's Center board member from entering the building. Further conflicts ensued when photographs of the event surfaced on Facebook, showing the same boys still standing in front of the Women's Center, holding a giant sign proclaiming, "We Love Yale Sluts."

The media storm escalated in the following days, with lawyers offering pro bono legal services to the Women's Center, and Zeta Psi issuing a formal apology in the Yale Daily News. I must say, as a modern woman, I would be rather irked if the sign had read, "We Love Penn Sluts."

But although I fail to see the humor in the boys' actions, I can't help but be disappointed in the way the Yale Women's Center is addressing the issue.

Instead of engaging Zeta Psi and other fraternities on campus in productive dialogue about the problem, the Center's directors are attempting to sue these students into sensitivity and submission.

One of the organization's representatives, who refused to be identified by name, told me, "At the moment, we're not really seeking any dialogue with fraternities."

"The fact that they put up this heartfelt apology after we threatened legal action was a little too convenient. We think that the problem can only be solved through institutional change in policy."

In other words, the Women's Center has focused its efforts on lobbying Yale for policy changes and litigating against the fraternities for sexual harassment.

And while I agree that policy changes in the Greek pledge process may reduce the number of offensive incidents, top-down enforcement without grassroots understanding can foster resentment and rebellion.

Certainly, the student reactions to the Women's Center's actions have not been entirely cuddly. Yale freshman Deniz Yildiz told me that the Center's actions were "a little bit reactionary to just something that was completely an isolated incident."

"Not only does [a lawsuit] look bad for our university but it causes a divide in our student body," she said.

Even worse, litigation would prove ineffective in achieving the Center's goals and might even be counterproductive. As Penn Women's Center director Michele Goldfarb said, "I think what you risk with a lawsuit is making the offenders heroes because people are going to end up rallying around them."

Indeed, in recent years, Penn seems to have been able to largely prevent such inflammatory incidents. Part of that process may result from the workshops the University tries to incorporate into its Greek system.

For instance, College junior and Inter-fraternity Council chairman David Ashkenazi said, "Last year, we had all of our new members go to a training program with 1in4", an all-male group focused on educating peers about sexual violence.

On the whole, "Penn's got one of the better systems in terms of preventing these incidents, and part of that's a credit to the University because they have us participate in these dialogues," said College junior and Beta Theta Pi president Jason Cali.

Even looking outside of the Greek system, the benefits of rational, open-minded discourse are demonstrated throughout student life at Penn. For instance, last semester, the College Republicans were on the brink of raising a major hullabaloo when they announced their intention to hold an "Islamofascism Week" during the same period as the Muslim Students Association's "Islam Awareness Week". But as former MSA president and Wharton senior Samir Malik told me, leaders from both groups met to discuss the problem, and rapidly defused the situation.

It seems the moral of the story is: communication counts. Talk to each other. Build relationships.

And Yale, if you're reading this now, consider taking this advice to heart, even if it's from a school with a lower U.S. News ranking than you.

Lisa Zhu is a Wharton and College junior from Cherry Hill, NJ, United Minorities Council chair and Undergraduate Assembly member. Her e-mail is zhu@dailypennsylvanian.com. Zhu-ology appears Fridays.

Comments (13)

Additionally, V-Day and Lisa, these are grown men attending a world-class university. Not only should they know better, the fact they harbor such sentiments (whether truly or in jest) is an embarrassment to their school, which gives Yale every reason to "punish" them through legal action. Not making this issue "disappear" for these boys (obviously not the adults we would normally assume them to be) is the best way for Yale, the Women's Center and the student body to send the message to the public and other offending students that this type of abuse is not ok. And they should COUPLE their lawsuit with mandatory training like our university provides. This is not a case for one or the other, this is a case for legal recourse AND education.

You are right, but missing the point--unless you actually believe that all of the male passersby in your hypothetical situation would be justified in suing the women's center. While of course this does not justify their actions, the actions of a pledge class subjected to extreme group mentality has nothing to do with whether they actually "harbor such sentiments" (which you claim to be a fact). The bigger picture of sexism in fraternity/macho culture can only be confronted with education. Suing the pledges does nothing. The fraternity should be punished by the university, but not the courts.

first paragraph directed at V-day and second at Furman

As a fraternity member myself, I think what these guys did was inappropriate. But, let's not forget that they have Constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. "Deterring" a woman from entering the center should be dealt with legally, but the chanting and sign-holding is Constitutionally protected. If this story were about a bunch of Code Pink girls doing the same thing outside a military recruiting office on campus, nobody would even think of suing.

[QUOTE id="ea81e9f6-0093-4087-92b1-88d0294c2e97"]Additionally, V-Day and Lisa, these are grown men attending a world-class university. Not only should they know better, the fact they harbor such sentiments (whether truly or in jest) is an embarrassment to their school, which gives Yale every reason to "punish" them through legal action. Not making this issue "disappear" for these boys (obviously not the adults we would normally assume them to be) is the best way for Yale, the Women's Center and the student body to send the message to the public and other offending students that this type of abuse is not ok. And they should COUPLE their lawsuit with mandatory training like our university provides. This is not a case for one or the other, this is a case for legal recourse AND education.[/QUOTE] Are you more interested in discussion or intimidating those who do not bend to your will? Please stop trying to make it harder for people to take the feminist movement seriously. Lawsuits bring silence and resentment, never understanding.

Doesn't this just go perfectly in hand with Jim Saksa's op-ed piece the other day? The Yale Women's Center needs to do something PRODUCTIVE with all their righteous anger. Suing these guys is only going to result in a spate of countersuits, against the Women's Center, the University, etc. This case is SCREAMING for a first amendment lawyer to come wipe the floor with them. Hell, if I had my license already I'd be BEGGING to represent the fraternity in a countersuit. You think the sign and the chant created a hostile environment? How about when you start suing students for their public speech? Saksa's right. They could be doing something about ACTUAL sexual violence, but rather than struggle with the hard issues, they'd rather create easy ones out of nothing. This is unbelievable. The Ivies prove time and time again that their rankings and reputations are wholly undeserved.

[QUOTE id="d2cea4aa-fe58-4d63-91c3-f3a0146154bf"]You are right, but missing the point--unless you actually believe that all of the male passersby in your hypothetical situation would be justified in suing the women's center. [/QUOTE] You have missed my point completely.

Leaving the bromides about "talking" and "building relationships" aside, I still can't believe the column ended with this gem: "And Yale, if you're reading this now, consider taking this advice to heart, even if it's from a school with a lower U.S. News ranking than you." What paltry, insecure stuff.

[QUOTE id="44d7185f-b79f-47d0-931f-cc6130d30467"]Doesn't this just go perfectly in hand with Jim Saksa's op-ed piece the other day? The Yale Women's Center needs to do something PRODUCTIVE with all their righteous anger. Suing these guys is only going to result in a spate of countersuits, against the Women's Center, the University, etc. This case is SCREAMING for a first amendment lawyer to come wipe the floor with them. Hell, if I had my license already I'd be BEGGING to represent the fraternity in a countersuit. You think the sign and the chant created a hostile environment? How about when you start suing students for their public speech? Saksa's right. They could be doing something about ACTUAL sexual violence, but rather than struggle with the hard issues, they'd rather create easy ones out of nothing. This is unbelievable. The Ivies prove time and time again that their rankings and reputations are wholly undeserved.[/QUOTE] Creating lots of noise whilst scarcely making the world a better place is what happens when any political movement, especially feminism, gets put in the hands of bored people who just want to fight easy battles and feel good about themselves. It's the same spirit that sends college students to go to protests they know will make no difference aside from a personal self-esteem boost for feeling as though they fight on the side of righteousness.

[QUOTE id="ea81e9f6-0093-4087-92b1-88d0294c2e97"]Not only should they know better, the fact they harbor such sentiments (whether truly or in jest) is an embarrassment to their school, which gives Yale every reason to "punish" them through legal action. [/QUOTE] That sentence alone convinces me you are too corrupt to hold power, legal or otherwise, over anyone anywhere. Unfortunately, that similar sentiment is held by many Ivy League womens' departments across the east coast. Funny, that organizations that want to overcome traditional female stereotypes would so empower emotion and passion over reason and cool-headed thought. I hope you don't call yourself a feminist.

I think the Yale women's center was completely right in this situation. Never would a group of women (especially not those who are members of or sponsored by the women's center) direct claims that most men are rapists at male passers by or set up a weeklong event where they stand in front of fraternities and various other campus buildings yelling various things about their vaginas.

I remember looking through a 500 page book for 20 minutes. It had stories from many different colleges to show that college fraternities teach men to hate women. Most people accept that Americans having black slaves was a terrible thing. There is still a lot of prejudice against African-Americans. So what does this have to do with the above? Gloria Steinem said that the women in the world are like the African-Americans here. They are 2nd class citizens. Also women in America got the right to vote AFTER black males did. The bible spells out how the woman is the 2nd class citizen. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob could have many wives and have sex with the maid servants but the women could not have multiple husbands. Also if the male was a slave he had to be freed after a certain amount of years. This is according to Hebrew law in the bible. But the woman was a slave for life. Now things are getting better with women and African-Americans not being 2nd class citizens. We are now looking at having a female or African-American being President of the U.S.

I did forget one thing about women being 2nd class citizens in the bible. The last I heard was that women cannot be Orthodox rabbis.

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