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.

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