A Risky and Premature Lift on University Drinking Bans

The Intrafraternity Council at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus has decided after a mere six weeks to lift the drinking ban with the assumption that their high rates of sexual assault are due to letting in too many “non-greeks,” and that if they can maintain a 1 to 1 ratio between Greeks and non-greeks, it will once again be safe to continue their binge-drinking, grinding-in-a-dirty-basement tributes to stereotypical college night life.

With increasing pressure from bored and thirsty fraternity houses, the focus appears to have fallen on preserving the reputation of the Greek community. While the IFC’s cooperation with the Office of Student Affairs to create the peer-monitoring group “Arkeo” to ensure that new policies are followed may provide some level of accountability in these parties, it falls short of actually solving the problem. The issue of sexual assault on our campus runs far deeper than just the recent and terrifying cases which survivors were brave enough to report. Until members of campus communities are willing to recognize the true causes of sexual assault and to accept what that means in terms of core prevention, fraternities will continue to be unsafe for guests and Greeks alike.

Even if we can assume that these Arkeo monitors will be willing to crack down on and report their peers in a manner that will actually protect victims or potential victims of sexual assault, the “solution” that has been proposed by the IFC is based on a series of common myths about sexual assault, and for reasons I will now discuss, will be more likely to silence current and future victims of sexual assault than to prevent the actual incidents of sexual assault and rape on campus.

The University’s campus newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, reported that IFC President Martin Chorzempa “said this was put in place to ensure things remain under control and that the people who have been part of these new solutions will be able to participate, instead of non-greeks, who may view this as a free-for-all.”

Rather than taking responsibility for their part in these sexual assaults, too many members of the Greek community have taken the easy route in assuming that, because the sexual assaults that happened earlier this semester were committed by young men who were not members of the fraternity, sexual assault in general has been something perpetrated by non-greeks sneaking into otherwise-safe greek parties. It sounds ridiculous when worded bluntly doesn’t it?

Yes, the men who committed these rapes earlier in the semester were non-greeks, but, according to the Department of Justice, these stranger-rapes constitute only 10% of rape crimes. Though the first thing that comes to mind for us when we think of rape tends to be this idea of a man in a dark alley, or a man who shows up in a bathroom in this case, in reality, 90% of rapes are committed by acquaintances. This means that a large majority of the rapes which will occur in these communities are actually between acquaintances, often using alcohol as a tool in committing the crime. The act alone of imiting the number of strangers who can attend a party won’t protect sorority women and guests from the incidence of sexual assault.

In addition, it was found that 50% of all sexual assaults were committed by men who were drinking at the time, according to the study “Alcohol and Sexual Assault,” by Abbey et.al. Depending on the samples taken and measures used, estimates for the percentage of perpetrators who raped under the influence of alcohol ranged between about 34 and 75%. According to a study done by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, alcohol is implicated in more incidents of sexual violence than any other drug. So, even though statistically speaking, the presence of strangers is far less risky than the presence of alcohol, the fraternities’ “solution” conveniently chose to ignore the detrimental effects of the latter.

But I don’t mean to give alcohol too much credit here. After all, a beer doesn’t commit sexual assault-the guy drinking it does. (I say guy because, while 14% of sexual assault victims are male, regardless of victim gender, an overwhelming 96% of offenders are male.) Rather than asking how fraternities can satisfy the community enough to be able to keep drinking and partying, or how fraternities can keep out people who could potentially fall within that narrow category of rapists, we should be focusing on what it is about the mindsets and cultural norms that characterize college life which allow for 1 in 5 women to become the victim of rape or attempted rape while in college, according to the National Institute of Justice.

Too often, men are using alcohol at these parties to make women “less resistant.” They utilize alcohol and intoxication as a tool and even sometimes as an excuse for committing these assaults, because among our generation, there’s this widespread and completely false belief that “not taking no for answer” or pressuring someone to have sex aren’t actually considered sexual assault in certain cases, simply because “they were drunk.” People conveniently ignore the fact that consent, by legal and university standards, must be freely given, and is not considered legitimate if extracted through the use of coercion, threats or intoxication.

With all of the issues in our society that combine to create this unsafe atmosphere-the media’s sexual objectification of women, sexual violence in our music, regular derogatory comment towards women, men’s perceptions when drinking at a party that they are going to “get sex” tonight, and our knee-jerk response of blaming the victims of sexual assault for bringing these crimes onto themselves by how they dress or act or where they went-fraternities are only focusing on one tiny little piece, while ignoring some of the far larger contributing factors.
We don’t need to keep non-greeks out of fraternity houses and, if you ask me, we are certainly not ready to have frat row getting drunk again. What we need to see is change in the way campus communities view sex and intimacy. We need to implement educational and awareness programs that will draw attention to these influences in society and to the initial signs of sexual violence. Rather than trying to prevent sexual assault on the level of rapists who are willing to sneak into bathrooms and commit violent crimes against strangers, let’s address this issue even earlier. Prevention could start at that first comment, when a guy says something stupid to his friends like, “just buy her a few drinks. That’ll loosen her up.” Or perhaps addressing core causes like the messages in our culture that pressure young boys to fit into the super-masculine, violent stereotype that perverts the idea of healthy intimacy into a one-sided conquest for sex.

Luckily, there are initiatives on campus that are working to make this happen, including a potential interventions being designed by students volunteering on campus as violence prevention educators and as members of the Men Against Gender Violence group. The fraternities will be back to drinking and partying as usual soon, but the shocking amount of sexual assaults that we have been seeing have provided a rather loud wake-up call to many on campus. Hopefully as these new campaigns and initiatives are designed and implemented, we will be able to see some changes not just in the list of attendees at parties, but in the perspectives of these young men and in the treatment of women on campus.

For now, though, the changes the IFC has decided on have the potential to do more harm than good. With Greeks so desperate to prove that they aren’t the ones to blame for the assaults that we’ve seen, and some even complaining about people who, in making a “big deal” out of these incidents ruined it for the rest of them, the atmosphere at these parties will be all the more dangerous for young women. My greatest worry is that the pressure won’t be on men to treat women with more respect and hold themselves accountable, but on women to refrain from “complaining,” or reporting anything that will make the greek community look bad. As if there weren’t already huge barriers for victims of sexual assault to overcome in their process of healing, including the difficulty in reporting or talking about something that happened when others in the group know the person who assaulted you and may or may not believe you and may or may not turn the blame on you, now these women will have to deal with the possibility of their peers getting upset with them for reporting a crime because of how it will make the greek community look.

So sure, there will be an even ratio, but that will also mean that the greek community will not be able to pass the blame to non-greeks if a sexual assault is committed. And because the factors leading up to sexual assault weren’t prevented, this “solution,” won’t actually be preventing sexual assaults from occurring; it will simply prevent victims from reporting them. Some students may be excited to hear that the ban had been removed, but this isn’t good news. I just hope that the interventions that students, including myself, are planning, will be successful and reach these students before someone else gets hurt. For now, I guess we can only hope that women attacked at these parties will have the courage to at least seek help for themselves by calling 24-hour campus help-lines or taking advantage of the resources and advocates there to support them in their healing process. And hopefully some of these survivors of sexual violence, coercion and violations will also have the courage to report these crimes, in spite all of these new pressures on them to stay silent, just so that others can selfishly protect their rights to partake in their heavy (and often underage) drinking.

Cross posted on Ladies Logic and True North.