Her decision will not be popular. UVA President Teresa Sullivan has banned fraternities and sororities at UVA until Jan. 9. No one is quite sure what “Ban” means at this point. For now, all we can do is speculate. Since students live in fraternities and sororities, it would be fairly difficult to re-house all of them. However, Sullivan can and should shut down all social activities until January 9.
Sullivan was a popular president, especially after her ouster 2 years ago. Let’s see if she can carry that popularity through shutting down the social heart of the UVA social system. I don’t expect Sullivan to emerge unbloodied by her decision to put all Greek life in major time-out. According to the Washington Post:
Sullivan’s statement came after more than 1,000 students and faculty members signed a letter sent Friday night calling on the president to freeze activities for groups under investigation for sexual assault and for a suspension of Greek-letter organizations throughout the weekend.
Hundreds attended a rally Thursday, and dozens more marched through campus Friday calling for new efforts to combat “rape culture” at the university, according to reports in the student-run Cavalier Daily. On Saturday afternoon, four protesters were arrested for trespassing at the Phi Kappa Psi house, said Lt. Stephen Upman, a Charlottesville police spokesman
“People were unsatisfied with [Sullivan’s] initial response,” said Retsy Holliday, a senior foreign affairs majors who was one of the drafters of the letter. “This was our cry for more action. And she responded.”
Further reading:
Good move by Sullivan.
One of my grandsons has been initiated into a frat (not at UVa). It seems like every weekend he and his brothers have some charitable thing they are doing — long, sponsored walks; other campus fund raisers (mostly for fighting serious diseases); food pantry collections; cleaning up a stretch of local highway. I presume that frats and sororities at UVa do similar things. Wonder if Sullivan is going to suspend ALL Greek activities? That would be bad. Holidays coming. Lots of charities out there needing help.
The Daily Progress:
Standing ovation for this student, Patrick Ahern. Short, sweet and to the point.
@Wolve
Most fraternities are service oriented. I believe that all major frats and sororities must have a program of charity and community service. After that, they can party.
Some have no social function. Very few meet that criteria.
I think that protection of students is actually more important than charity work. No one is stopping individual participation for causes that people feel strongly about.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/uva-gang-rape-allegation-shows-why-universities-shouldnt-arbitrate-sexual-assault/article/2556596
Maybe THIS is why she is reacting that way.
Excerpt:
Eramo laid out Jackie’s options for filing a complaint and detailed how each of them would unfold. That’s fine, but as the article noted, that lack of guidance proved “counterproductive” for a traumatized 19-year-old.
“Setting aside for a moment the absurdity of a school offering to handle the investigation and adjudication of a felony sex crime – something Title IX requires, but which no university on Earth is equipped to do – the sheer menu of choices, paired with the reassurance that any choice is the right one, often has the end result of coddling the victim into doing nothing,” Erdely wrote.
Which is what happened in Jackie’s case. She ended up not filing a report.
While it’s all well and good to allow accusers to decide how to proceed with filing a report – whether to keep the matter within the university, report to campus police or local police – rape accusations need to be taken seriously.
obviously they violated the conditions of Clery reporting.
I am not so sure the victim does get to decide how to proceed. If I called the cops and said Mr. Howler was beating the B-Jesus out of me I wouldn’t have an option as to whether to press charges or not. If the cops got there and saw sufficient evidence that I was being beaten or in any way a victim of domestic abuse, the matter would no longer be in my hands.
I don’t think that campus police should be the holders of this sort of information. Colleges want to downplay sexual violence. Who pays the campus police paychecks? There needs to be a little distance. In the case of UVA, the Charlottesville police or the Albemarle County sheriff’s office needs to be in control here.
There is some confusion on who really is in control. UVA technically is in Albemarle County. Most of the fraternity houses are off campus and therefore in Charlottesville. The only reason I know this is because I was born in the University Hospital and therefore I was born in Albemarle County, not Charlottesville. Go figure.
@Moon-howler
The only community service we performed was returning the empty bottles for the deposit.
Ha! Yea but I bet you were on the books as a community service organization. Feel free to email me which house. Or, I could guess…..nah….won’t guess.