AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Our next report is about sexual assaults at colleges and universities. Last month in a lawsuit filed in New York, a woman said she was brutally gang raped two years ago at a fraternity house near Cornell University. The revelations have prompted calls to abolish fraternities on college campuses. Would removing Greek life from colleges reduce sexual assault on campus? NPR's Ava Berger has the story.
AVA BERGER, BYLINE: This is not just a Cornell problem. That's the message spreading online and at college campuses right now.
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MIA SOVIERO: I was sexually assaulted in my junior year of college, and I chose not to report it.
BERGER: Posts like Mia Soviero's, who went to Barnard College, are all over social media of people sharing their experiences with sexual assault. There's even a hashtag now, #IAmJaneDoe. There's extensive research to support this message. Data shows sexual assault is a widespread problem at colleges with or without Greek life. They say colleges are hotbeds of heavy binge drinking, access to unsupervised parties and inexperienced young people, all factors that contribute to sexual assault. But if a college did take away its frats, Jennifer Freyd would expect the number of sexual assaults to drop. Freyd is a professor emerit at University of Oregon. She researches college sexual violence.
JENNIFER FREYD: Getting rid of fraternities likely would reduce the risk somewhat for students because we know from so much research that fraternities are associated with and sororities are associated with higher rates of sexual assault.
BERGER: Freyd said colleges need to be held accountable for allowing this culture to continue.
FREYD: If we just say, oh, there were these bad kids who did this bad thing, like seven bad boys, we're totally missing the picture here. The problem is the culture and the system and all of the ways the institutions are allowing it to occur.
BERGER: Dawn Wiese is a research consultant for the North American Interfraternity Conference. The trade organization shares best practices with fraternities. She pushes back on the research connecting fraternities to sexual assault. She's worked on college campuses with and without frats and says there are real benefits to Greek life.
DAWN WIESE: What we know about men in fraternities - they are more likely to graduate, they are less likely to experience anxiety and depression.
BERGER: Now, to see what students think about the frat question, I visited a small college. Swarthmore hasn't had a frat since 2019.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I know, right? Where is my friend?
BERGER: At the Philadelphia area college, students and faculty gather on the main lawn for Garnet Day, a celebration of school spirit. Swarthmore student Patricia Quimby-Moro is going in the other direction. She has something else on her mind.
PATRICIA QUIMBY-MORO: People are very surprised now obviously, in the wake of Cornell, and being like, how could this happen?
BERGER: Quimby-Moro walks over to the Gender and Sexuality Center. It's the meeting place for the Swarthmore Survivors Collective, where students can share their experiences of sexual assault. The building is also on the old fraternity row.
QUIMBY-MORO: That was Delta Upsilon, and it's now the post office.
BERGER: The frats disbanded in 2019. It came after student backlash and pressure from the college after alleged sexual assault within fraternities at Swarthmore. It's not clear based on available data whether getting rid of frats changed the number of sexual assaults on campus. The school hasn't done a study that could answer that question. Today, the college acknowledges they're not immune to what they call a much broader societal issue. Quimby-Moro agrees.
QUIMBY-MORO: It happens everywhere, and it happens here.
BERGER: She said survivors show up to her meetings every week. That's why she started a petition to hire a specialist that supports students who are sexual assault survivors. It worked.
QUIMBY-MORO: So that's been a really big deal, and I am excited about that.
BERGER: Swarthmore is now in the process of filling that role.
Ava Berger, NPR News, Philadelphia. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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