Swarthmore students surround / occupy frat house known for sexual violence & bigotry for past 4 days

[Demovictory9]

‘CLOSE THE RAPE ATTIC’: Swarthmore students occupy fraternity after disturbing documents leak
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/30/close-rape-attic-swarthmore-students-occupy-fraternity-after-disturbing-documents-leak/?utm_term=.fe5715dc92c1

For two years, Maya Henry regularly spent time at Swarthmore College’s two fraternity houses. Every week, the modest stone structures would transform into dens of drunken revelry as partygoers packed in sweaty rooms imbibed on cheap alcohol and danced the night away to a soundtrack of the latest Top 40 hits.

Henry, however, never attended those parties by choice. She had a job to do.

“Most days, my job was to prevent sexual violence and my job was to make sure that somebody wasn’t going to get harmed,” Henry, now a junior, told The Washington Post. The 20-year-old is a member of Swarthmore’s SwatTeam, a student-led organization that works to ensure safety at public campus events where alcohol is served.

“I would sprint up the stairs that lead to the bedroom that’s referred to as the ‘rape attic’ because I knew that there was only one woman up there and a bunch of fraternity brothers,” Henry said.

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For three days, students at Swarthmore College, the elite institution known for its progressive politics, have occupied a picturesque stone house in the middle of campus, the quarters of one of the college’s two fraternities. Activists in the building say that it is the site of rampant sexual violence.

The students have refused to leave until college administrators meet their demands: disband the fraternities and take away the two campus buildings that they lease to the groups. The sit-in is part of a long battle around attempts to kick the Greek system off campus, but more broadly, it is about officials’ handling of rape cases.

The demonstration also comes after documents leaked to student journalists, purportedly chronicling years of bigotry and sexual assaults by one fraternity, Phi Psi, whose house the students have seized.

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The most recent campaign against the fraternities was set off by a group of six or so students who said they saw social media postings by a fraternity member making light of sexual assaults and prejudice against LGBTQ people.


Shortly after the Tumblr anecdotes went public, the student newspapers at Swarthmore, The Phoenix and the left-leaning publication The Voices, published a trove of Phi Psi “meeting minutes” and other documents from 2012 to 2016. They detail fraternity members using illegal drugs and playing explicit drinking games and contain references to rape and derogatory terms for women, students of color and queer students. Sometimes the fraternity members would include photos of female students in the minutes.

The activists have pitched tents both in the yard around the house and inside it. The building is not a traditional large-scale fraternity house -- its main floor is open and is akin to a dance floor for parties, and it has a basement and a single bedroom upstairs. The students leading the protest have hung banners that read, “This is our house” and “Decades of violence behind this door.”

Only one fraternity member lives in the house, and the protesters worked with local police to allow him inside to retrieve his belongings, Goldberg said. Police, unaffiliated with the campus, have been called on students multiple times, but Anskis said no one has been arrested. Goldberg said that students told police they would not damage the property.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/30/swarthmore-students-sit-fraternity-house-after-sexual-assault-allegations

[smirkymonkey]

1. Good for them!

Nice to see that there are some men in the crowd.