Student Activists Shut Down Swarthmore’s Fraternities. Here’s Why That Matters.

Associated Press

After a four-day occupation, dozens of students jumped and screamed in delight on Tuesday night in Swarthmore College’s Phi Psi fraternity house. “No frats, no frats, no frats,” they chanted.

BREAKING: Members of @O4Sswarthmore and the Swarthmore Coalition to End Fraternity Violence, alongside other students sitting in, celebrate the announcement that both of Swarthmore’s fraternities will disband. pic.twitter.com/QRBmgta3KY

— Swarthmore Phoenix (@swat_phoenix) May 1, 2019

Indeed, fraternities at Swarthmore are no more, after both Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon announced that they would shut down. Their decisions followed a furious wave of activism, led by sexual-assault victims, in response to the publication of sexist, racist, and homophobic documents that appeared to be written by Phi Psi members.

The documents, obtained by two campus newspapers, talked about date-rape drugs, made several references to sexual assault and sexual conquests, and described a fraternity bedroom as a “rape attic.”

The controversy at the small liberal-arts college outside Philadelphia has laid bare the often-conflicting tactics of administrators and students. Swarthmore officials stressed the need for a deliberative process before making sweeping changes in Greek life. Students wanted the fraternities banned from the campus immediately.

Making Fraternities Safer

Bringing problems out into the open and promoting confidential reporting have helped lift the veil of secrecy that perpetuates abusive behavior.

• Fraternities Can Change on Their Own
• Colleges Confront the Perils of Frats
• How One University Is Challenging an Ugly ‘Tradition’ Among Students

In this case, the fraternity members bowed to the short-term pressure of the activists before any long-term process could run its course. The activists, by any measure, prevailed. In a moment of increased scrutiny of Greek life amid hazing and sexual-assault cases, will students elsewhere be inspired to follow their lead?

Swarthmore administrators made no secret of their disapproval of the activists’ approach.

Several times, officials condemned the documents’ contents and said they were investigating whether current students had been involved in writing them. But the administrators said they would wait for a campus task force on Greek life to finish its work before taking other actions.

James S. Terhune, vice president and dean of students, singled out the protesters for criticism last week. Anger and impatience, he wrote in an email to the campus, “does not give license for disruptive, unproductive behavior.”

Valerie A. Smith, Swarthmore’s president, struck a similar note on Wednesday. “Social-media posts by members of our community that target individual students or make gross generalizations about student groups are unacceptable,” she wrote. “Nor can we tolerate attempts to exclude students from open campus events based on their affiliations.”

The Overarching Goal

The activists, meanwhile, took aggressive steps to reiterate their demands, disrupting half a dozen administrative meetings last week and storming en masse into the Phi Psi house on Saturday.

Emma Dulski, a freshman who participated in the protest, said students’ demonstrations had been “highlighting the urgency of the issue,” but they had been peaceful. “To hear the president still kind of condemn the activists’ work is really disheartening,” she said.

Over the past few weeks, many students have told painful stories of being mistreated or sexually assaulted in the fraternities, she said. The administrators’ criticism, she said, had “basically undermined the value of all of the survivors’ statements.”

Students at other colleges have expressed interest in organizing similar protests, Dulski said. The Swarthmore protesters plan to hold a conference call on Thursday to talk with campus activists nationwide about what they did and why. They’ll explain their overarching goal, she said, which was to “transform” fraternities into more-inclusive spaces. “We hope to tell our story and help lift up others,” Dulski said.

The two Swarthmore fraternities said they would disband in Facebook posts. Phi Psi wrote in its post that the offensive documents had “led us to question our affiliation with an organization whose former members could write such heinous statements.”

“We understand the long-term impact of the documents on our fraternity’s culture as a toxic element that cannot continue to exist on Swarthmore’s campus,” the statement said. The Phi Psi chapter is not affiliated with a national fraternity organization; the other fraternity, Delta Upsilon, is.

Spreading Outrage

Some campuses that are similar to Swarthmore, like Williams and Middlebury Colleges, axed Greek life long ago.

Still, the fact that student activists tipped the scales is a big deal, several Greek-life observers said. “This sends a clear message that students will take action to hold their peers accountable, even in the absence of administrative action,” said Jim Barber, an associate professor of higher education at the College of William & Mary.

Douglas E. Fierberg, a lawyer who often sues fraternities on behalf of sexual-assault and hazing victims, said he hadn’t often seen this level of student outrage against fraternities.

He cited one other recent example of strong activism on Greek life: Wesleyan University. Students there helped prompt the Connecticut university’s Board of Trustees in 2014 to force fraternities to either go coed within three years or shut down. (That mandate remains in flux due to a lawsuit filed by one of the fraternities.)

Heightened student activism could lead to positive reforms at other institutions, Fierberg said. Students know, he said, “which fraternities haze and which fraternities are dangerous for women to enter.”

But Fierberg said he’s skeptical that the Swarthmore fraternities really are gone for good. When students pledge a fraternity, they’re members for life, he said. That doesn’t change just because they no longer occupy a house and no longer have a formal name or relationship with administrators.

He has seen examples, he said, of fraternities that disband for a few years, then reappear with the same problematic behavior. “People forget, then they’re back on campus,” he said, “and things don’t change.”

Dulski, the freshman, said she and other activists would continue to question administrators about when the fraternities’ leases on their college-owned buildings will be terminated and how the spaces will be used differently. They’ll keep protesting until officials guarantee that the former houses will be “reallocated to groups historically marginalized by the frats,” she said.

“We’re making sure that the administration is held accountable for their inaction and their silence,” she said. “It is really telling that this change happened solely because of student activism.”

Smith, Swarthmore’s president, said on Wednesday that an external investigator would continue to look into whether current students were involved in writing the offensive documents. She lamented the “heartbreaking stories,” from both protesters and fraternity members, “who feel unwelcome to the point of wanting to transfer out of our community.”

Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.