The president of the University of Virginia on Saturday suspended all fraternal organizations until early January, the latest in the institution’s response to a Rolling Stone article alleging a “cycle of sexual violence and institutional indifference” at the elite public college.
The magazine article, which was published on Wednesday, describes a gang rape of a first-year student in a UVa fraternity house in 2012. Earlier this week the university commissioned an investigation of the incident and other allegations in the article, and called on the police department in Charlottesville, Va., to investigate the 2012 assault.
By Saturday morning, UVa’s Inter-Fraternity Council had already announced plans to suspend all social activities by fraternities that had been scheduled for this weekend.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Teresa A. Sullivan, UVa’s president, said that “meaningful change is necessary” at the institution, and at all colleges.
“We can demand that incidents like those described in Rolling Stone never happen and that, if they do, the responsible are held accountable to the law. This will require institutional change, cultural change, and legislative change, and it will not be easy. We are making those changes.”
The statement noted that UVa’s Board of Visitors would meet on Tuesday to discuss the university’s sexual-assault policies.
Ms. Sullivan also called on students and others in the university community to take time over the Thanksgiving holiday to review a recently published Student Sexual Misconduct Policy that is up for public comment.
The fraternity suspension is set to run through January 9, the start of the spring semester.
