Content warning: sexually explicit language
When individuals pledged to now-disbanded Delta Upsilon fraternity at Swarthmore in 2013, they were required to create a separate Gmail account for internal communications. These communications included “minutes” that would contain statements like ‘Grade A USDA Slut’ and ‘his wife had a great rack.’ The Phoenix confirmed that emails of this kind were sent to a Google group of DU members as recently as 2016.
The Phoenix and Voices received unsolicited internal documents, that were redacted, with DU minutes that span from February 2013 to August 2013. These minutes include photos, details about fraternity leadership positions, accounts of campus events and fraternity meetings, and descriptions of a regional DU seminar. Some of these minutes contain sexually explicit references of women as well as racist comments.
DU is an international fraternity with chapters at college campuses across U.S. and Canada. The DU chapter at Swarthmore was established in 1894 and was a chapter of the international fraternity until two days ago — when it disbanded after student protests calling for the termination of fraternity leases attracted national attention.
The Phoenix reached out to 13 former DU leaders and members present in 2013, 11 of whom did not respond to our requests for comment and two of whom declined. DU leadership in 2019 also declined to comment.
A PDF of the redacted documents that The Phoenix received can be found here.
Minutes Described Chapter, Regional Events
Party like rockstars
Pound like pornstars
Play like allstars
The hardware party: get nailed, hammered and screwed
Our brotherhood is tighter than your little sister
You have to be 21 to drink
But only 18 to cum
Delts in your mouth, not in your hand
Giving girls their first pearl necklace since 1834 [Editor’s note: this refers to an explicit sexual act]
In an email sent by a DU member to the Google group on February 2, 2013, the member suggests that these phrases were party themes and t-shirt slogans included in a powerpoint at a DU regional leadership seminar in 2013.
“There was also a talk on good party themes and T-shirt slogans. I’m not sure why, I just woke up and this was the topic of discussion up on the projector screen,” the member wrote.
The email contained photos of Powerpoint slides from the seminar.
“Yeah I’m not kidding there’s pictorial evidence if you think we’re making these up. Just thought you all should know about the great things we’ve been learning all day on your behalves.”
The Phoenix has not been able to verify the origin of the photos of the Powerpoint slides and has made the decision to not publish the photos.
In a statement to The Phoenix, Ashley Martin Schowengerdt, Director of Communications at DU international fraternity, wrote “we have not seen the information you have, but we believe the photos are from a risk management presentation that uses examples to explain to chapters what not to do and how to confront those behaviors in their chapter and community. This presentation was given by an award-winning, nationally recognized speaker designed to ‘focus students back on their founding values while explaining the rationale behind all of their excuses for change’.”
The Phoenix requested the Powerpoint slides from the presentation in 2013, but DU International Fraternity declined to share them with The Phoenix.
The DU regional leadership seminar, now known as the DU regional leadership academy, is facilitated by International Headquarters.
The DU regional leadership academy is now held in various locations, based on the province where the chapter is located: West, South, Northeast, Great Plains. or Midwest. Swarthmore’s chapter is located in the Northeast province. For chapters in this region in 2013, the seminar was held in Philadelphia.
According to Rob Losco, current province governor of the Northeast region of DU, the current regional leadership academies bring in staff members and professionals in higher education to hold talks and discussions about issues such as Title IX on college campuses, underage drinking, chapter recruitment, and chapter leadership. If students or other speakers presented at DU regional events, their powerpoints were submitted to IHQ.
“…they [IHQ] should be able to tell you not only who hosted it [a regional event], but the students who submitted the itineraries because you’re supposed to submit basic information. If you do have a PowerPoint, they would want you to send a copy of it, things like that…” Losco said. “And if there was anything added on later, like something like what you just mentioned, then IHQ wouldn’t have been knowledgeable of it.”
Losco believes that while IHQ exercises oversight over regional events that chapters and IHQ organize, they don’t have control over every aspect of how individuals run these events.
“Unfortunately, IHQ, they run a tight ship, but they’re not all powerful. They can’t be everywhere and know everything. And guys do things, you know, less reputable than we would like, but, you know, we do the best we can.”
Losco emphasized the value that DU places in transparency and not withholding secrets.
“You know, if anybody if you ever confront interview or reach out to someone who is less than forthcoming. If you could let IHQ or myself know someone in official capacity, that would be appreciated, because they’re not representing our organization. And that’s something that we would hold, you know, basically, offense to, because there’s no secrets, no barriers, no walls. So if someone says anything to the effect of ‘mind your own business’, or ‘don’t worry about it’, or ‘we can’t provide that information’, then they do not represent us.”
Aftermath of the Minutes: Alums Reflect on DU Culture
After The Phoenix and Voices published internal Phi Psi documents on April 18, Brian*, a DU alum who graduated in 2013, was contacted by a former classmate. She was distraught about the contents of the Phi Psi minutes.
“It’s easy to just think of the minutes in a vacuum … I wouldn’t say this individual and I were particularly close. But the point was that [the person who reached out to me] just didn’t know what to do. And those minutes were having negative ramifications on people years later, that had nothing to do with drafting them or doing them,” he said. “And I guess it just opened my eyes to all of the other harms the fraternities had imposed on people for years, and even decades in some instances.”
While the conversation with his former classmate upset him, Brian was even more disturbed by his own initial reaction to the documents.
“The minutes by themselves weren’t shocking to me. And I guess that was another big part of it is that I just wasn’t shocked when I saw it. I was like, yep, that sounds about right for Phi Psi. And that realization is what kind of hit me, that the fact that I wasn’t shocked, just disgusted me,” he said.
Soon after, Brian decided to forward the emails containing the Spring 2013 DU minutes to The Phoenix and Voices.
The semester the minutes were written — and Brian’s last semester at Swarthmore — was a time that former President Chopp coined ‘The Spring of our Discontent.’ That Spring, two students, Hope Brinn ’15 and Mia Ferguson ’15, brought federal Title IX complaints against the college, garnering national attention. After much discussion, protest, and accusations against the fraternities on campus, a referendum to eliminate Greek life on campus was eventually voted down by the student body.
Brian advocated for DU against anti-frat activists at the time.
“To my regret, I was probably one of the more active defenders of DU at the time, and I had a number of arguments with some of the anti-frat people,” he said. “ I guess with the time I just had blinders on and my affiliation was with the fraternity rather than necessarily the side of justice or, or trying to do better. And I did not see, I just didn’t see the problems that they said were there, which I can’t deny anymore.
Looking back on his own experience as a DU brother, Brian believes that he and other brothers believed themselves to be the better fraternity.
“I think it was a fairly positive one on the whole. And this is not intended to be self serving, but at the time and still to this day, at least in part, I believe DU was better than Phi Psi. That’s not to say that we were morally justified in in our existence, but we seemed to be less shitty than Phi Psi was. At least that was the reputation that we held of ourselves and I think was held on campus,” he said.
Within DU itself, Brian described a mixed culture. While some brothers took part in an intense party culture, others were in the fraternity for the relationships.
“So I think, to say that there was one fraternity culture is I think overstating it,” he said. “I think there were definitely people who would get trashed on like a fairly and by trashed I mean belligerently intoxicated on a fairly consistent basis and arguably had an alcohol problem … But there were people who were there more for that. And then I think people who are like me who just enjoy having a group of guys to hang out with that you wouldn’t normally associate with.”
Tom,* another DU alum, also eventually re-evaluated his role in the fraternity. Like Brian, two factors impacted his decision. Unlike Brian, however, Tom’s change of heart was while he was still a student at the college; he became largely inactive at the end of his sophomore year.
“First of all, I had a lot less free time and I found friends outside of the frat. And also, as you get educated at Swat you learn what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable language. And I was definitely beginning to notice that as I interacted with the people there. But at some point, it just bothered me and I stopped really showing up to most things. I still went to parties sometimes, but I wasn’t very happy with a lot of the stuff that was going on,” Tom said.
Both Tom and Brian reported hearing racist, sexist, and homophobic comments made by members of the fraternity.
“I’d like to say that I did more to tamp [the comments] down,” Brian said. “But I didn’t. At the time I just wrote it off as that’s how guys act in fraternities. It wasn’t constant, I would say in between infrequent and occasional. I wouldn’t say it was like a conscious effort to be misogynistic or racist or homophobic or any of that other stuff. But those kind of remarks I think would happen more casually, which arguably made them worse.”
Both alums also emphasized the role of the baseball team in impacting the culture of the fraternity. Brian felt that the team was a more homogenous group than the rest of the fraternity.
“I think a lot of the guys were baseball, but not all of them, of course. I think that also added another kind of bond within the society,” Brian said.
For Tom, DU’s connection to the baseball team meant that members on the team had a very different experience than those not on the team.
“It definitely felt like a lot of the time there was an outer circle and an inner circle,” he said. “If you weren’t on the baseball team, you were not getting a lot of the interactions that the people on the baseball team were getting because obviously they were around each other 24/7.”
In contrast, Tom thought that DU members felt oppositional to the rest of campus.
“It was very much like an us versus them kind of mentality. Like, the campus wants this. So we need to do this … we need to keep up a good reputation so that we don’t have an adversarial relationship with the campus, as opposed to being part of the campus,” he said. “You know, it’s a boys’ club.”
According to Tom, this mentality served to further isolate the brothers.
“It’s a shame that the culture was the way it was, because a lot of the time, it felt like to me, especially when I first joined, and for a lot of the guys there, it was the only place where they could be vulnerable about themselves, in terms of their feelings. But at the same time, that was probably something that turned them more inward towards each other than rather than out towards the campus at large.
This dynamic, Tom felt, had adverse effects on both the fraternity brothers and the campus.
“Because it’s, it’s very important to … feel like you’re allowed to, express yourself and talk about things that you’re not necessarily comfortable talking about, with everyone else. But at the same time, it’s important to open yourself up to the general community, and see if the things that you’re saying are hurtful to other people,” he said.
In the years since 2013, the fraternity has been suspended and reopened multiple times. This week, on April 30, Delta Upsilon unanimously voted to disband their chapter.
“Over the last few weeks, Swarthmore Delta Upsilon has listened to the concerns and feelings of the campus community. After much discussion, the members of Delta Upsilon have unanimously decided that disbanding our fraternity is in the best interest of the Swarthmore community. We hope that our former house will provide a space that is inclusive, safe, and promotes healing,” the fraternity wrote on their Facebook.
The Phi Psi minutes were gross. This, on the other hand, is just quoting a “what not to do” presentation and implying that the DU brothers were somehow implicit. I’ve read the minutes and the article, and I seriously can’t find anything that would give a neutral observer a negative feeling about this fraternity. Why is this being treated like a big scoop? I feel misled.
This is such a non-article. The sensational sounding quotes you are irresponsibly using are literally from a regional training conference where they show us a bunch of examples of what is NOT appropriate to use. It would be like going to a fire safety class where they say “do not leave cigarettes unattended” and you reporting it as “examples of recommended behaviors: ‘leave cigarettes unattended.” Irresponsible, harmful, garbage journalism.
Where’s my mans the Nobel winners quote. As a cis SURVIVOR DATING A FRAT MEMBER I WANT HIS. AND MY VOICE HEARD.
Way to go, Brian and Tom! You guys were the essential final piece to our master plan, and you have provided sufficiently! Very brave of you to go against your former brothers on our behalf. We needed someone on the inside and your willingness to contribute to our narrative has had an impact too big for words. This massive win for us will directly benefit me and many others for the next 3+ years! 🙂
Current brothers:
As a DU alum, I think it would be awesome if you rebranded the fraternity as something totally unrelated to Greek life, and then had this group continue on with your ongoing community service projects throughout the year. Commitment to service being a founding pillar of DU, this would be a way to move on from the tarnished legacy that has prevailed over the past several weeks while carrying forward some positive, real action that we as a group have contributed since our inception. Even if our peers deny this objectively positive aspect of our existence, we know it to be true, and they’re opinions are not what define our fraternity.
I’m suggesting a new body that will help with the blood drive, jumble sale, All Riders Up, charity dodgeball/basketball tournaments, and the other organizations and events that we have been essential to over the years. In my time at Swat, I remember being shocked by how much more my high school did for our community than Swarthmore’s student body does. Cutting out DU will drastically diminish that further unless a new group is formed to take its place. Swarthmore students tend to talk a big game but walk little to none of said game.
Maybe if the new organization is unrelated to Greek Life, we can get some SJW’s to join and actually impact the community, something that has not been otherwise achieved to the best of my knowledge. That is, besides creating safe spaces, empathizing with victims (a loosely used term nowadays btw), arguing for divestment etc. which they would likely argue counts (these are too broad and too big picture, I’m talking about maintaining a direct, local impact). I remember inviting my fellow classmates from outside of DU a few times a month to join us on our community service escapades, and I think I only ever got one person one time to come with us to All Riders Up (@protesters look it up). And it took some serious effort to convince him it wouldn’t stink. I suspect that the real issue may have been that the rest of the student body didn’t come because they didn’t want to associate with Greek Life (rather than because they’re selfish), so maybe a need to disband and rebrand following this fallout will be a blessing in disguise and will actually increase the community service output of the student body. Trying to be optimistic here! I’m interested to hear some takes on this that aren’t just ripping on the frats! (Again, optimistic) Would other students join this if it was established by DU members? Would you make your own, similar group? Be well.
In Spirit,
Christian B. Ainfinsen ‘37
Delta Upsilon Brother
Nobel Prize Winner, 1972
Presumed sexist, misogynist, racist, and rapist
P.S.
Dav… *ahem* BRIAN – I’m rescinding my award I gave you in my name. You are bright, albeit with glaring character flaws abound, starting with being a condescending prick. And knowing you, you’re aware and proud of that title. You are a puppet at best.
;^)~
Δικαια Υποθηκη!
I’m an alumni. I am a former DU brother. I am writing because I want to apologize in advance if I seem short with you moving forward. I am not sharing my opinions about what I think should have been the fate of the fraternities – we are past that. I want to share with you why I, someone who has been a consistent friend to many of you, may not seem so friendly next time you say hello.
During my time at Swarthmore (which overlapped with the referendum), the fraternities were an open space where people went to let go. Lots of people, every week of every year. There were incidents of sexual/verbal abuse. I can recall three legitimate, serious instances involving brothers in my time on campus (two sexual, one otherwise), as well as one false allegation (sexual) made public by the Phoenix. I cannot speak for Phi Psi. I also understand that there may have been other instances that were not reported. Internal action was taken in all four of these cases – those brothers were immediately suspended and never returned as brothers. That’s in all four cases, even though the fourth has proven to be fabricated as a result of poor journalism (which is consistently produced by the Phoenix). The student body was aware to some degree of all of these cases. They still came to us because not only did they recognize that the brothers were upstanding young men, but also because the brothers were willing to go out of their way to provide the fun environment that campus generally lacked. We took on the liability of hosting parties. Not only our own liability, but that of everyone who entered our house. We dealt with more non-brother issues than brother issues semester after semester, yet these issues continue to be associated with us. As the cherry on top, we paid to decorate the house, provided refreshments to everyone, and cleaned up your mess. Cups, pretzels, beer, puke, tampons. Every. Single. Week. And we stayed open for you as best we could. We weren’t perfect. We knew that, campus knew that. But we tried to improve despite the total lack of dialogue with students like the ones who organized the sit in. They never came to talk to us, but we pushed on. We did what we could to provide some semblance of a typical college experience for students who otherwise could not find that, and we had a lot of awesome times doing it.
Which brings us here. The minutes were leaked, splitting the brotherhood over how the fraternity should proceed. I’m not going to say where I stand on this yet. If it seems like I made this clear above, you are wrong. I am speaking objectively above. But the reason that I feel that I’ve lost a lot of friends (inside and outside of the house) with this whole situation is that you ALL took the easy side in hypocritical fashion. You took their side. The same individuals who were partying at the fraternities just weeks ago are now publicly voicing their unflinching disapproval. You took the moral high ground. You patted yourselves on the butt for joining this movement. Our leadership fought the administration to get a Sunday night party permit (something that is not allowed) to open our doors for the women’s soccer team after they won the conference title in 2015. Some of the current students reading this were there that night. We had sober brothers sign onto a party permit and hang out at the house all night so you guys could get wasted together in celebration. And you, women’s soccer, say we’ve always been a negative. That we should have been gone years ago, that we provide no benefit. We brought student groups over for pregames when they asked for a space to get drunk with their friends. I’m looking at you, Theta, a group we were especially close to who suddenly believes that frats are toxic but somehow sororities are not, at least not in the absence of a controlled space. You wrote about us as well. And so did many others. We’ve shared our space with all of you. The space we built, the space we’ve maintained. We shared our funds with all of you. And now you post articles about the toxic culture that you were a part of yet apparently so oblivious to just months ago. You now denounce us, slandering us publicly with grossly exaggerated stories. You’ve suggested that brothers who have lived in the house use their rooms as a “rape attic”. 100+ submissions on the Tumblr page. 100+! I posted one recently that was so vulgar it was hard to write. So unthinkable that I’m not sure it’s physically possible. And I worded it so that it was something that literally could not have occurred at a fraternity (but I said it did). Anyone who spends any amount of time at the fraternities would know this. I sent it in. I wanted to see if the individuals who run that group would reach out, asking for details. I was looking for any sort of effort on their behalf to validate my ludicrous story, rather than accept it as truth about fraternity members. I wanted to know that these posts were sincere, that there was some degree of fact-checking behind the scenes. But they didn’t reach out. My post was live in minutes. Someone shouted my post at Dean Miller in a video which has recently been shared all over social media. This was used as an argument for his forced resignation. Thousands of people have read or heard my 50 word horror story, many taking it as truth. Taking it as a representation of the individuals in DU and Phi Psi.
And we as brothers are helpless. We can’t show public support for the fraternities; the potential repercussions are limitless. You could have said that you had positive experiences but that you renounce the content of the leaked documents and tone that it sets (and some of you did just this). But most of you have turned your backs to us, your friends, in order to better your own image. You could have let this play out, but you took it a step further for your own benefit, at our expense. Which is why I will be short with you moving forward. It’s why I don’t want to provide career advice over coffee anymore, or support your endeavors anymore. I don’t want to come speak to you with Career Services, tell you about my experiences. It’s why I don’t ask how you’re doing anymore, or even fake that things are cool between us. You can pretend we are still pals in person, but behind the computer you have trashed us, not only as an organization, but as individuals. I regret using our resources on you. Our funds. Our food, our alcohol. Our time. I regret that we opened our space week after week to share with you. I wish we cut our dues in half by not providing for you and secluded ourselves in our space, away from all of you. I regret calling you friends. You don’t have a friend in me, not anymore.
To wrap this up, I will admit that I do think that the time is up on fraternities, and I agree with the decision made by the two houses. But the outflow of support that you have shown towards the temper tantrum thrown at Phi Psi and all around campus does not sit well. It won’t sit well. It’s cowardly. It’s fake, rooted in largely-manufactured beliefs. It suggests that there is not another reasonable opinion to be had. And while I regret the love that we have shown you, I am happy to move on from you, Swarthmore.
Go ahead and write me off as a bigot – I consider myself a very generous, reasonable, outgoing guy, and in person I think those of you I know would have agreed. Like DU, I am not perfect, but I am comfortable with my moral standard and the standard that I held my brothers to for four years. That standard is miles above a “rape attic” or “rape tunnel”, I can assure you. I know this to be true, and your qualms will not change that. I have tremendous respect for so many brothers (not named “Brian”). To my brothers: we had a good run, and I will never forget the portion of this ride that I was lucky enough to be a part of. And it’s a shame that some people won’t remember it that way. Δικαια Υποθηκη!
I think you bring up many valid points, and I understand why you feel hurt, rejected and betrayed by those around you (and I think many people also understand). The one issue that I have with your argument is that it is implying that those who attended your parties are hypocritical for speaking out against the fraternity. I will concede that there are individuals where the hypocrisy is obvious and should be called out, but for most others, it is not accurate to say because they went to frat parties then they don’t have the right to point out flaws. This type of thinking is dangerous because it leads to some members of the fraternities to take advantage of that power imbalance (i.e the members who have perpetrated negative actions, like assault). It reminds me of the overused “If you don’t like it then you can just leave” argument that’s used in so many different spheres.
Is it right to say that all the women’s soccer players enjoyed going to the frats, where it is more likely that members felt obligated or pressured by their friends/teammates to go? Same with Theta. I know for a fact this holds true for many individuals (in these two organizations and as well the general student body), but to reiterate, that I agree with your point that are certain individuals from these groups who are hypocrites if they were the ones who put the frats on a pedestal for years and then turned around and brought them down in a second.
Being in a fraternity at Swat did bring about so much social influence and power, that it is only natural that your actions were more closely examined and criticized than others on campus. Same in the real world, where any leader in a company or organization gets more heat and consequences if they mess up. It may not seem fair to those who hold the power, but it is a fact of life. Those individuals in both DU and Phi who acted negatively, unfortunately, cloud the image for the rest of the brothers who did nothing but positive actions during their time at Swat. It may be unreasonable to you, and it would be to me if I was in your position, but it is just reality.
You seem like a mature, responsible individual who did a great deal of good during your time at Swat, and it is sad to hear that you will not be contributing to the alumni or current campus community anymore. I hope one day you change your mind and realize that we all are bigger than just frat/non-frat member and understand we have a larger responsibility to make the campus as safe and inclusive as possible.
I’m sorry but it seems hypocritical to ask me to reconsider since the college is much larger than just this issue, when you, in fact, deny reconsidering fraternities roles on campus due to my argument that the issues caused by fraternities are isolated incidents. That doesn’t stack up. And to add a second level to that, you drag my house down with one that is entirely separate that has an entirely different reputation. I don’t love that point you’re making.
Next, who really has the power? The weak do not take over buildings and make demands to deans. We showed reason all along the way, something the the protesters appears to be incapable of. Yes, we had power over the otherwise entirely non-existent social scene. If other groups actually threw parties sometimes, maybe that wouldn’t be the case!
I know that I was generalizing WSOC and Theta, but those two groups stuck out as exceptionally hypocritical, at least given my experience. Which by the way doesn’t really include the current students on campus, maybe I overlooked that a bit. And that is a fair point you make that some individuals likely came to be with their friends, not necessarily by their own choice, I can see that. Overall, I appreciate that you have some understanding of where I’m coming from, unlike Ursula who writes me off my feelings because she somehow knows that I am entitled (should have said “Go ahead and write me off as a bigot OR ENTITLED” at the end there lol) even if we don’t 100% agree.
“I’m looking at you, Theta, a group we were especially close to who suddenly believes that frats are toxic but somehow sororities are not, at least not in the absence of a controlled space. You wrote about us as well.”
As someone who took minutes for Theta, the frats were NEVER written about. The minutes also never included sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, or sexual assault related language. You should be ashamed for alluding otherwise. Although I am not surprised, considering you fostered a post referring to sexual assault on the survivors tumblr. I am saddened that I ever considered you a friend.
I mean, you guys used our house for your formals, so don’t act like we abused our space and provided no benefit to campus. And it also seems that you are grouping our minutes to be as the same as Phi’s, which is not really the case. The writer also did not allude to you guys having insensitive minutes at any point, but it would certainly seem like the whole “exclusive groups provide support for wrongdoings by its members” thing would apply to a sorority in the exact same way it would to a fraternity. Maybe I’m missing something, idk… It’s just wild that Theta has somehow stayed out of this, and it’s wildly hypocritical to be outspoken about the negatives of DU.
Hi Dead to Me,
Since you didn’t sign your name, how will we know which swattie is no longer our friend, if you ever were a friend at all? Your opinion is oozing with entitlement and it shows that you clearly do not understand survivors or have empathy for them. Your admission of creating a fake story on the Tumblr is gross. I’m grateful O4S organized to remove the spaces where voices like yours had so much undeserved power over the campus community.
Thanks for the free booze,
Ursula
Ursula,
I do not know you, so you don’t need to worry about it. I like to think that my view is a solid representation of how many brothers feel, so I would say you can assume I am any of your friends who were in a fraternity.
You guys like to throw words like “entitlement” around a lot. What makes you think that I am entitled? I’m a very grounded individual. Am I showing entitlement towards the house that we built, maintain, had a lease for? Seems reasonable, you could have banded a group who out bid us for the lease if you so desired. Am I entitled for my basic right to association? Also seems reasonable… basic rights we’re talking about here. Or maybe you’re just generalizing about my entire comment, in which case, nice! Very thought-provoking suggestion, though I disagree with you. Swatties are great at generalizing. “Oozing with entitlement”, lol.
I empathize with real survivors of sexual assault, to be sure, but “survivor” in your context and the context used by protesters, as well as “violence”, are used so broadly that they really have little meaning. It ranges from name-calling to rape. Those are very, very different things. I benefit from being white, straight, etc. and realize that I will never understand how certain name-calling feels. I do have empathy for racism, sexism, etc., but you’re right, I don’t understand it since I’m not a part of these particular groups. Real survivors of sexual assault I have the utmost empathy for, and I wish you and the protesters could find a way to differentiate “survivor of insensitive comments” from “survivor of sexual assault” rather than have one big group of “survivors”. Someone said that the protesters were, “survivors of violence” when the administration brought police in after the students illegally overtook President Smith’s office. That is my point exactly, those raped are also “survivors of violence”. I have much more empathy for the latter.
On the topic of the Tumblr – I certainly felt shady posting my fake story, but just as much shame on the admins who posted that atrocity with no follow up. False sexual assault allegations are not as cowardly as committing sexual assault, but they’re in the same ballpark. The ability to post anonymously takes all of the courage required to make such an allegation (which is an INSANE amount of courage) out of the equation. I am an embodiment of this, which I am a bit ashamed of, but it certainly proves that doubt exists about all of those stories, due to their anonymity, not my insensitivity. Which should have been clear without me doing that, seeing as we throw 15 parties a year and somehow have failed to notice hundreds of serious allegations posed on Tumblr, which, as I continue to mention, allows for anonymous posts, which makes false accusations beyond easy. I will bluntly say that I do not believe everything posted on there, sorry if I’m silencing victims, but that is also done by the others who posted fake stories to build a narrative about the frats (you are naive if you think the protesters are above making up stories on there).
And yes, that will be wonderful when O4S turns our houses into hangouts for everyone except white straight people, who will no longer have anywhere to go, right? But that’s cool, the people who control the houses will still be the “marginalized” ones (another bs word thrown around) and the fraternity members can kick rocks. Very “inclusive” indeed, inclusive counts if the only ones excluded are considered privileged by their peers. You were all welcome at the houses the whole time but you never came because of stereotypes and presumptions that you chose to believe, yet you still managed to experience over a hundred atrocities along the way. I hope Val Smith shoots those clowns down. They’re lucky that none of them have been arrested. Also lol at the video of the flop (in the basketball sense) that you guys are sharing around as if physical abuse by public safety. You guys have made Public Safety miserable for stuff like this.
I apologize that you found my message insulting, but that’s the point – Swatties are insulted by everything. I hope more people understand where I’m coming from than do not, sorry if it didn’t play out that way in your case.
You’re not welcome,
Still Dead to Me
Wow, this post got a lot of upvotes. I’m really curious what a referendum would have shown.
Who’s actually being silenced at Swarthmore?
“Tom” – I think I know who you are and I just wanted to say that I’m sorry we made you feel that way. I think I realized late into my time at Swat that you were more adverse to insensitive jokes, and in retrospect I wish that I realized that sooner and stopped myself and others from using them. Because I really did think you were a good guy, and between you leaving DU and the baseball team, we grew a part really fast, and things like that tend to bother me. Because now we don’t stay in touch anymore really at all. I don’t agree with everything you say above; I’m not sure what you’re suggesting with your “boys’ club” comment. I also had no problem keeping DU and baseball separate, and would go as far as to say I was more inclined to leave that baseball circle when I was in the house since I spent so much time with the baseball guys outside of the house. But overall, I appreciate the time I spent with you and wish there was a big more of that. Congrats on your big news from a few months ago, very happy for you from afar. (Geez I hope I’m right about who you are haha…)
“Brian” – I know exactly who you are. I have little to no respect for your morals to be honest. I can’t recall a single time that you did something for someone other than yourself, which is something that happens a lot in a fraternity. I suspect that you have your own interests in mind with your recent change of heart, maybe you think that if this movement takes off you can take credit for it and try to advance your career somehow, I’m not sure, since you haven’t been nearly as anonymous throughout this process as you are in this particular article. I’ve never seen you show remorse for anything, so I am skeptical that you truly have any now (enter SJWs to tell me I’m perpetuating frat culture, silencing “Brian”, etc.) You just never really felt like a brother to me (not sure I’d say that about any other brother) because you were such a condescending guy, such a burden to be around, and you made no effort to make lasting connections, which brings us here. Sorry if you thought you were getting the Tom treatment, but Tom is a solid guy, you simply are not. I wish Tom hung around so we could have become better friends, I wish you had chosen a school other than Swarthmore. I think you may be still trying to figure out if you’re the conservative that showed up to campus in 2009, or the SJW you present yourself as now. I hope you’re doing better as a working adult than you were as a brother, because you were a terrible brother. Through the grape vine I’ve heard that this may not be the case, as you managed to land top-tier internships in grad school but couldn’t find anyone in those firms to support your full time employment (despite your intelligence) once they got to know you. I’m sure you still out-earn me, so you can come back with that insult if you’d like (I know you use that one a lot, very Swarthmore of you btw). But I have a number of best friends I can rely for anything, from DU and otherwise, something you don’t have and something that cannot be quantified. I apologize for ripping you publicly, but it’s one of your favorite hobbies. Some would call it karma. And I also feel I’ve done a nice job to keep my comments anonymous. You are my son, and you bring great shame to me, “Brian”. I am disowning you, you are not my son!
-Brian’s Daddy
The editorial board should be ashamed of themselves for what they did this semester to the fraternities. I can sleep at night knowing none of you will have real jobs, nor will you receive any help from Swarthmore alumni who see straight through what you did to demonize current members of the fraternities based on past actions. Absolutely disgusting.
Actually, what’s absolutely disgusting is this comment. You should be able to sleep at night knowing that the editorial board helped trace and expose violence that happened in the past at Swarthmore, happens currently at Swarthmore, and will happen in the future at Swarthmore as long as we have people like you who don’t understand what being part of a community actually means. The editorial board did nothing to these fraternities. The fraternities created this violence, the editorial board simply made it known to the rest of campus. The truth came out (even though it has before) and thank god for that. Hey, now I can sleep better at night. I’m sure the editorial board does not need and does not want support from alumni who applaud an institution that passes down violence year after year as if it is a right of passage. It is you who should be ashamed as your comment explicitly demonstrates your lack of wanting to understand the abuse of power and privilege that Swarthmore fraternities allowed—fraternities create pathways for violence, and whether members walk down and help create those pathways or not, the pathways are there nonetheless. Also, you should do some research on the difference between demonization and accountability.
The bullying and harassment of peers and others of difference is disgusting and so hypocritical of the movement against the frats. Not only that the movement is excluding a community of survivors that do not agree with O4S, and I guess (according them and their message and social media posts) that makes us accomplices to the people who supposedly the sources of harassment on campus. There’s a meaning behind the name “organizing for survivors”. Please actually do something for survivors other then “fight” for us. Help us. Support us. Educate others. Do something meaningful. If this is too much honesty for this editorial, to not to post. (I’ve tried posting three comments.) then you need to re-evaluate this organizations commitment to helping connect all the sides. Because right now, Swarthmore Phoenix’s goal is to create polarization and dismissal of discussion on both sides. Clearly “good journalism”. And please believe this survivor.
This comment demonstrates all the problematic qualities of any side to the above stories. “Ashamed”? Ironic.
Where did the comments go???
Judge Lawless was right; ‘self-righteous, sanctimonious madmen.’
There is a wide world outside your bubble. Eagerly awaiting your impending analysis of the unlawful arrest / kidnapping of Julian Assange, who, you know, was an actual journalist.
Been blackmail isn’t the solution, I recommend having a dialogue. Anyway, great write-up.. *winks*