'CLOSE THE RAPE ATTIC': Swarthmore students occupy fraternity after disturbing documents leak

[mfcorey1]

For two years, Maya Henry regularly spent time in 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. Henry 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.

The alleged reference to a “rape attic” is just one of the troubling details recently revealed about the culture within the selective Pennsylvania college’s fraternities that was made public in internal documents leaked to two campus publications. Redacted versions of the documents, published earlier this month by the Phoenix and Voices, have since sparked fierce protests from students, including an ongoing sit-in that started Saturday on the campus located west of Philadelphia.

Over the weekend, the growing outcry prompted administrators to suspend all fraternity activity pending the results of an investigation.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/close-the-rape-attic-swarthmore-students-occupy-fraternity-after-disturbing-documents-leak/ar-AAAJrjV?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

[Blue_Tires]

1. Holy damn...

[marble falls]

2. It time to rethink "Greek life".

[marybourg]

4. It was re-thought in the 60's, and banished

from some universities, but it reared its head again and has reverted to its former strength. Something like white nationalism.

[marble falls]

5. In Frats particularly its about privilege and exclusivity.

[NewJeffCT]

3. wow

a friend of my daughter applied to Swarthmore Early Decision this past fall (she was deferred) and then recently decided on Kenyon College in Ohio.

[tishaLA]

6. For whatever reason, this surprises me.

Not that I don't believe it, but I always thought better of Swarthmore. And its President, Valerie Smith, is a former mentor of mine who is, I think, only the second African American woman to serve as the president of an American university, so I trust she will put the kibosh on this repulsive behavior.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

7. Sick fucks