She got involved in these activism efforts about a month and a half ago because she felt as if people believed what she said about violence at fraternities. Mateescu, who started the Tumblr, said most of the stories are from the past year. Last week, students also disrupted meetings, including a meeting where President Smith was present.Ī Tumblr called “Why Swathmore Fraternities Must Go” described incidents connected to the fraternities. Activists told ThinkProgress people sent more than 1,400 letters as part of that effort.
On Saturday, Swarthmore President Valerie Smith condemned the documents and said that after consulting with an external investigator on the matter, she decided to suspend fraternity activities “pending the outcome of an investigation.”īefore the sit-in, activists as well as faculty, parents, and alumni participated in an online letter writing campaign to various university decision-makers to demand they end leases granted to the fraternities. The Phi Psi said it “made it our mission” to improve the culture and perception of the fraternity.ĭelta Upsilon wrote on Facebook that it was “in the best interest of the Swarthmore community” to disband and that “We hope that our former house will provide a space that is inclusive, safe, and promotes healing.” We cannot in good conscience be members of an organization with such a painful history. We were appalled and disgusted by the content of these minutes, which led us to question our affiliation with an organization whose former members could write such heinous statements. The content of the documents released is unacceptable, and 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 … As we said in our earlier statement, the current members were in high school and middle school at the time of the writing of these documents. In a statement on its Facebook page Tuesday evening, Phi Psi announced they planned to disband and added: Organizing for Survivors April 28, 2019 See campus journalism on recent Phi Psi document leaks that helped kickstart the student movement to end the leases. #endfratviolence /QhDBJimj4p …And here's that bedroom's lofty balcony. It’s unclear how the university will proceed with the other demands now that the fraternities have disbanded. The student activists originally had three demands: Terminate the college-granted leases for Delta Upsilon and Phi Psi houses immediately, d issolve both Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon fraternities at Swarthmore, and “r eallocate the fraternity houses to groups that have been historically marginalized by fraternities (students of color, queer and trans students, disabled students, survivors).”ĭaria Mateescu, a junior at Swarthmore who is a member of the Coalition to End Fraternity Violence, said in an email to ThinkProgress said that the plan is for students to remain there indefinitely until the college “issues a satisfactory confirmation that the leases have been ended and Phi Psi and DU banned from campus permanently.” Student activists did a deep clean of the house, which they said was filthy, and put up a banner reading “Close the rape attic! Time’s up!” The police were called afterwards, but they did not arrest protesters and instead parked a patrol car outside of the house, according to BuzzFeed News.
Students eventually occupied the house after one told a campus safety official they left something inside the building, and once inside, the student let other protesters inside. Student activists from the group Coalition to End Fraternity Violence led a sit-in at the Phi Psi fraternity house last weekend. Every time I turned around I felt like I just whacked a girl in the cans. One 2013 comment in the document reads, “Anyways, it was so packed in Phi after the concert that I was legitimately scared of being accused of sexual harassment for rubbing up against so many tits. The documents led to four days of protests on campus, including a sit-in at one of the fraternity houses at the private Pennsylvania liberal arts college.Īccording to Voices, one of the student publications that reported on the documents, a “recurring theme” of these documents was fraternity members sharing nonconsensual photos and videos of women having sex with fraternity members. The documents, which were sent to student publications and titled, “Phi Psi Historical Archives,” referred to a “rape attic,” used misogynistic language to refer to women, and made racist and queerphobic remarks dating from 2010 to 2016. Two fraternities at Swarthmore College announced they would disband on Tuesday, following the release of leaked documents that released their history of misogynist and racist behavior.
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