Congratulations to the men of Sigma Chi’s Alpha Epsilon chapter – you’ve made the news!
I’m sure your parents must be so proud, clipping articles and recording newscasts that highlight the hazing your chapter has been taking part in. After all, it isn’t every day when a proud mother gets to brag to her friends about her son’s involvement in forced alcohol abuse, paddle beatings and, my personal favorite, sexual assault.
But it only gets better. Check out the punishments eight of your members could receive if they are found guilty of hazing and procuring alcohol for minors.
Hazing is a class II misdemeanor, according to coverage of your fraternity’s stellar activities in yesterday’s Lincoln Journal Star, meaning your boys are looking at a possible six months in jail, a $1000 fine or both.
Procuring alcohol for minors, prohibited by section 53-180 of the Nebraska Statutes, is likely to result in a few more days in jail or an increased fine if the defendants are found guilty.
While your fraternity brothers have yet to be charged with sexual assault, the allegations are extremely serious. So the story goes, you boys were having an innocent little orgy with a stripper when one of your pledges was handcuffed and blindfolded, no doubt to increase the pleasure of the rest of you, who were watching all around.
When a few of your members decided to pressure the stripper into anally penetrating the pledge with a vibrator, those members made themselves liable for sexual assault, which is Nebraska’s legal way of saying these guys were involved in raping your pledge.
This is because sexual assault in the first degree (the most serious form of sexual assault) is defined as subjecting another person to sexual penetration without the victim’s consent, with knowledge that the victim was mentally or physically incapable of resisting the conduct, or with a minor.
Even though the fraternity brothers did not penetrate the victim themselves, the word “subjecting” means that a judge will have the right to interpret the law in accordance with the incident; if the instigation they provided to the primary assaulter is subjection or simply some kind of odd group sex fantasy.
But the rest of the definition is clear. Not only was the victim handcuffed, which made him physically incapable of resisting the conduct, but the victim was also sexually penetrated without his consent.Your fraternity brothers are looking at possible charges of sexual assault in the first degree, a Class II felony according to Nebraska Statute 28-319, which carries a maximum sentence of fifty years in prison and a minimum one-year prison sentence.
While the University of Nebraksa-Lincoln has been doing a great job investigating this particular incident, the university as a whole doesn’t do much to prevent these types of behaviors. Hazing is, of course, illegal in Nebraska and all greek organizations are made aware of this law. But there doesn’t appear to be any sort of regulation for continued education throughout the semester.
Greek Affairs organizes two events each year to address issues of hazing and sexual assault – one for chapter presidents, risk management chairs, and chapter advisers, the other for all new members of greek organizations. While these events may be great, they are few and far between.
The UNL Web site doesn’t bring up any other events for greek chapters to take part in that serve as deterrents for hazing and sexual assault.
I’m not picking on the greek system. I know that there are a lot of great sorority and fraternity members who don’t engage in this type of behavior. But statistics show that members of sororities and fraternities are much more likely than the rest of the collegiate population to abuse or be abused. And because Sigma Chi was kind enough to serve as an example, I’ll focus on them.
The book “Sexual Assault on the College Campus” highlights the issue, citing, for example, that more than forty percent of women in sororities had been the victims of sexual aggression since entering college (the average is between fifteen and twenty-five percent). The book goes on to discuss the prevalence of sexual assaults at fraternity houses and parties.
So, members of Sigma Chi, what I really want to do is thank you for getting caught engaging in behavior that is happening all over campus, oftentimes within the greek system. Thanks for making headlines this week, because now that the story is out, the university is going to have to do something about this issue.
The reality is that at UNL and every other university, hazing and sexual assault happen all the time but are hushed so that the school doesn’t get a bad reputation.
I challenge UNL to actually make a big deal about these issues. That’s the only way to make our university, or any other, more safe.
Sarah Melecki is a junior Political Science and Philosophy major. Reach her at sarahmelecki@dailynebraskan.com
P.S: And you guys wonder why people only read the DN for the crosswords.