This is why we can trounce the frat verbally for what they have done: This is not a few individuals being bad but a frat being a frat, and being bad. And this is why I don’t believe you. You appear to be pulling a stunt.

Feel free to prove to me that you are who you say you are and that what happened happened. I’ll even take weak evidence and I’ll keep it confidential and if you prove to me that you are who you say you are I’ll retract my initial statement calling you a liar. Until then, you’re a liar.

Have a nice day, guy.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves for sitting in judgement over this. I am a rape victim (how I lost my virginity) and nothing makes me more sick then when people take things like this totally out of proportion.

Fuck you all very much.

Anti-Catholicism is the second most pernicious form of bigotry and discrimination in the United States, after racism.

Fuck you. Fuck the Pope. You are off your fucking rocker.

Anti-Catholicism is the second most pernicious form of bigotry and discrimination in the United States, after racism.

Oh bull fucking shit.

The good news, the fraternity was suspended

The bad news, they were not then hit with a bat until candy came out.

Anti-Catholicism is the second most pernicious form of bigotry and discrimination in the United States, after racism.

It was alive and well at UVM when I was in graduate school there during the early 1970’s and it seems nothing has changed in this regard in 40 years.

The sort of remark by Ms. Claw, made publicly in a discussion about values at UVM, does more damage to the reputation of the campus culture than anything those fraternity boys may have done.

If something like “cheating” on an exam at UVM can lead to a student being expelled, then why wouldnt a comment made about “raping” someone also lead to the same fate? I think RAPE is a little more serious than “cheating on an exam.”

and I liked the person’s comment about “Which Sigma Phi Epsilon would you like to kick in the balls?” Sororities especially need to step up to the plate, or else they are hindering the problem by not saying anything! Those girls interact with SigEp all the time. By them not speaking up and DOING something to counter act this also hinders their reputation….its almost like they are OK with this. Is that the reputation the sisters at UVM really want to have, one which is ok with their frat friends making these comments. THEY NEED TO SPEAK UP or else they are JUST AS LAME as those boys.

And I’d like to hear what other frat boys (Sig Ep or other frats) who were not involved in the incident have to say about this. THEY need to speak up as well against this, regardless of if its their “brother”. COME ON, lets get people TALKING.

Sorry, for clarity: I did not mean to imply that the frats should be accredited. Their only reward would be to be let back in.

However, if all the effort was to be put into making such an activity actually work, it seems a shame to let that fall to the wayside.

So maybe make it into an accredited course afterwards – I think that working with a women’s shelter would be very educational as a social studies perspective, to actually see the results. So there’s a genuine educational purpose there, understanding of which could be assessed in the form of written work presented throughout the semester that is related to the experiences of the class. As an added benefit, there’s also the social good of the fundraising for the shelters themselves.

All said and done – maybe this couldn’t be made to work. It was only a throwaway idea.

@Ibis3

That’s a really good point. And now that I think about it a bit more, there might be some serious concerns about entrusting the fuckwits with the location and identities of the women involved at those shelters.

I still think that there’s something in the idea that could be salvaged. Perhaps instead of bringing the students to the shelters, key staff and volunteers from the shelters should be brought in to organize and oversee the house members as they engage in fundraising.

There would be less of an impact as the house members wouldn’t be working directly with the shelters to see everything up-front – but obviously the women at the shelters need to come first.

I understand fully the desire to disband and expel as a form of punishment. It would even be just to do so.

Expelling them just sends them out into the world with exactly the same problematic views. Chastened? Maybe. Changed? Probably not.

This is certainly a viable solution, but even so its a mediocre one. We may be able to do better.

I think that it would be even better to make the effort to change hearts and minds.

Certainly, such an attempt may fail. I don’t understand the difficulty, or the stubbornness of idiots.

But I still think that if a method can be devised that doesn’t run any significant risks for the parties involved, it would be worth a try. Particularly if it can be designed in such a way that it could be repeated.

So yeah. Maybe my idea wouldn’t work – but it doesn’t hurt to try and be a little bit constructive during criticism.

Domination is not something that you work with the target toward. It is imposed upon the situation and people from outside. How those inside may feel about this outside force isn’t really a consideration for the entitled authoritarian.

Rape is just a small-scale, and particularly disgusting, example of that thinking. In fact rape seems to be, for me, the most appropriate descriptor for much of what big business does to nations, peoples, economies, and societies as they move forward and systematically privatize profits, and pleasures, and socialize liabilities, and pain.

Fraternities are the ‘charm school’ feeders for big business. Their willingness to rape is a mark that they are almost indoctrinated. Their willingness to talk about it openly shows they still need a little more time in the oven. I’m sure they will get a stern talking to about public relations and maintaining a public image to disguise their intentions.