Yale Fraternities, and when 'sorry' just does not cut it

From Salon:

Yale fraternity pledges chant about rape

A viral video shows young men marching through campus while barking, "No means yes!"

Sometimes, the post just writes itself: On Wednesday night, Delta Kappa Epsilon pledges marched through Yale's Old Campus -- where most first-year female students are housed -- chanting, "No means yes, yes means anal!" The fraternity pledges were marched blindfolded while barking like soldiers ... with marching orders of anal rape. They also threw in, "My name is Jack, I'm a necrophiliac, I fuck dead women." A video of the initiation was immediately posted on YouTube and, what do you know, it's gone viral.

Now, DKE President Jordan Forney has been forced to apologize for this blatant sexual intimidation by calling it "a serious lapse in judgment by the fraternity and in very poor taste." But this sort of hateful crap isn't a "lapse in judgment." It doesn't innocently happen that you're guiding male pledges by young women's dorms in the dark of night chanting about anal rape. It isn't a forehead-slapping slip-up, it's a sign that you need major reprogramming as a human being. Student feminist magazine Broad Recognition has it right: It's calling for Yale to take disciplinary action against DKE -- where George W. Bush got his presidential training -- "on behalf of its female students."

Here's one commentator:

But as a senior at a Princeton, a university that's culturally very similar to Yale, I have to say that although this apology seems sincere, it's indicative of a larger cultural trend that permits behavior like this - as long as the perpetrators seem really, really sorry afterward [...] This time, though, things can be different.  Yale has an opportunity to discipline the men who were responsible for this triggering, verbally violent action, and they shouldn't accept yet another "sincere" apology - their students should know better.  This is a situation where "sorry" is just not good enough. 

I am sure I could relate this to my work on reparations for past wrongs.But I'm interested for other reasons closer to home. First, I had issues with fraternities at Dartmouth, so this is an issue close to home. An yet,  I do have to say I have a hard time imagining a fraternity doing this at Dartmouth during my time there, or at least in my last two years after President Wright threatened the greek system being ended 'as we know it'. Perhaps I'm wrong. I'm not sure why I say this or why this might have been. I think some of the same impulses were present at Dartmouth, but there tended to be a lot of self-policing, at least in public. There were incidents that were rightly condemned, but this seems a whole other level. Indeed, perhaps it is because fraternities were under threat that I have a hard time imagining this for most of my time at Dartmouth. (Again, I'm thinking of at least from 1999-2001).

Here's Yale's Feminist magazine on this:

What is the significance of a moving gang of men, chanting in deep, throaty, voices for sexual assault– more specifically, for rape?  Historically, there are many precedents for this action.  A gang of men chant ing any thing is an assertion of a masculine presence.  A masculine presence declaring the invasion of female agency perpetuates an already despicable set of behaviors present in the Yale community.  To perform this action where the youngest women in the Yale community live, in their first full month of school, in the location where they are supposed to study and live, is fear-mongering.

Here's The Dartmouth:

Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Yale University issued an apology to the Yale Women’s Center Thursday for having pledges shout inappropriate phrases during an initiation ceremony on Yale’s campus Wednesday, the Yale Daily News reported. The pledges repeatedly chanted phrases such as “No means yes, yes means anal” and “My name is Jack, I’m a necrophiliac, I f*ck dead women,” which the Women’s Center called “hate speech” and “an active call for sexual violence,” according to the Daily News. Members of DKE and board members from the Women’s Center scheduled a forum for Friday, which several Yale deans plan to attend, according to the Daily News. Each group said its members hope to improve their relationship with the other organization. Representatives of the Women’s Center drew a connection to an incident that occurred in January 2008, when 12 of Yale’s Zeta Psi fraternity pledges stood outside the Women’s Center with signs that said “We Love Yale Sluts,” the Daily News reported.

Update: The national DKE organization has stopped the Yale chapter from any more pledging actions for now.