When I joined a fraternity, I knew that there would be some who would label me as just another frat guy. They would compare me to the cultural image of the drunken frat star who is barely making it through school with my family credit card and, unless they met me personally, there was nothing I could do to stop them from believing that.

It was difficult to accept that some people would automatically pass judgment just because they saw me wearing Greek letters. Eventually, I learned that is just part of joining a house. However, there is one aspect of fraternity life being broadcast as the norm for fraternity men, which is by no means a trivial issue that can be brushed off.

In a recent article in The Guardian, titled, “Frat Brothers Rape 300% More. One In 5 Women Sexually Assaulted On Campus. Should We Ban Frats?” a single study is cited as the reason to ban fraternities from every campus.

Before I dive into the ridiculousness of the article, I want to make something very clear: by no means am I trying to defend men who have committed these sexual assaults. In no way am I condoning the behavior of these individuals, or chapters, who have committed these terrible acts. There is no way they should be allowed to remain affiliated with any semblance of Greek life, and they should face the charges they deserve.

The issue here is that sexual assault is not exclusive to the Greek community. It is not just a Greek problem; it is a campus problem. Like I said, fraternity members should be reprimanded and punished as individuals for this and any chapter that condones this kind of behavior should face similar consequences. But using the entire Greek system as a scapegoat for this issue is not the way to solve the growing problem of sexual assault.

According to an article in the Washington Post, 55 percent of about 1,570 colleges and universities with 1,000 or more students received at least one report of forcible sex offense on campus in 2012. Some of the schools on the list, like Reed College with 9.62 offenses per 1,000 students (2012), have no Greek life. Yet sexual assault is still an issue on their campus.

There are also factors cited, in the article from the Guardian, as reasons fraternity men are more likely to commit rape, which are not exclusive to Greek life. For example, having parties and consuming alcohol are considered to be part of why fraternity men are at a higher risk to commit sexual assault. However, what about the several other student organizations and sports team which also consume alcohol and throw parties? Are they omitted from the stigma of sexual assault because they don’t wear Greek letters?

Right from the start, I had issues with the title of this article because it is poorly written. The article's title gives the impression that fraternity men are the ones committing all these assaults on all the women reporting the crimes. It is misleading in an inappropriate way to skew readers in one direction so they dive into the first paragraph already biased.

Furthermore, the study used as a source was from 2007, and consisted of one freshman class from one university. The broad, over-generalized statements and conclusions drawn by the writer were vastly exaggerated. Interestingly enough, a study of a similar size, which pulled participants from three southern universities, found that fraternity men are least likely to be sexually aggressive towards women. But that didn’t make the cut for the article.

Going deeper into the article, you can see it is skating over the issue of sexual assault as a national collegiate issue by not holding anyone accountable other than Greek offenders. Should they be held accountable? Absolutely. Should this be the only focus in the discussion of sexual assault? Absolutely not.

By turning this discussion into an issue solely surrounding Greek life, the article is doing a disservice to the past and future victims of sexual assault. It is giving the impression that if we simply ban all Greek life then all sexual assault on campus will disappear, which is clearly not the case.

The greater issue here is what are college campuses doing in order to stop the growing number of sexual assaults? They are the ones who need to be held accountable for the welfare and safety of their students.

In recent news, Columbia student Emma Sulkowicz has been carrying around a twin sized mattress to protest the way her university handled her sexual assault case. It seems that, in many instances, universities are more concerned with protecting their image and hushing up incidents, rather than dealing with them properly. More often than not, this leads to more pain and suffering for the victims. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Simply blaming fraternities is a lazy, sad attempt to address the issue of sexual assault. It is imperative to make sure schools do everything possible to keep students, Greek and the unaffiliated, educated and aware that sexual assault is a real and persistent issue on college campuses and elsewhere. Perpetuating the idea that the issue can be solved by removing a certain group of people from college campuses takes the discussion on sexual assault nowhere; continuing to do so will only slow the process down unnecessarily while instances of sexual assault rise. 

Image courtesy of time.com