UVA sororities fight back against order to avoid fraternity parties

Caitlin Dickson
·Reporter
In this Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015 photo, University of Virginia students walk to fraternities at the start of rush week at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. Two fraternities that threatened to defy the University of Virginia's efforts to impose new regulations governing their parties say they will sign the agreement after all. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

The University of Virginia may have ended its temporary ban on Greek life, but while fraternities were given the green light to resume partying, sorority sisters have been ordered to steer clear of upcoming festivities for their safety.


In a letter sent to the heads of the university’s 16 sororities last week, national and international sorority presidents instructed that Charlottesville-based chapters not participate in Boys' Bid Night, a fraternity recruitment-related series of parties scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 31. The letter, citing concerns for sorority members’ safety, has sparked backlash from students who argue that such a mandate places an unfair burden on women to avoid sexual assault, rather than holding fraternity members responsible for their own behavior.

“This is gender discrimination,” reads an online petition calling for the revocation of the Boys' Bid Night mandate. “Instead of addressing rape and sexual assault at UVa, this mandate perpetuates the idea that women are inferior, sexual objects.”

The petition, posted on change.org, has already received over 2,100 signatures.

“Cancelling boys bid night sends the message that the only way for women to be safe on campus is by avoiding all social situations,” wrote one supporter.


“This is a violation of individual rights that places the blame on sorority women under a facade of ‘safety concerns,’” wrote another. “As an individual adult, I choose where I want to spend my time.”


In an interview with UVA’s campus newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, Alpha Delta Pi International President Tammie Pinkston said the order to skip this weekend’s fraternity parties was just the first new initiative geared toward sorority members’ safety in the wake of a “tumultuous” fall semester.

Tommy Reid, right, the president of the University of Virginia’s Inter-Fraternity Council says that a female student’s account of being sexually assaulted by seven men at a fraternity made him “sick to my stomach.”  during a news conference at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., Monday, Nov. 24, 2014. The University of Virginia on Saturday suspended activities at all campus fraternal organizations on Saturday in response to the accounts of sexual assault in Rolling Stone.  (AP Photo/Steve Helber)


Pinkston was undoubtedly referring to two particular incidents that attracted national scrutiny of the school’s safety and Greek culture. First, the brutal killing of Hannah Graham, whose remains were found a month after she is believed to have been abducted on campus by a former university employee who was linked by DNA to an earlier sexual assault. Then, of course, the contentious — and later discredited — Rolling Stone article about an alleged gang rape at a UVA fraternity.

It was the Rolling Stone article that prompted the initial suspension of all university fraternities back in November. But earlier this month, university President Teresa Sullivan offered fraternities the opportunity to resume activities by signing a safety agreement requiring that at least three members stay sober during fraternity parties, with one sober brother standing guard at the stairway leading to the bedrooms.

While all but two fraternities have agreed to sign the agreement, the sorority mandate suggests the Greek leadership is skeptical about the new rules’ ability to keep their female members safe. In statement to Yahoo News, Sullivan made clear that the school was not involved in the mandate.

A June 26, 2012 file photo shows University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan speaking after she was reinstated by the Board of Visitors in Charlottesville, Va. The 15-member Board of Visitors voted unanimously to reinstate Sullivan less than three weeks after ousting her in a secretive move that infuriated students, faculty and alumni. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

"We would resist any implication that U.Va. students are somehow deserving of special admonition. To the contrary, students at U.Va. have lived up to our tradition of student self-governance," Sullivan said. "We have confidence in our students’ ability to use good judgment, be mindful of one another’s safety, and adhere to the new safety practices developed by them and outlined in the recently revised Fraternal Organization Agreements."

Another open letter of action addressed to the National Panhellenic Conference challenges not the suggestion that Boys’ Bid Night may be a “high-risk night,” but the manner in which the mandate was issued without consulting chapter leaders or sorority members.

“Our concerns lie in the way sorority women are being used as leverage to change the actions and behaviors of fraternity men. This resolution has misconstrued us as a passive aggregate rather than active agents for change. It has also had the unintended consequence of subjugating women,” the letter states. “Moreover, the climate and culture of UVA, especially in the wake of the alleged culture of sexual assault, was not sufficiently taken into account. Women have historically been the targets of sexual violence, and forbidding us to exercise our agency plays dangerously into gender stereotypes surrounding the issue.”

Michelle Bower, a spokeswoman for the National Panhellenic Conference, was unable to cull additional comments from the NPC team for this story, but in an earlier statement to The Washington Post, she clarified that the umbrella group was not responsible for the mandate.

“Of course, NPC supports the safety of their women, so they do support those national presidents making that decision and encouraging sorority women to plan sisterhood events and other ‘safer’ options,” Bower said.