University of Missouri Proposes Frat Party Ban for Female Students, Among Other Policies
ByThe University of Missouri (MU) appears to be looking at any and all options to curb campus rape, including banning females from fraternity parties.
According to documents obtained by Total Frat Move last week, the MU Fraternity Alumni Consortium proposed banning women from fraternity houses during prime party hours. The list of proposed policies also reportedly included disallowing Greek groups from taking their social events "out of town" as well as confining the alcoholic drink options strictly to beer.
Ted Hellman, the consortium's chair told the Columbia Daily Tribune the policies are just proposals at this point. Part of their purpose is to spark discussion at the "Chancellor's Summit on Sexual Assault & Student Safety in Fraternity Houses" scheduled for later this month.
"They have been discussed by a wide range of people and the university administration, but no action has been taken," Hellman told the newspaper. "Some are still under consideration, some are not. We are very, very early in the process, and the things you are seeing are coming from a document over two months old and dated information."
Regardless, MU's Panhellenic Association Executive Board and Interfraternity Council said in a joint press release following the document's emergence that they "strongly disagrees with several of the policies" the consortium proposed.
"The women of the Panhellenic Association Executive Board and the Panhellenic chapter presidents deemed the very premise of the proposal problematic and found many of the policies to be ineffective and uneducated. They concluded that a majority of the proposed policies were not in the best interest of the members of the Panhellenic Association."
The group said they plan to voice their opinions at the summit and have also issued a letter to MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin (below).
The proposed policies are apparently related to studies aimed at linking sexual violence on college campuses to Greek groups, the Huffington Post noted. One study in particular suggested seven percent of college females not in sororities experienced sexual assault, where as 29 percent of their sorority counterparts did.