NC State’s Sorority and Fraternity Life is taking measures to prevent sexual assault from occurring, according to Chris Jefferson, the associate director of Fraternity and Sorority Life.
“Fraternities and sororities have very strict policies in place to assist in the facilitation of safe social events,” Jefferson said. “Many fraternities and sororities follow social event guidelines established under the Fraternal Information and Programming Group, better known as FIPG.”
FIPG does not tolerate or condone any form of sexist or sexually abusive behavior on the part of its members, whether physical, mental or emotional. This also includes any actions, activities or events, whether on-campus or off-campus which are demeaning to women or men, including but not limited to verbal harassment and sexual assault.
The Fraternal Health and Safety Initiative, a risk prevention program, stresses the importance of Greek Life taking a stand against sexual assault. FHSI works on educating fraternity and sorority members about strategies for identification and prevention of dangerous issues that commonly happen on college campuses, such as alcohol and drug use, sexual misconduct and assault and hazing.
FHSI also stresses the importance of defining consent in a relationship.
“Consent is defined as a positive, unambiguous and voluntary agreement to engage in specific sexual activity throughout a sexual encounter,” said Drew Hunter, support consultant for FHSI.
He said consent is not the absence of a no, and if a person is unable to say yes, then they are not able to consent. Consent can be taken away at any time during the encounter, and previous consent to a sexual act does not mean current or future consent for the same sexual act.
“Once a person says ‘no,’ it does not matter if or what kind of sexual behavior happened previous to the current event, earlier in the day, or daily for the previous six months. It does not matter if it is a current long-term relationship, a broken relationship, or marriage. If one partner says, ‘No,’ and the other forces penetration, it is rape,” Hunter said.
FHSI suggests that fraternities and sororities review their chapter’s traditions and eliminate sexist or degrading practices and host educational programs on sexual assault and harassment in order to prevent sexual assault.
“I believe the conversation regarding the prevention of sexual assaults is helping our students identify concerning behaviors and intervening in questionable situations,” Jefferson said.
Because only one in four sexual assaults go reported, Police Chief Jack Moorman said he cannot report any data on sexual assaults.
“It is very important to remember that, as we all know, sexual assault is extremely under-reported across all campuses in the U.S.,” Moorman said. “Therefore, any percentages that I could give you are only the percentage of reported incidents that are related to Greek Life. This is not the same thing as the percentage of actual sexual assaults that are related to Greek Life. This actual percentage, of course, will remain as an ‘unknown.’”
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