Enough is Enough.

Hi readers. This is just a small short warning that this post is going to be very heated so if you do not want to see controversy, I suggest you stop reading. If you dare stay-hold on one second- I am climbing up onto my soap box.

For those of you who stayed, you may have seen the recent (as in yesterday) Gawker article that came out about the JMU fraternity’s “Frat Rush Guide” that gave out personal information of female students deemed “hot” by the brothers. This guide has started a wave of controversy and has prompted me to write about how unacceptable and uncomfortable this is.

Last semester I wrote an article called Not All Greeks, But Often Greeks which basically called out members of the greek system for their involvement in high profile issues such as sexual assault, violence, and racism. Because of this, I was called out by members of this campus for “not knowing what I was talking about” and for being “jealous because I couldn’t get into a sorority.” Let me clear some things up, I do not believe greek life itself is bad. I think that there are some really positive aspects that can come from it, however I also feel that having an entire organization act and feel the same way decreases individuality and opens them up for these types of incidents.

This incident refers to this “Frat Rush Guide” that is being passed around. This guide is apparently an 8-step manual on how to become a brother. Some of these steps, according to Gawker, “Leave your suite door open all of frog week.” This, per FIJI, ensures potential new brothers will meet “the babes.” “Go to your dorm meeting.” This will give rushees a chance to “get a glimpse” of “all the hot tail in [the dorm].”A note on attire: “Get dressed quickly to go out and party your face off, if you wear cargos or socks with Sperrys you will be castrated. Turn up the Casanova level to ‘I’m not settling for anything less than a solid 8 tonight.’” But perhaps the most sickening one of all is directly quoted below.

“I have written a list of hot girls and their suite/room in [the dorm]. Now this is a little creepy thing to do but necessary so let’s keep this low key.You must travel together to all of the suites on this list, and invite these girls to the parties (social schedule will also be attached). You are to introduce yourselves, build rapport (if you don’t know what that is look it up you degenerates), invite them (their whole suite) to the party of the respective night, and tell them to come up to your suite around 9pm to pregame. Don’t forget to get their phone #’s. Now, I’m praying you guys brought liquor or something that allows you to pregame.”

What the actual fuck is wrong with people? Not only is this a creepy invasion of privacy but it is also sexual harassment! These fraternity members are giving away personal information of women who are here trying to get an education. If this follows suit, their defense will be something along the lines of “We didn’t know what we did was wrong” or “This was a joke.” But here is the thing, they even write that what they are doing is creepy, and there is absolutely no jokes in sexual harassment.

I first heard about this article from a friend of mine back in New Jersey. They sent it to me with the tagline, why does this keep happening to your school? This is the question I want to ask myself and to you all. Why are we all allowing this to go on? This is not the first incident where greek life has embarrassed this University, and the sad part is that greek life is made up of less than 20% of this campus. Why are we letting less than 20% of this campus speak for us?

This really cannot go on any longer. JMU’s administration needs to get involved and needs to stop this. We all have seen that greek members often evade punishment, and it is time to say that enough is enough.