Cornell Rape Lawsuit Fuels Debate Over Fraternity Culture

For more than 40 percent of US presidents, a fraternity was once a stop on the road to the White House. These organizations, commonly known as fraternities or frats, have a long history and deep ties to American college campuses.

A trade group, the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC), represents 58 fraternities across 600 schools. It claims nearly 200,000 undergraduate members and 4.2 million alumni.

The appeal to college-age men is the promise of brotherhood, a bond that goes beyond beer parties and late-night revelry. Like sororities and other members-only student organizations, fraternities are often marketed as pathways to personal, academic and professional success.

Critics, however, argue that some fraternities use their exclusivity to encourage and normalize violence, treating social acceptance as a reward for submission.

"This is not some kind of hobby club," said Aldo Cimino, an anthropology professor at Kent State University who studies fraternity initiation rituals. "It's the seriousness of the bond that produces the ferocity of these initiation rituals."

In recent weeks, one case has revived the debate over fraternity culture and whether campus organizations use exclusivity to shield wrongdoing.

In September, an anonymous woman identified as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University's Chi Phi fraternity and seven of its members, accusing them of gang-raping her at a party on the night of October 19, 2024.

Doe's sorority, Delta Delta Delta, and Cornell University itself are among the co-defendants.

Her lawsuit raises questions about fraternity and sorority culture at American schools, commonly known as "Greek life" because these groups use Greek letters and symbols.

When she was admitted to Cornell, Doe argues, she encountered a "glossy — but in reality misleading and confusing" image of Greek life.

"She arrived on a campus where the university actively promotes Greek participation as an 'essential' part of campus community and endorses these organizations as well-managed routes to new friends and improved academic and career prospects," the lawsuit states.

The complaint alleges that fraternities instead maintain a pattern of rape and sexual abuse.

What is a fraternity?

Now a multibillion-dollar industry, American fraternities trace their roots to men-only clubs founded at some of the country's oldest universities.

The tradition began at the College of William and Mary in 1776, when Phi Beta Kappa was founded as a secret society for debate and scholarly exchange.

The use of the Greek alphabet, secret oaths and mysterious initiation rites helped establish the blueprint for later fraternities and sororities. Often with their own houses, fraternities eventually grew into informal extensions of the campus housing system.

Historian Nicholas Syrett has written about the origins of these groups in his book "The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities."

In an interview with Al Jazeera, he explained that fraternities have long pursued ideals of masculinity. But those ideals have shifted from generation to generation.

In the past, fraternities sought to define themselves against "boyhood" by exalting "independence, strength of character, manly appearance and loyalty," Syrett explained.

But their modern version has shifted toward a greater emphasis on "athletics, sexual success with women, and recklessness," as well as a macho, big-brother attitude.

Syrett argues that the fraternity system's cult of toughness reflects a broader matrix of gendered expectations and social hierarchies.

Men in early fraternities, Syrett said, valued intellect and academic excellence — as long as neither showed too much effort. But "this has largely been pushed to the back burner in contemporary fraternities," he explained.

"When they are initiated, they are taught that loyalty to the brotherhood is the most important thing," Syrett said of today's fraternities. "This leads to keeping all sorts of secrets, including things that are against the rules and/or the law."

A mark of elite status

In the two and a half centuries since the first fraternities were founded, Greek life has expanded to include races and identities beyond white men.

Some Greek groups have even abandoned traditional gender divisions altogether to better welcome transgender and nonbinary members.

But overall, fraternities and sororities tend to operate as "microcosms of the larger society," according to Elizabeth Allan, a professor at the University of Maine and director of its Hazing Prevention Research Lab, "with race, appearance privilege and economic stratification helping to shape the system."

"The social stratification we see in the larger society gets largely mirrored in many of these organizations, unless they are actively working to disrupt it," she added.

According to Allan, between membership dues and rent at chapter houses, Greek organizations can exclude all but wealthier students.

"Appearance privilege" — social bias favoring those deemed conventionally attractive — can add to the pressure, especially for sorority hopefuls who spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on cosmetic treatments and outfits.

Experts say the sense of exclusivity many fraternities and sororities cultivate is a powerful draw for incoming students, who see membership as a path to social advancement.

That perception is reinforced by the groups' internal dynamics. Many sororities and fraternities encourage networking among members.

A 2021 Gallup survey commissioned by the NIC and the National Panhellenic Conference found that 42 percent of fraternity or sorority alumni said another member helped them land an internship or job.

Meanwhile, 51 percent of Greek members reported having a job lined up at graduation or finding one within two months. That figure was far lower among non-members of such fraternities or sororities, at 36 percent.

How hazing shapes fraternities

Critics often point specifically to hazing rituals as a factor shaping a violent culture in some fraternities and sororities.

Hazing is a process in which prospective Greek life members must undergo humiliating and sometimes dangerous tasks to be initiated.

The phenomenon is banned by law in most US states, though definitions, penalties and the scope of such laws vary. Still, the consequences can be fatal.

One of the earliest recorded hazing deaths involving a fraternity occurred at Cornell in 1873.

At the time, a group of "pledges" — those seeking to become fraternity members — were blindfolded and led away from campus at night, with instructions to find their way back on their own.

In the darkness, one of the pledges, Mortimer M. Leggett, and two fraternity members stumbled over a cliff and plunged into the Six Mile Creek gorge. The two fraternity members survived. Leggett did not.

According to Pietro Sasso, who studies college student experiences at Old Dominion University, secret initiation rituals can create an "informal psychological social contract in which members feel obligated to protect the organization."

Some members may feel compelled to rally around the fraternity even when "doing so conflicts with their personal values or obligations to others," Sasso added.

"My research on fraternity culture shows that organizational socialization can normalize behaviors that individuals might otherwise question, making the environment itself a key part of prevention efforts," he explained.

Inside Doe's lawsuit against Chi Phi

Doe's lawsuit cites several social pressures and dynamics that push young men and women to join Greek life on campus.

"She was drawn to the sorority and its promises of sisterhood and lifelong friendship, the status it conferred on members, and the community it provided on a campus more than 1,000 miles from home," the lawsuit says of Doe.

But Doe says she joined Cornell's Greek community without fully realizing the pattern of rape linked to local fraternities.

During Doe's first semester, in 2022, there were at least five reported cases of Cornell victims being drugged, and two alleged rapes. All of those cases, according to her lawsuit, occurred at fraternities.

Two years later, on the night of the alleged gang rape, Doe claims she was pressured by fraternity members to use substances including ketamine, cannabis and alcohol. After agreeing to a "threesome," she says she found herself in "a room full of fraternity predators" who raped her while she was incapacitated.

A screenshot of a group chat included in the lawsuit shows a Chi Phi member telling his brothers there was "free p***y" in an upstairs alumni room. One member in the chat replied: "I f***ing love Chi Phi." Another chimed in: "Like you could just walk in and whip it out."

Some of the men have denied any wrongdoing.

But the case has raised questions about whether Greek life culture contributes to high rates of rape in fraternities and sororities.

A 2021 survey published by the American Psychological Association tracked male students from high school through their second year of college. The results showed that fraternity members were 62 percent more likely to report committing sexual assault in their first two years of college.

A separate 2009 study published in the journal Violence Against Women estimated that 29 percent of sorority members reported being raped during their college years, roughly four times the rate among non-members.

Reforming Greek life

After the alleged 2024 gang rape, Cornell's Chi Phi chapter was shut down and the fraternity remains banned from campus. Two male defendants in Doe's lawsuit were expelled, while two others were suspended.

But some student activists say too little has been done to reform Greek life in the wake of Doe's case. They want stronger measures to enforce accountability in private, members-only groups where secrecy often reigns.

CJ Barles, a junior at the University of California, Davis, is one of the students across the US who organized protests in support of Doe. She told Al Jazeera she understands the appeal of the fraternity and sorority system.

"Students who have joined say it looks good on their resume," Barles explained. "They see it as a ready-made cult, a seat at the table and a group to call their own."

But Barles said she has heard troubling reports. Some fraternities, she explained, hold parties that "require every man" to arrive with a number of women. That requirement says "a lot about the culture some of these spaces foster," she added.

At a protest last week, Barles and other demonstrators called on the University of California system to adopt new measures to hold fraternities accountable for rape, including recognizing students' right to withdraw consent during sexual encounters.

But Barles said she left feeling stunned by the stories of sexual violence shared by women on campus, many of whom spoke from personal experience.

"It was unbelievably heartbreaking, the number of stories I heard," Barles said. The flood of grievances added to her skepticism toward the Greek system: "I wouldn't go within a mile of most of them."