Some students at Yale University are campaigning for female inclusion in male-only fraternities.
Student activists at Yale University who believe that fraternities contribute to “discrimination, harassment, and sexual assault” are campaigning to institute a major policy change that would allow fraternities to accept females.
“There’s a lot of discrimination, harassment, and sexual assault,” student activist Will McGrew said in an interview with a local news outlet. “Why is that?”
“I would hope that women being a part for fraternities would create a better, more positive environment for everyone and would probably lessen sexual assault in their houses,” Brooklyn native and Yale freshman Jojo Attal said.
One student, Yale junior Natalie Schultz-Henry, argued that co-ed fraternities would better teach Yale students how to work with gender diverse peers after college.
“It becomes about teaching these young adults how to collaborate with people regardless of their gender in the workplace later on,” Schultz-Henry said.
Others insist that the policy change would significantly lessen the number of sexual assaults on campus. “We believe a unique community of support is created through single-sex communities like fraternities. A community these students know it took decades to establish and could take nearly as long to change,” Yale freshman Jojo Attal said.
A Yale faculty representative said that the university will continue to support the Greek life system regardless of how the students decide to organize.
“We continue to support all manner of fraternity and sorority life on our campus- whether they are all-male, all-female or co-ed. The criteria for who participates in their processes is up to their national organizations and local chapters,” he said.
There is no indication of an effort to integrate male students into Yale’s sororities.
