Like most everyone else, I read about the accusation of gang rape at a Cornell fraternity with anguish. As a former leader of a fraternity and the current president of a university, I felt a connection that was much more personal. My Greek organization, Alpha Delta Phi, was already coed when I was a student at Wesleyan in the 1970s, and it was the source of friendships I still treasure. About a dozen years ago, however, our campus went through a period of heated debate about Greek life. The significant changes that resulted made life here better — and have important lessons to offer other colleges and universities.
A few years after I was appointed to my current role, it became clear that a disproportionate share of Wesleyan’s disciplinary infractions were tied to parties at the large houses of three all-male fraternities. Numerous people who attended those parties left in ambulances because of excessive alcohol consumption, and students reported harrowing cases of sexual assault on the premises. Overall, members of Wesleyan’s all-male fraternities were twice as likely as nonmembers to be found in violation of nonacademic regulations.
The problem of sexual assault was not confined to fraternities alone, but reasonable people — and insurance companies! — saw a high degree of risk in these institutions. After a survey found that almost half of Wesleyan undergraduates reported feeling “less safe” in fraternities than in other social spaces, in the spring of 2014 the student government passed a resolution demanding that residential Greek societies become coed or disband. (The university has at times had a sorority, but it has been nonresidential.)
Faculty members and students signed petitions along these same lines, arguing that fraternities as they existed discriminated against women in ways that made them fundamentally inequitable and unsafe. At the same time, other students, along with alumni, rallied to fraternities’ defense, making the case that they were being unfairly singled out for punishment while their community-building activities were being overlooked.
I did my best to listen to all these positions. I also considered evidence from social psychology that in spaces controlled by a tightly knit group, people are less likely to speak out when bad things happen. The hypermasculine culture in all-male fraternities often feeds on denigrating women, and people feel pressure not to intervene.
I explored a range of options, from banning all Greek societies to incentivizing them to better police themselves to changing the terms of their official relationship with the university. At the end of summer of 2014, I came to a decision. Recognizing that our residential Greek organizations do inspire loyalty, community and independence, but that they undermined the ability of women to have full access to the benefits of a Wesleyan education, I concluded that they should be permitted to remain open but not to remain single-sex. Fraternities would have to admit women or become off-limits to Wesleyan students.
We also implemented a strong bystander-intervention program to train all the members of our community to take action when they see someone in harm’s way. At Cornell, no one intervened; one young man’s Snapchat invitation to a chain of buddies to have sex with an intoxicated woman was like-minded bro culture at its worst. Bystander intervention breaks this kind of chain apart. Opening up previously all-male societies makes it less likely in the first place.
My decision, to put it mildly, was controversial. A fellow college president warned that the blowback would end my presidency. Instead, it produced some extraordinary conversations. I spent time with young women who recounted horror stories of being sexually assaulted at large frat parties. I also spent time with fraternity members who felt I’d made the wrong choice. In many cases, these young men were proud of their progressive credentials, yet here they were defending male privilege. I reminded them that their organization used to exclude Catholics, Jews and Black people but eventually changed course; admitting women was the next step in that process. But no, some of these students told me, women are different.
In addition to requiring coeducation, I decided to close one fraternity — Beta Theta Pi — altogether, after a wild party it sponsored resulted in serious injuries. A second fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, whose home sits across the street from mine, sued the university and its leadership. After much discussion, Psi Upsilon, the third all-male fraternity, agreed to admit women as full members.
The campus today is safer and it is more equitable. Its largest social spaces are no longer controlled by all-male organizations, and the incidence of reported sexual violence is way down. Violence against women and trans people is still far too prevalent nationwide, and many incidents go unreported. Our campus continues to be plagued by these factors, but people who see someone in a vulnerable position here are more likely to speak up than they were in the past. I can’t be certain how much of our progress can be attributed to the fact that we no longer had all-male fraternities, and how much is a result of greater mainstream awareness of sexual consent and a generational shift away from alcohol. The strong indications, however, are that it helped.
As for the Greek organizations, the outcomes are striking. My old organization, ADP, remains a vibrant, creative, coed community. After years of litigation, the lawsuit from DKE was settled in 2022. The fraternity’s house sits empty; the undergraduate organization now exists only as a nonresidential club.
Psi Upsilon, on the other hand, is thriving. Not long after ceasing to be exclusively male, the fraternity had a female president. It recruits an impressively diverse, talented group of students each year, and they make every effort to be a resource for the campus and for the city of Middletown, Conn. They still have parties and concerts (I can hear them from my window). Last homecoming, my wife and I danced with students there as an alumni band rocked out.
I am not suggesting for a moment that all Wesleyan’s efforts in this regard have been successful, or that ending all-male Greek life will end sexual assault on any campus. Sexual violence has many causes, and every campus has its own cultural dynamics. In places where all-male fraternities play an important role in social life, however, there are just too many horror stories waiting to happen. Forcing these organizations to admit women, as well as trans and nonbinary students, can be an important step in making campuses safer for all who inhabit them, whatever their gender.
Michael S. Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, is the author of “The Student: A Short History” and “Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses.”
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