A civil lawsuit filed in September has renewed debate over fraternity culture in the United States. An anonymous woman, known in court papers as Jane Doe, is suing the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell University and seven of its members. She accuses them of gang raping her during a party on the night of October 19, 2024.
Doe’s sorority, Delta Delta Delta, and Cornell itself are also named as co-defendants. The case has prompted wider questions about whether fraternities use their exclusivity to shield bad behaviour, and whether the groups contribute to sexual assault on campus.
Why fraternities attract students and what critics say
Fraternities, often called frats, have a long history on US college campuses. One industry group, the North American Interfraternity Conference, says it represents 58 fraternities across 600 schools, with nearly 200,000 undergraduate members and 4.2 million alumni.
Fraternities are often promoted as pathways to personal, academic and professional success. Experts say the sense of exclusivity many groups cultivate is a strong draw for incoming students who see membership as a route to upward social mobility. Internal networking is part of that appeal.
A 2021 Gallup survey commissioned by the NIC and the National Panhellenic Conference found that 42 percent of fraternity or sorority alumni said a fellow member had helped them find an internship or job. Some 51 percent of members reported having a job waiting at graduation or finding work within two months, compared with 36 percent of non-members.
Critics, however, argue that some fraternities have used their exclusivity to encourage and normalise violence. Critics often point to hazing in particular. Hazing involves prospective members undergoing humiliating and sometimes dangerous tasks to gain admission. It is prohibited by law in most US states, although the definitions, penalties and scope of those laws vary.
Anthropologist Aldo Cimino, a Kent State University professor who studies fraternity hazing, said the intensity of initiation rituals reflects how serious the affiliation is to members. Historical cases show the risks. One of the earliest recorded hazing deaths linked to a fraternity occurred at Cornell in 1873, when a pledge was blindfolded, led far from campus at night and died after falling into a gorge.
Allegations in the lawsuit against Chi Phi
The lawsuit says Doe was drawn to Cornell’s Greek community by promises of friendship and status. She had been told the university endorsed these organisations as well-managed pathways to new friendships and better educational and professional opportunities. According to the complaint, the fraternities instead perpetuated a pattern of sexual assault and abuse.
Doe said she joined the community without being fully aware of the pattern of sexual assault linked to local fraternities. Her lawsuit states that during her first semester, in 2022, there were at least five reported cases of victims at Cornell being drugged and two alleged sexual assaults. All of those cases, according to the lawsuit, took place at fraternities.
Doe alleges that on the night of the attack in 2024, fraternity members pressured her to take drugs such as ketamine, marijuana and alcohol. After agreeing to a threesome, she said she found herself in a room with fraternity men who raped her while she was incapacitated. These claims are allegations, and the court has not ruled on them.
The lawsuit includes a photo of a group chat that it says shows a Chi Phi member telling his fraternity brothers that there was “free pussy” in an upstairs alumni room. Another participant replied, “I f***ing love chi phi.” Several of the men named in the case have denied any wrongdoing.
After the alleged attack, Cornell’s Chi Phi chapter was closed, and the fraternity remains barred from campus. Two male defendants were expelled and two others were suspended, according to the case reporting.
Research on campus assault and student calls for reform
The case has also drawn attention to research on fraternities and sexual violence. A 2021 survey published by the American Psychological Association tracked male students from high school through their second year of college. It found that fraternity members were 62 percent more likely to report sexual aggression during their first two years of college.
A separate 2009 study in the journal Violence Against Women estimated that 29 percent of sorority members reported suffering sexual assault during college. That figure was roughly four times the rate among non-members.
Historian Nicholas Syrett, author of a book on white college fraternities, argues that the system’s emphasis on toughness reflects wider gendered expectations. He said loyalty to the brotherhood is stressed to new members, which can lead to the keeping of secrets, including things against the rules or the law. Pietro Sasso, who studies college student experience at Old Dominion University, has said that secret initiation rituals can create a psychological contract in which members feel obliged to protect the organisation.
Student activists say too little has been done to reform Greek life since the case emerged. CJ Barles, a junior at the University of California, Davis, is among students across the US organising protests in support of Doe. At a recent rally, protesters called on the University of California system to adopt new measures to hold fraternities accountable for sexual assault, including recognising students’ right to withdraw consent during sexual encounters.
Barles said she had heard troubling reports, including of fraternities requiring men to arrive at parties with several women. “It’s unbelievably upsetting, the amount of stories I heard,” she said. “I wouldn’t step within a mile of most of them.”
