Members of Baylor fraternities and sororities attended mandatory meetings on Sunday and Monday night, respectively to discuss issues covered by Title IX, such as sexual harassment and unhealthy relationships.
In an effort to combat sexual crimes, Baylor’s Title IX office has implemented a required courses for various student groups. These groups include first-year and transfer students, student athletes and members of Greek life.
“Ideally, our goal is that all students have access to training,” Title IX coordinator Patty Crawford said in a previous interview with the Lariat. “So everyone is aware and they get all these resources.”
Dallas senior Darrell Leggett attended the meeting Sunday night. He said the talks focused on not taking advantage of girls and knowing when females had been consuming alcohol.
“It was just a thing that was common sense,” Leggett said. “It wasn’t that engaging.”
A sorority member, who chose not to be named for privacy purposes, said the topics covered during Monday’s meeting remained focused on healthy relationships and not blaming the victim in today’s society. The speaker was Aaron Boe, founder of Prevention Culture. According to Prevention Culture’s website, the program aims, in part, to engage and equip the fraternity and sorority communities to utilize their power for change.
“I didn’t feel that he dove into it enough. He didn’t touch on sexual assault at alI,” the sorority member said. “I feel like the healthy relationships was more important because someone can still be sexually abused in a relationship…and a lot of people don’t realize that.”
Leggett said he felt that the decision to make the meeting mandatory caused the discussion to have less impact on students.
“You should have a conversation or a talk with a group instead of this grand old scheme.” Leggett said. “When you make it a mandatory thing, you make people feel like they have to be there, they don’t have a choice and that if they don’t do it they’re going to get punished.”
The fact that the meeting was mandatory also changed the aspect of the evening for the sorority member.
“I wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t mandatory,” the member said. “We have meetings that are mandatory, but this was beyond that. You can be excused from a [general sorority] meeting… but this you had to have a separate way to be excused.”
Students not involved in PanHellenic were present at the sorority gathering, including other Greek Life members like Phi Epsilon Kappa, although the large amount of the student body not involved in Greek Life have not been spoken to recently.
“I think that they targeted Greek Life because of the association that everyone makes… even though it happens everywhere on campus,” Leggett said. “They make faculty have their meetings and now they’re having fraternities have their meetings, but I think if you’re going to do it, have it during Chapel. Make everyone do it, not just the people that are stereotyped this way.”
Patty Crawford, Title IX Coordinator, was present at the training last night, but was not available for comment at the time of publication.
Due to recent sexual assault investigations dealing with Phi Delta Theta president, the fraternity released an official statement, asking for the words to be reproduced only in its entirety: On March 3, 2016, the Phi Delta Theta Texas Lambda chapter at Baylor University was made aware of a sexual assault allegation made against a member of the chapter. The Phi Delta Theta fraternity stands with victims of sexual assault, and does not condone or tolerate any act of sexual assault or violence against women. The chapter advisory board, national office, and current chapter members have and will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement officials. The chapter will not comment on any ongoing investigations of any current members.
Members of sororities have also been asked not to speak on current issues either on social media or when dealing with reporters.
