international education
campusreview.com.au
Students sue Yale
Three Yale students allege
their university has breached
federal education law on the
basis of sex discrimination.
By Loren Smith
O
n behalf of fellow students in
their position, Anna McNeil,
Eliana Singer and Ry Walker are
suing Yale University for its fraternities.
In their claim lodged in court recently,
the women (who study art history, political
science, and astrophysics and African-
American studies) argue that the male-only
institutions allow sexual assault to flourish
and deny outsiders the networking benefits
that they afford members.
Upon arriving for their first semester,
according to their lawsuit, they discovered
that “Yale had a drastic shortage of
university-run social spaces, and [that]
the fraternities were the de facto social
environment for many students”.
“Fraternity brothers and other male
attendees regularly deny female students
admission to parties based on their
appearance, verbally harass them, grind up
against them, grab them and grope them,”
the lawsuit says.
“[They] were all groped at fraternity
parties during their first semesters at Yale.”
The plaintiffs further claim that “the
fraternities offer Yale men social and
economic opportunities that are denied
to plaintiffs and all of Yale’s female and
non-binary students” through their
alumni networks.
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“Yale’s fraternity alumni include powerful
business and political leaders, such as
former presidents George Bush and
George W Bush, and current supreme
court justice Brett Kavanaugh – all alumni
of Yale’s chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon.”
Sororities, they say, are unequal to
fraternities in terms of the opportunities
they provide.
For these reasons, they allege that
the university has breached Title IX of
federal education law, which prohibits
institutions that receive federal funding
from discrimination on the basis of sex.
Additionally, they argue that Yale breached
its contract to students, as it failed to
provide a safe, sex discrimination-free
environment. They are also suing on the
grounds of housing discrimination.
McNeil, Singer and Walker are seeking
unspecified damages. Concurrently,
McNeil and Walker are lobbying for gender
integration in Yale’s Greek organisations
under the student-led, on-campus equity
and inclusion-based Engender initiative.
Yale has already conducted a review
of “allegations of a sexually hostile
climate” at Delta Kappa Epsilon, based on
conversations with around 200 students.
“Some [students] shared troubling
perceptions of DKE parties,” Marvin Chun,
dean of Yale College, wrote in a note to
students. While he condemned “the culture
described in these accounts”, he also noted
that in a survey of 2000 students, “the vast
majority of you reported that you socialise
at well-planned events that make you feel
welcome, even as early as your first days
on campus”.
Ry Walker, Anna McNeil and Eliana Singer.
Photo: Sanford Heisler Sharp
Fraternity brothers
and other male attendees
regularly deny female students
admission to parties based
on their appearance, verbally
harass them, grind up against
them, grab them and grope
them,” the lawsuit says.
Harvard, meanwhile, is wrangling with
the opposite legal issue to Yale’s: it is being
sued by students for phasing out single-sex
clubs like fraternities and sororities.
University discrimination is being litigated
in other respects, too, like the class action
brought by Asian-Americans against
Harvard that claims the university denied
them admission on the basis of race. ■