In recent years there has been a degree of shift in this area to criminal prosecutions with convictions as well as civil cases at times followed by the resignations of senior officials. Fostering this proposed tougher stance was the fact that sexual abuse on the American campus had become a national issue by 2016 with ‘an endless stream’ of disturbing scandals that could no longer be dismissed as ‘incidents’ and with institutions that ‘failed to investigate, did not support victims and treated perpetrators with impunity’ (Klein, 2018, p 76). Fostering that move to change were a string of abuse cases yet one at Wesleyan indicates the unwillingness of some fraternities to change even within a reform regime; and the one at Baylor conveys how an ostensibly grave case could nevertheless elicit weak sanctioning. And then there were deeply grave abuse cases related to college sports with some well-documented cases leading to high public concern.

Sexual abuse at fraternity parties: Wesleyan and Baylor

In 2013 at Wesleyan and within the Xi Chapter of Psi Upsilon there was a party where a lot of underage and intoxicated students were drinking heavily and with the fraternity members dancing naked; this got completely out of control with furniture being knocked over and alcohol spilt (Middletown Press, 2014). The event, according to the victim’s lawyer, had been covertly promoted among fraternity members as ‘an opportunity to engage in sexual encounters with female guests’ and Cabri (real name) became a victim of serious abuse. Cabri waived her anonymity as she said she had done nothing wrong, had nothing to be ashamed about and had been subject to a heinous crime. At the party she became uncomfortable about events and texted a friend to meet outside but on leaving she was grabbed from behind and a man put her on a table and ‘started grinding’. She broke away but another naked man ‘threw her over the leg of a couch … and raped her in the presence of numerous others’. This gross and humiliating attack occurred in a common area of the fraternity house with an audience and with Cabri pleading with him to stop, but no one intervened (Middletown Press, 2014).