The leaked emails of an American University fraternity reveal a sickening sense of entitlement among the sons of the 1% – with young women consistently referred to as “b*tches”, jokes about rape and the cover-up of the assault of a young women on campus.
These young men are heirs to the highest positions of corporate and political power in America. They are staffers for influential congressmen and PAC. They work at top international banks and consulting firms. And as the emails show, they have zero respect for common decency or the law – neither of which apply to them.
Those Emails
The redacted emails and text messages, which appear to have originated from the Google Group of Epsilon Iota, were posted Thursday night on an anonymous Tumblr page. Prior to the material’s appearance on Tumblr, a PDF file of more than 70 pages of uncensored material, dating as far back as 2012, was circulated to many on the AU campus from an anonymous email account. While Gawker and other outlets have released the redacted versions, in line with the University’s position in maintaining the anonymity of the men concerned – Jezebel has published the following un-redacted images. The emails reveal a truly warped view of women.
Anyone for a rape in the woods?
There were a whole string of those. It should come as little surprise that a bunch of guys who trivialize and event glorify sexual violence against women, have no issue with dishing out other types of violence either.
So how do the Frat brothers react when a brother admits assaulting a woman?
“Never hit a woman ever…. That being said, let’s formulate an excuse.”
This might be funny, if the assault hadn’t happened, and remained unpunished. These guys are apparently untouchable.
The brothers also allude to a “rape incident” and discuss means of salvaging their reputation for future pledges. Here’s part of a 2010 letter to the editor written by an EI member under the headline “Dealing With AU’s Anti-Sex Brigade.”:
Let’s get this straight: any woman who heads to an EI party as an anonymous onlooker, drinks five cups of the jungle juice, and walks back to a boy’s room with him is indicating that she wants sex, OK?To cry ‘date rape’ after you sober up the next morning and regret the incident is the equivalent of pulling a gun to someone’s head and then later claiming that you didn’t ever actually intend to pull the trigger.
The whole 70 pages is a litany of tips of how to get hold of drugs, how to get “b*tches” as wasted as possible to increase the chances that frat members will be have their sexual needs serviced, the glorification of rape and other violence against women in order to somehow put them in their place, and how to keep all of this from being stamped out by the University and fellow students.
The Fall Out
Students on the American University campus have set up a petition calling for action against the student involved. The petition gathered more than 500 signatures in 24 hours and continues to grow. It reads:
AU students who contributed to those emails (especially those discussing illegal activities, trivializing sexual assault, and using misogynist, sexist, racist, and homophobic language) should not be students at this university. By perpetrating these heinous acts, they have proven themselves unworthy of being members of our community. If the university cannot legally expel these individuals, there should be consequences and measures taken against them to ensure the safety of our students, and the University needs to improve its preventative measures and the way it address sexual assault and violence. AU cannot be a bystander. It has an ability and thus a responsibility to address this issue and make the school a safe place.
While the student population is working hard to bring this to national and international attention, American University appears to have no such urgency to deal with the issue. The University is sticking to the line that the fraternity was banned from campus over a decade ago:
Epsilon Iota – Also referred to as EI is the former Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) chapter that was closed both by the University and Alpha Tau Omega headquarters in March 2001.The fraternity lost university and national fraternity recognition for serious policy violations which involved hazing and alcohol abuse. Upon loss of recognition, members of this group formed this unrecognized organization. Involvement in this unrecognized organization could pose risks to students, and the university highly discourages individuals from joining them. The university encouraged you to join only recognized fraternities if you choose to pursue fraternity and sorority life.
Gail Short Hanson, vice president of campus life, issued a statement on Friday evening in a campus-wide email, which was subsequently provided to HuffPost by the administration:
Recently, an anonymous source shared emails and other information with university administrators and selected campus community members. We are outraged by the reprehensible content of this material. It could not be more contrary to American University’s values and standards.The material is under intense analysis by university officials, with attention to the statutes and regulations that guide our behavior. We assure our campus community that we are pursuing these matters deliberately and expeditiously so that violations of the law are addressed and university conduct code standards are upheld.
This indicates the University plans to stick to the pattern it has adopted prior to the release of the emails – ‘trust us, we’re investigating, now carry on with your day and leave us to it’.
This might be satisfactory if the University administration had any credibility in holding these 1%ers to account. But as we have already seen – an alleged rape, an assault, a litany of drugs violations and possible date rapes have been overlooked and unpunished by AU. In fact, were it not for the release of these emails we would be none the wiser. This is why the next phase must take place in full public scrutiny. AU didn’t appear to care about any of this when it was a personal safety issue for young women on campus, but only since it became a Public Relations issue for the University. It is no wonder these young men grow into adults with zero sense of personal or social responsibility – it’s the way they are trained.
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