By now, our campus has been rocked by the recent release of a video by the now-expelled engineering fraternity, Theta Tau. Student organizing and protests continually put pressure on the administration to reprimand the perpetrators and take concrete steps to changing campus environment, in which many marginalized students experience hostility. After watching the second Theta Tau video released April 21, I was deeply disturbed and disgusted. I had an idea of what to expect after watching the first video, but I was still shaken to my core as I watched a group of men act out a gang rape on an individual depicted as developmentally and physically disabled. Like the first video, this was laden with slurs. The men laughed as they described how they would “light rape” the “brain-dead” individual, “retarded in his wheelchair.”

This video, like the first one, was sickening all the way through. Both videos enforce the oppression of marginalized students with the use of slurs. It’s unbelievable to see these men laugh off and belittle white supremacist ideologies that have led to systematic genocide and killings throughout history. The ableism this second video perpetuates is particularly malicious when one considers the epidemic of sexual abuse in disabled communities. According to a 2005 survey by Disability Justice, approximately 80 percent of women and 30 percent of men with developmental disabilities have been sexually assaulted. Half of developmentally disabled women who experience sexual assault experience it more than 10 times. These assaults have a devastatingly low report percentage: 3 percent of these crimes are reported to authorities. Sexual assault is underreported in every aspect, but 3 percent seems particularly mortifying as this crime is committed so frequently in this community.

In my years as a townie and a student, I’ve never seen a frat house on campus that was wheelchair-accessible. This speaks volumes about the type of bodies they want to recruit, who they allow to be their “brothers” and which types of humans they see as valuable. As many marginalized students have already pointed out, it’s not just the fraternities or only the videos. Rape culture, ableism, racism, sexism and LGBTQIA+ hatred and anti-Semitic attitudes have long plagued this campus. It’s time for the university to confront these issues head-on with real changes, instead of student activism doing all the work for it whenever marginalized students are put in harm’s way.

Sincerely,

Maria Norris, College of Visual and Performing Arts