There has been a lot of focus over the past year on the issue of college campus rapes as alarming statistics exposed the issue as a widespread problem across the country.
The issue came to the forefront again last week when a Rolling Stone article detailed a horrific tale of rape and suppression at the University of Virginia, which announced a suspension of its fraternities as a result of the allegations.
That article prompted an editorial by Gawker blogger Jordan Sargent that advocates the drastic step of banning college fraternities altogether to reduce the number of rapes occurring on campus.
Sargent cites in his editorial the details contained in the Rolling Stone article, as well as a 2007 study concluding that men in frats are three times as likely to commit rape as students who are not.
“To say that we must keep fraternities around even though they manufacture rape is to say we must accept one of humanity’s most heinous acts as an unavoidable cost of operating a college campus. It is not, and we must not,” he wrote.
It is pointed out that Sargent relies on language accusing frat men of “facilitating” rape, “manufacturing” rape or “producing rapists.” His argument focuses on the idea that basically without fraternities there would also be no rapes.
He also argues that “reform” of the problem is not possible. “Reform means trusting the same people … who have failed to protect young women, and failed to punish the men that have hurt those young women … The act of rape has been allowed to prosper at fraternities for decades because it was convenient for the people who run colleges to have it that way.”
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