May 10th, 2019
Today, we learned President Smith will be meeting our demands to permanently end fraternity violence at Swarthmore College. She agreed, in an email, to terminating the leases and banning Greek life, and thus disallowing DU or Phi Psi to return in any form, and by any other name. Fraternities, and Greek life as it has so far existed at the College, are not conducive to our values of justice, equity, and safety. We know these “exclusive, dues-paying social organizations” have never, for 100+ years, met “the needs of our residential liberal arts environment”. That is, today’s decision comes after decades of continued fraternity violence, harm, and exclusion– and decades of College negligence, complicity, and dishonesty.
Because of student activism, student labor, and student pain, there will be no more fraternity violence, unchecked and College-empowered, on Swarthmore’s campus. This decision is an enormous win for all students, especially survivors of sexual violence and all marginalized students. First and foremost, we thank the community for its tireless and courageous participation in this movement in the many forms it has taken, from sitting in, to bringing food, to offering critical feedback. We thank those who took brave actions of solidarity, including the students still on hunger strike. We know this win is the direct result of our organizing– of our own community conversation and our choices to engage in nonviolent direct action for the last month and far before. It is imperative that we, the Coalition to End Fraternity Violence and the community, claim these wins as our own. We know the College would not have made the correct moral decision without every bit of the pressure we created.
We still need, in this moment, the full reallocation of the houses to students most marginalized by the 100+ years of fraternity existence. The particular decision of what the buildings will become must be led by and for queer and trans students of color, especially Black and Indigenous students. We will keep pushing the College to fully commit to this necessary step, in the name of Restorative and Transformative Justice.
The last month has shone a bright light on many layers of violence, dysfunction and harm on this campus. There is still much work to be done: we still need apologies for decades of negligence as well as recent incidents of grave mistreatment of peaceful protestors (specifically but not limited to the events of last Thursday 5/2 and their subsequent erasure). We still need accountability for the ways Swarthmore and specific administrators have protected fraternity members and the fraternity organizations for years, while refusing transparency or honest engagement with concerned and harmed students. We still need a sweeping transformation of Public Safety and institutionalized improvements to Title IX policy, amongst other important changes. We will provide a statement soon on our next steps.
We, Princeton IX Now, see and support Organizing for Survivors (O4S) – a Swarthmore College student group advocating for survivor-centered structural transformation on their campus. We stand in solidarity with their struggle to have the Swarthmore administration realize their demands in commitment to the rights of survivors and protesters, and we fully support their active efforts to engage the College administration.
During a five-day sit-in held by members of O4S and the Swarthmore Coalition to End Fraternity Violence occupying one of the College’s two fraternity houses, both Swarthmore fraternities, Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon, decided to disband on their own. The student activists and organizers felt that this was not enough, and they moved their sit-in to the office of the President and the hallway just outside. This transition was made to further pressure the College administration to institutionalize this disbanding, to dissolve the fraternity house leases, and to instigate a just reallocation process for the fraternity houses. It was in this transition to administration that the College exercised the force of the police against its own students.
It is crucial to note and condemn the confines imposed by Swarthmore to oppress the freedom of speech of all protestors. By calling law enforcement on their students, Swarthmore is prioritizing the safety and security of white protestors while silencing and alienating brown and black bodies from the movement. This implementation of systemic racism as a method to suppress student activism is unacceptable, especially by an institution which praises itself for fostering a diverse and inclusive environment.
While this past week Swarthmore University made strides in reaching goals set by O4S and the Coalition, we want to emphasize that full credit should be given to the student organizers for their ideas and the work that they have done to reach this point. Failing to acknowledge their efforts and diligence completely invalidates the sacrifices and erases the voices of survivors and allies who are fighting for the safety of their campus. There remains much O4S is still fighting to achieve regarding the rights, safety, and security of survivors and we expect Swarthmore college to do more to address these demands immediately.
The lack of institutional support for their students is not only demonstrated in their inadequate measures to address violence in the campus community, but also in their unwillingness to communicate with the very students they claim to serve and protect. It is appalling that institutions that are beacons of higher education, such as Swarthmore College and Princeton University, do not recognize that communication with students is integral to creating an educational environment wherein all students can flourish.
To the Swarthmore administration: You can and must do better to hear, support, and act on the well-researched and survivor-centered demands of O4S, giving them due credit for these transformative ideas.
Now and moving forward, Princeton IX Now remains an ally to O4S in this continued struggle, fighting to transform the structures that allow violence to occur on Swarthmore’s campus.
We encourage others to do the same by signing on to this letter of support, to stand in solidarity with O4S and survivors everywhere.
In solidarity and love,
Princeton Students for Title IX Reform