http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/20/ny...0wesleyan.html
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December 20, 2004
Wesleyan Fraternities Face Pressure to House Women
By STACEY STOWE
IDDLETOWN, Conn., Dec. 19 - Fraternity brothers are scarce here at Wesleyan, a small liberal arts college whose nickname is "Diversity University" and where students can board at off-campus houses like the "Womanist" and "Malcolm X," which are approved by the university.
Now, the fraternity brothers say they will be forced into virtual inactivity next fall if they do not comply with the administration's newly enforced nondiscrimination policy and allow women to live at the fraternity houses.
"They talk about breaking barriers down," said Michael Barbera, a sophomore who is president of Delta Kappa Epsilon, one of four fraternities that offer housing at Wesleyan. "But what the university is saying is, 'We'll just be prejudiced against white middle-class men who play sports.' "
His fraternity recently voted to allow women to live there, but many members said they did so reluctantly.
Lashing out at the administration is practically a course requirement at Wesleyan, with 2,200 undergraduates and a strong history of political activism. Campus security was summoned on Dec. 7 when 120 students cornered the university's president, Douglas J. Bennet, to strongly protest everything from the new abbreviated hours for the campus bus service to the lack of housing for transgender students. Two years ago, an uproar ensued when "chalking," a popular form of communication that colored the school's walkways and parking lots, was banned.
The fraternity controversy has bubbled up recently because new dormitories, with a total of 200 beds, are expected to open in September to address a longstanding housing shortage.
The university requires all undergraduates to live either in a dormitory or in "program housing," a residence that meets basic standards of safety, cleanliness and conduct, and features a program contributing to the "social, cultural and academic needs" of the university or the Middletown community. Living in an apartment or a fraternity house that is not part of program housing requires explicit permission from the university.
When housing stock was scarce, such permission was easy to obtain. But with the 200 new beds on campus, the university will not be as quick to grant permission for students to live in nonprogram housing, said Justin Harmon, the director of university communications.
And students who want to live in a fraternity house that violates the university's nondiscrimination policy by refusing to admit female residents will have to essentially pay twice: about $5,000 to the university in housing fees, which would no longer be waived, and $3,500 to the fraternity, Mr. Harmon said. At present, no fraternity member is in this situation, but the prospect of paying twice would make fraternity living impractical.
Like most colleges and universities, Wesleyan struggles with the problems of underage and binge drinking. Sometimes, Mr. Harmon said, when a fraternity "asserts the right of free association," it is code for such drinking.
"They want to live how they want to live and get drunk when they want to get drunk," he said, adding that if the fraternities were going to receive rent that would otherwise go to the university, they must comply with university standards on everything, including discrimination and alcohol consumption. Wesleyan bans discrimination based on gender and forbids alcohol consumption by anyone younger than 21.
On Dec. 2, Mr. Bennet wrote to alumni of three of the four fraternities that offer housing - Delta Kappa Epsilon, Psi Upsilon and Beta Theta Pi - in an effort to counter claims that the administration wants to shut down the fraternities. (The fourth, Alpha Delta Phi, has had female residents for many years.)
"For all-male fraternities this means including women as equal partners in their residential programs," the letter said. Mr. Bennet also suggested that the fraternities could admit women to their programs and residences without having to grant them membership in the fraternity.
Sororities also exist at Wesleyan, where tuition, room and board is $40,124 a year, but none offers housing.
The issue has irritated fraternity alumni to the point of affecting their donations to Wesleyan. "Some are changing their giving patterns, some have stopped giving altogether and others have indicated they've changed their wills," said John Hoder, who graduated from Wesleyan in 1973 and is president of the Delta Kappa Epsilon board of trustees.
James Young, who graduated from Wesleyan in 1955 and was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon when male students could be expelled for allowing women to stay overnight in their rooms, has watched as fraternities disappeared from a string of Northeastern colleges like Bowdoin, in Maine, and Amherst, in Massachusetts.
Five years ago, when Wesleyan began enforcing its nondiscrimination policies, his fraternity agreed to offer housing to women, but there were no takers, Mr. Young said.
"This fraternity has been here 130 years," said Mr. Young, who helped to raise $500,000 to restore the gray stone fraternity house. "We're just trying to keep a tradition alive."
Referring to the Wesleyan administration, Mr. Young said, "Many of us say, why are they doing this to us? But there's an acceptance. I don't agree with it, but you don't give up a frat over it."
A few doors down at Psi Upsilon, Drew Walker, a senior, sounded a defiant tone as he stood in the doorway of his room. "Every semester we take a vote about whether to open the frat to women, and every time we vote it down," he said, adding that the fraternity had the support of its alumni. "We'll take our chances in the fall."
Downstairs, the living room featured a beer keg, plastic cups, and wallpaper inscribed, "The altar fires our fathers lit shall still more brightly glow."
At the moment, Beta Theta Pi, where 13 men are living, is not part of program housing, so students must have permission to live in the large and somewhat forbidding dark house. Michael Vitulano, a junior, said he did not know what would happen if the university no longer gave such permission.
Mr. Barbera, the Delta Kappa Epsilon president, who is from Greenwich and plays on Wesleyan's ice hockey team, vowed that women living at his fraternity house would be treated with "complete respect."
But will women want to move in to what is, after all, a bastion of machismo?
He nodded affirmatively.
"There's shock value to it," he said. "This is Wesleyan."
Ilana Rossein, a senior wearing a vintage pink coat with the word "student" written on a piece of cloth pinned to its hem, said she for one would not be moving to a fraternity soon because she does not believe in organizations that limit membership based on gender or race.
"I believe fraternities are part of a larger, systemic problem," she said. "They have a history of oppression."
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Wesleyan Fraternities Face Pressure to House Women
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