Students

Swarthmore College Phi Psi Fraternity Disciplined for Recruiting Flier Featuring Naked Women

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Fraternity members at Swarthmore College are undergoing special training sessions following the distribution of a flier using photos of naked women, the Huffington Post reported.

Officials at the school did not say what kind of training members of the Phi Psi fraternity were mandated to participate in. The fliers, featuring nearly- and entirely-naked women, were given to incoming recruits and were found by some students to be offensive and misogynistic.

"We are working with the fraternity on a multifaceted remedy that will require training and other measures be successfully completed before the fraternity can resume its recruitment efforts or host social events to ensure that our values are upheld, and that such a situation will not recur," Liliana Rodriguez, associate dean at Swarthmore, said.

Swarthmore senior Marian Firke started a petition Monday to influence the school's student government to stop funding the Greek community until it had ten percent female membership.

"There's been a lot of language about 'change' at Swarthmore in recent months, and until this happened a lot of that felt like platitudes," Firke said. "But seeing such a strong response to this concern makes me believe that Swarthmore really can improve."

In a controversial referendum earlier this year, students voted not to ban Greek organizations form campus, but supported all genders being permitted to join such groups.

The school is also undergoing change since being hit with two federal investigations from the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR). The OCR investigated complaints from students who said the school mishandled their sexual assaults and underreported all such cases in general.

Still, Firke did not want her school to be singled out for its recent troubles, saying sexism and rape culture "is a universal problem."

"There is no shame in admitting that the problem exists," Firke said. "What would be shameful would be to let this fester without acting to correct it. And I'm very pleased to see that Swarthmore is indeed acting to correct this."

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