Yale Frat Punished For Stupid Chant

Delta Kappa Epsilon, the Yale frat that caused an uproar last week by chanting slogans like “no means yes,” has been ordered to stop pledge activities, and more punishment may be forthcoming.

According to Jordi Gasso and Nick Levine of the Yale Daily News, the Delta Kappa Epsilon International Fraternity Board of Directors has directed Yale’s DKE chapter to stop all pledge events, including the initiation of new members. And Melanie Boyd, director of undergraduate studies for Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, says punishment may not stop there. She says, “I wouldn’t say the question of disciplinary action has disappeared from the conversation.” However, Yale Dean Mary Miller says any disciplinary action against individual DKE members will be confidential from start to finish, and that such action “is not designed to provide satisfaction to those who might feel aggrieved.”

I wrote last week that those outraged by DKE’s chants (which also included such trenchant social commentary as “My name is Jack. I’m a necrophiliac. I fuck dead women”) were giving the frat boys exactly what they wanted. But I’m actually pleased to see DKE International policing its own — I’m sure the geniuses who came up with Jack the Necrophiliac and “no means yes, yes means anal” were hoping to piss off campus feminists (and they certainly did), but they probably weren’t expecting punishment from their own fraternity. I doubt that DKE’s going to entirely eliminate dumbassery from the pledge process, but at least they’re sending the message that attention-seeking can attract the wrong kind of notice.

The university also held a “Forum on Yale’s Sexual Climate” Friday, where administrators “focused on developing strategies to combat sexual misconduct and how to respond to episodes such as DKE’s inflammatory pledge ritual.” Fair enough — if the incident spurs the university to actually work to make women safer, that’s a good thing. However, the chants continue to inspire hyperbole: “It is a matter of months before they vacuum other young boys into their misogynist ponzi scheme,” says Yale alum and former Women’s Center officer Chase Olivarius-McAllister. But a more apt assessment of DKE’s activities comes from student Will Feldman: “The point was for them to act like jackasses.”

Despite Forum, DKE Reprimanded [Yale Daily News]
DKE Fraternity Chapter At Yale Comes Under Fire After Pledges Chant Obscenities [Hartford Courant, via Newser]