Yale Daily News

The Greek life atmosphere at Yale has faced pressure to become more inclusive over the past four years, a shift that has come amid allegations of racism and sexual assault. Even as fraternities have aimed to create a safer party culture and  have worked to become more welcoming, all-gender social spaces like Edon and Fence Club have become more popular. 

Delta Kappa Epsilon has long been the center of the conversation about sexual assault within Yale’s fraternities, which rose to a fever pitch during the hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90, a former member of the fraternity. 

In 2006, the News reported on the emotional and physical abuse inflicted on pledges at the group’s “inspiration week.” The fraternity was formally banned from campus by former Dean of Yale College Mary Miller from 2011 to 2016 after pledges chanted misogynistic phrases including “No means yes, yes means anal” in front of the Women’s Center.

“What matters most here is that the larger community has addressed the particular fraternity, DKE, and held them responsible and accountable for their actions,” Miller wrote to the student body following the incident. “What is important to recognize is that DKE has accepted responsibility, opening a new level of discourse on the issue of sexual harassment. This is an opportunity to seize.”

In May of 2018, DKE lost their lease on Lake Place, amid an investigation over their hostile sexual climate by Deputy Title IX coordinator. The investigation was announced in Feb. 2018 by Dean of Yale College Marvin Chun following numerous sexual assault allegations against DKE members., In the same month, DKE announced measures to facilitate a safe party environment such as improved access to drinking water and female bouncers. 

Chun announced the findings of the investigation in an email sent in Jan. 2019, in which he advised students not to attend DKE parties but held off on formal censure. 

“I condemn the culture described in these accounts; it runs counter to our community’s values of making everyone feel welcome, respected and safe,” Chun wrote in his email to students sharing the review’s findings. “I also offer some plain advice about events like these: don’t go to them.”

Chun maintained that he would not punish the fraternity, given that past punishments have had little impact on the behavior of off-campus groups, and he previously told the News he does not have legal standing to influence independent organizations like DKE. Chun instead said he hoped to focus on fostering healthy social environments  on campus rather than regulating off-campus social life. 

However, legal experts, including DKE’s former executive director David Easlick, told the News that Yale has an “absolute right” to sanction DKE and would not face legal retribution. 

This April, DKE made a public return to campus under the leadership of Ryan McCann ’24 and hosted their annual drinking competition, Tang, on May 1. 

But DKE is not the only fraternity that has faced charges of sexual misconduct in recent years. Sigma Alpha Epsilon was similarly banned in 2015 for 18 months due to violating the University’s sexual misconduct policy, but disafiliated from the national organization and rebranded itself as LEO in Aug. 2018. 

Sigma Nu, another fraternity with a chapter at Yale, recently faced controversy, as two Yale sororities canceled events with the fraternity citing concerns over a predatory culture within the frat. 

Yale’s sororities have also aimed to become more inclusive, including in response to misconduct allegations levied in Oct. 2018. 

In Dec. 2018, Yale’s Panhellenic Council which organizes recruitment for Yale’s four sororities held a panel entitled “Diversity in Sororities,” although one former leader of these sororities, Holly Geffs ’18 told the News these efforts are generally “futile and surface level, even if well-intentioned” as long as the sororities do not offer full financial aid. Geffs also added that diversity was “weaponized” as a form of competition between sororities. 

In the past two years, recruitment for sororities has been conducted virtually. The move to online recruitment for the recruitment process in 2021 was announced in Nov. 2020, given most prospective students are first-years who lived off-campus in spring 2021. During the most recent online recruitment process, sororities saw a huge growth in involvement, with record numbers of students participating in virtual rush. 

“This pool of potential new members was almost triple the number of potential new members during last year’s recruitment, and it even exceeded the number of [potential new members] from the most recent in-person recruitment held two years ago,” Isabella Hay ’24, president of Yale’s Panhellenic council, wrote in an email to the News.

In addition to sororities, all-gender social groups have seen a recent growth in popularity. 

In 2019, Engender, a student group that advocates for gender inclusivity on campus brought a lawsuit against Yale as well as nine of its single-gender fraternities to try to force them to admit non-male members, but a Connecticut district court dismissed the majority of their claims. 

The Edon Club, an all-gender social group, has seen massive interest after members of Sigma Phi Epsilon disaffiliated from its national organization and voted to open the group’s membership to all-genders in 2020. After the first class of women joined the existing six women from the class of 2022 in March 2021, the group has seen two all-gender recruitments in the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022. 

While Edon’s gender integration came under scrutiny when Serena Lin ’23, a member of the second class of women to join Edon, wrote a piece for the Cut entitled “Can Women Fix Fraternities?”, other members of Edon told the News the presence of women and nonbinary students has helped make it a more inclusive space, while others suggested that work remains to be done for Edon to shed the exclusive elements of its fraternity past.  

Another all-gender group, Fence Club, highlighted the demand for all-gender social spaces. Fence’s origins were similar to Edon’s, as it was originally affiliated to Psi Upsilon, but began accepting women in 1972 and was revived without ties to Psi Upsilon in 2007.  In its 2020 recruitment process, occurring before SigEp disaffiliated and became all-gender, around 150 students signed up to fill approximately 20 spots. 

Greek chapters are not formally recognized by Yale as official student organizations.