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REDHUGO H- Swathmore Fraternity “Rape Attic” (2019)

Landry Litel
Mrs. Duke
AP English Language and Composition
23 March 2020
Swathmore Fraternity “Rape Attic” (2019)
The New York Times posted an article on April 30th of 2019, describing a case at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Julie Turkewitz, the author of the article, briefly describes the inappropriate behavior of a fraternity on campus, and explains that “campus publications leaked details from a lengthy document in which members of the school’s Phi Psi fraternity bragged about sexual conquests and referenced sexual assaults” (Turkewitz). Turkewtiz focuses more on how the students reacted to the news and how they plan to put an end to this rape culture that exists in fraternities. This article was reliable due to its source and did not seem biased. The goal of Turkewtiz is to inform her audience about what students are doing at Swarthmore and to encourage them to look for signs of this existing on their campus. This article was helpful in my research because it introduced another host of rape culture, a college fraternity. It furthers my argument in providing an example that rape culture exists on not just a high school level, but also in a university setting.
After researching the Swarthmore Fraternity scandal, I looked deeper and discovered the original document that was leaked in which the fraternity, Phi Psi, recounted details about sexual actions with underage girls, the “rape attic,” and other sexual misconduct. The document is extremely long, and at first seems like a typical fraternity meeting agenda, discussing “pledge tasks, time commitment, and personal conduct”, but it soon takes a turn (Swarthmore Phoenix). It includes disgusting slurs towards race and gender and gives intimate details of sexual encounters between girls and members of the fraternity. This document is not extremely reliable since others could have edited it, but provides an excellent example of the culture that existed within the fraternity and how each member played a part. It also proves that a fraternity can portray ethical, moral values on the outside, but participate in the opposite. This was the first primary source of my research of the case, and it shows a firsthand account of how this rape culture was normalized and considered jokes between members. It was helpful to me in providing a primary source of evidence and helped to support my argument.

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