Swarthmore College Students Demanding Action After Allegations Made Against Campus Fraternity, Including 'Rape Attic'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Students at Swarthmore College are demanding action following disturbing allegations against a campus fraternity. Someone leaked documents from the fraternity that included derogatory comments about women, minorities and the LGBTQ community.
"We're making this fraternity something better ourselves and as long as the college won't act, we're going to continue to do that," senior Morgin Goldberg said.
Dozens of Swarthmore College students filled the floor inside Phi Psi Fraternity house, after meeting minutes from 2013 through 2016 were leaked and published in a school paper.
The X-rated documents detail members' derogatory comments about women, minorities, and LGBTQ people. The authenticity of the documents has not yet been verified.
The leak prompted a sit-in at the campus frat house, and today is day three.
Goldberg is one of the organizers.
"I did experience sexual assault in the fraternity my freshman year," Goldberg said.
"I've seen them use slurs before while drunk," junior Maya Henry said.
Henry spent time in the fraternity house as a campus club volunteer, assigned to monitor Phi Psi parties that offered alcohol.
"It feels really restorative in a way because I feel like all of my frustrations I've experienced and my friends have experienced are finally getting addressed and hear," Henry said.
A Tumblr page called "Why Swarthmore Fraternities Must Go" describes anonymous students' stories of alleged assaults.
Students say there's a room inside the house, where one member lives called the "rape attic."
"That is gross, college negligence that the student is still allowed to live in those rooms," Goldberg said.
Protesters want to end all fraternity leases on campus which includes the house for Phi Psi and neighboring Delta Upsilon.
"They are not representative of who we are today," Phi Psi said in a statement on Facebook. "Our current brothers were in high school and middle school at the time of these unofficial minutes."
"There's a leadership structure and so the tradition of the fraternity, the violent tradition of the fraternity are literally passed down every single year," Goldberg added.
