Roy Exum: UVa --Time For Change

  • Monday, November 24, 2014
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum
The University of Virginia is, by any measure, one of the finest universities in the world. I have long admired it, whether covering dozens of sports events, cavorting with countless friends, or benefitting repeatedly from the surgical skills of the late world-class humanitarian Frank McCue.

But today there is a terrible pall over “Mr. Jefferson’s university” – no, make that a stench – and over the weekend UVa President Teresa Sullivan issued an iron-fisted decree that all campus fraternities are to immediately suspend all activities until Jan.

9 of next year.  No dress-up Christmas parties, no holiday sing-alongs, no legendary snowball fights on the Green.

Yes, the unthinkable has happened and, no, it’s not the clamp-down on the frat house of which I speak. A Wednesday story in Rolling Stone has just laid bare the gang-rape culture that allegedly permeates the Charlottesville campus. The lengthy 9,000-word report – which amounted to 24 print-out pages on my computer printer – is horrifying, degrading and – even worse – perversely counter to all of the honor, the dignity and the splendid tradition that the University stands for.

You’ll remember our nation mourned when we learned that Virginia coed Hannah Graham had been abducted and murdered in September and, while nothing could be worse, let’s be real honest and admit the unnatural series on rapes on our college campus from Tallahassee, Nashville, Knoxville and other college towns across America is as sickening a reflection on America’s future leaders as we have ever seen.

The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house is the focal point of UVa’s shame. It is now believed seven “brothers” may have gang-raped a coed in September of 2012 but that it went unreported, as is now alleged happens with a startling number of assaults on the Virginia campus. The fraternity house has since turned in its charter, has been vandalized by students, and has rather hurriedly been vacated by all its members.

But broken glass, spray-painted graffiti that read, “UVa Center For Rape Studies,” and “Suspend Us!” and other signs of evil are now as glaring as the big “Z” you can see painted intermittently across the campus. The “Z?” At UVa there are several secret organizations such as “Z Society” and “7 Society” and “IMP Society.” To be a member is a distinguishable honor and, as the “Z” that is painted openly on the north steps to the Rotunda attests, “the secrets” are an anonymous force in UVa lore to be taken very seriously.

Understand, these organizations are widely known for their philanthropy and excellence across the campus. The Z Society dates back to 1892 and it has been reported Cheryl Mills, who is today Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton, is a past member. Better yet, the secret societies have such swag that – get this -- sometime late Thursday night “Z” placed a letter and a stack of fresh flowers at the UVa Amphitheater and, of course, in a day of motion detectors, night cameras and heavy security guards, no one saw a thing.

To illustrate the anguish in Charlottesville, here is what the ‘Z” letter said:

* * *

"We are adrift. We have faced tragedy upon tragedy. We have been asked to contend with the inexplicable, with the horrendous, and with the deeply unfair. We are adrift—yet we drift together.

"Together, we share in the small solace of company, and we share in the ache of our sadness, and in the light of our hope that things will be better. We share in our anger and in our concern, but—what's more—we share in the belief that our community can and must evolve.

"In times like these, we stand together. We say to each other: I am your support, just as you are mine. Today, and every day, may we stand emboldened by our capacity for love and inspired by our faith in what we can be, what we must be, what we will be. Though our path forward is unclear, we know that it is a path that we must go down together. All of us.

"Ours is a community with the capacity to achieve the astounding when its flame has been rightly kindled—and now must be a time of change.

"We find ourselves adrift, yet we drift together. Afraid, angry, confused, unsteady, uneasy, unsure —but together.

"At our symbol in the Amphitheatre, you will find a collection of flowers. Please take as many as you need to pass on to those who are in need—a friend, a roommate, a staff member, a neighbor, a stranger. May each flower find its own meaning for the person who receives it, and may we begin to shape the meaning of these tragedies in our community."

* * *

This Tuesday the university’s Board of Visitors will convene and one, former rector Helen Dragas, has a post on Facebook that reported she has a college friend who “had the exact same thing happen to her in a fraternity house. I never knew it,” wrote Dragas who attended UVa in the mid-80s, “and I was really shaken that women were being victimized then, and still are more than 30 years later.

“This is a serious problem, to say the least,” wrote Dragas, “We need to solve it.”

Yes, quickly and forcibly and forever and ever, to say the very least.

royexum@aol.com

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