July 21st, 2020
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Phoebe Balascio
Tina Hang
Tiffany Wang
Yi Wei
ECAASU’s Response to Leaked Messages and Systemic Harm in Asian-Interest Greek Life
ECAASU emphasizes the paramount need and duty to center survivors of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other forms of sexual violence in these conversations and actions. Resources for survivors and for learning are included at the end of this statement.
In the past two weeks, leaked private messages between members of Asian-interest Greek life have exposed illicit comments, actions, and accounts of harm. These messages reveal the systemic violence and misogyny inherent in Greek life, regardless of physical location or organization letters. These actions of harm from fraternity members is and has always been unacceptable. ECAASU firmly centers the healing and leadership of survivors as we work to implement lasting changes that proactively prevent future harm. In response to these most recent events and the history of inherent and explicit violence in these organizations, ECAASU is calling for the elimination of all white and white-inspired Greek life.
Interpersonal and sexual violence is made possible by both perpetrators, who actively commit violence, and bystanders, who perpetuate its cyclic nature by refusing to hold perpetrators accountable. Oftentimes, bystanders are friends with the perpetrators, making their inaction all the more common, and all the more damaging. We must ensure these actors and organizations take accountability for the harm caused by their behaviors as well as their inability to act. ECAASU advocates for a transformative justice framework that centers survivors and survivor justice in addressing these crimes; we must prioritize spaces and resources for healing, empowerment, and safety. Transformative justice also requires a deeper analysis into motivations and power structures that lead perpetrators to acts of violence. Oftentimes, perpetrators and bystanders, too, need resources to relearn safety and heal. Entire communities are responsible for creating and transforming spaces so that oppressive systems, like racism, misogyny, and cisheteropatriarchy, have no power.
These harmful ideologies and oppressive systems are not unique to Asian fraternities. White Greek life, as well as Asian Greek life that uses white Greek life as a model, is inherently rooted in white supremacy and the cisheteropatriarchy. Greek life began as an exclusive space for wealthy, cisgender, heterosexual, white men. Even after women and people of color were no longer prohibited from and began participating in Greek life, fraternities and sororities remain rooted in these systems of power and harm. It is no surprise, then, that Asian fraternities, which are largely dominated by East Asian men, have the ability to do, and have done, deep harm. ECAASU recognizes Asian-interest Greek letter organizations were created with the intention of giving Asian and Asian American students spaces equal to those of white students; however, we reject this aspiration towards whiteness that actively serves as a barrier to equity and justice. The roots of Greek letter organizations cannot be reformed or repackaged as a safe space for marginalized people.
Because Greek life is driven by and a symptom of larger systems of harm, it is critical that in addition to the elimination of white and white-inspired Greek life, ECAASU advocates for AAPI spaces that are built on trust, community care, and accountability. This starts with schools, particularly predominantly white institutions (PWIs), taking responsibility for the resourcing of these spaces. They must be funded; they must be staffed; they must be institutionalized. Most importantly, individuals must have access to racial resources with which to healthily build community with themselves and others. These spaces cannot be limited to outside of the classroom. Schools must actively uplift and fund the creation of Asian American studies, South Asian American studies, Southeast Asian American studies, and Pacific Islander studies programs and departments that provide AAPI students a space to critically engage with their identities. These curriculums create pathways for community building centered around AAPI identity rather than simply replicating the white institutions in which they exist. Allowing students to actively see themselves in historically white academia also opens a place for them to learn about and interrogate their own capacities and histories of harm. Asian-interest fraternities do not have a long history on college campuses, so we can imagine schools without them again. In their wake, we can build dynamic and caring spaces for AAPI students to live.
ECAASU recognizes that the dismantling of racism, misogyny, and cisheteropatriarchy will not happen simply through the lens of Greek life, nor through discussions and actions solely within AAPI communities. However, we believe that first steps include centering the needs and healing of survivors, helping perpetrators and bystanders take accountability for harm done in Greek life, and working towards the elimination of white-led and white-inspired Greek life. Organizations like A/PI Domestic Violence Resource Project and Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence are already doing survivor-centered healing work within the AAPI community. No one has all the answers, but community members on all their respective campuses must begin having intentional conversations to imagine and enact transformative survivor justice.
