The University’s Title IX office confirmed an investigation regarding allegations of sexual harassment during Sigma Chi’s annual Derby Days event.
Janie Buford, equal opportunity/regulatory compliance operations supervisor said the Title IX office is looking into the matter regarding video footage and eyewitness accounts of sexual innuendos directed at sorority members participating in the annual Derby Days event dance competition.
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Brandi Hephner Labanc said upon receiving the report, she immediately referred it to Title IX.
“For us, it fell in that sexual misconduct policy and we felt that there could be a violation there,” Labanc said. “That entails a hostile environment all the way through sexual assault and rape, and we see that as very serious violations of the University community and the safety we want students to feel on campus.”
Derby Days is a philanthropy event sponsored and hosted by the Sigma Chi fraternity, where women from multiple sororities participate in a week of fundraising for charities that also includes a scavenger hunt and a blood drive.
Title IX protects both male and female students in an educational program from discrimination on the basis of sex — including sexual harassment — whether by an employee, another student or a non-employee third party.
According to the University’s Title IX website, the definition of sexual harassment includes verbal harassment or abuse of a sexual nature, pressure for sexual activity, unwanted touching, leering or ogling at a person’s body, demanding sexual favors accompanied by threats, inappropriate display of sexually suggestive or pornographic materials, stalking and sexual violence.
“It’s not what we want for our campus community,” Labanc said. “We want to create a safe environment for everybody. For all students, we want to create one [community] where people feel like they’re valued and they can go to class without worrying about this stuff. At the end of the day, because we’ve had this, we now have an opportunity to make our community better.”
A University official is not required to monitor these events, and Labanc said she is not aware of any who attended Derby Days.
“I think that a clear solution will come,” she said. “I think things will change, and I think the student dialogue and the student action will be very powerful and I think that we’re in a place right now where that can play out in a really positive way.”
If the Title IX investigation confirms sexual harassment has taken place, corrective actions will be taken pertaining to the circumstances.
Labanc said they will wait until the investigation is complete and will go from there.
“The silver lining here is there’s this really powerful conversation happening on campus now about what it means to respect one another,” she said. “I think that’s important to evolve our community and make this a safer place.”
University organization Rebels Against Sexual Assault is hosting an event on Friday in response to Derby Days and in order to think generally how to make campus safer and more comfortable for everyone.
RASA President Sydney Green said she hopes to promote an open, positive conversation about changing the status quo of Greek life on campus to help students who feel unsafe through the event.
In preparation for the event, RASA will sit down with the president, vice president and additional members of Sigma Chi to discuss what went wrong and to ensure the conversation includes more than a one-sided argument. The open meeting will be held Wednesday at 5 p.m. in room 107 of the Croft Center for International Studies.
Green said the organization has sent every sorority president on campus an invitation to attend and give feedback about how female members felt and what they saw over the course of the dance competition.
“Even though not all women felt marginalized by the comments that were made, the women who did feel upset have every right to feel upset about what happened,” Green said.
