In a letter addressed to the president of Beta Theta Pi fraternity, Dean of the College Lee Pelton called on the house to develop "bona fide, authentic and ongoing events" to address racism and sexism on campus and in the Coed, Fraternity, and Sorority system.
Pelton's letter was a response to an allegedly racially and sexually offensive poem read aloud at one of Beta's weekly meetings Summer term.
In his letter, Pelton called the poem's recitation "symptomatic of a structural problem to which selective, single-sex social organizations" like fraternities are vulnerable.
A Beta brother wrote and read the poem in July, which allegedly contained offensive material, specifically about Native American women, including one referred to by name.
A group of women from Native Americans at Dartmouth and Sigma Delta sorority discovered the poem and asked Beta to privately apologize for the incident.
Pelton said in an interview yesterday that he will meet with Beta President Jason Fanuele '96 in the coming weeks, and that the two will discuss the poem and its implications.
Fanuele could not be reached for comment last night.
Pelton said the house has not sufficiently dealt with the problem as of yet.
"As far as I know, nobody from Beta has contacted anyone here," about responding to the poem, Pelton said. "They haven't given this a lot of thought as an organization."
Although the house will face no official sanctions from the College, Pelton wrote in his letter that the house should respond in some positive way to the poem.
Pelton previously said he received in September an unsigned letter written on Beta stationery that stipulated the fraternity would sponsor two panel discussions on sexism and racism, one for the entire Dartmouth community and one for only CFS members, but had not heard any more from Beta.
In a previous electronic-mail message to The Dartmouth, Fanuele wrote the house was currently planning the two panel discussions.
In his letter, Pelton wrote regarding panel discussions that "such a response to this type of event sounds only too familiar, for student organizations and others have hosted a variety of such panel discussions over the years in the wake of similar such occurrences."
Instead Pelton asked that Beta develop responses "that are not perceived as an easy, pat, or formulaic way out of a difficult situation."
Pelton said yesterday that he will take no further action on this incident.
"As far as this specific incident, the issue is closed. But the community may have an interest in the issue so to that extent it is not closed," he said.
Additional reporting by Micheal A. Posey.
September 28, 1995
To the Undergraduate President of Beta Theta Pi,
I am writing in regard to summer term events involving undergraduate members of Beta Theta Pi. Your organization's summer term president has informed the College that during a July Beta Theta Pi weekly meeting, a member of your fraternity recited part of a poem which he had composed. The poem, which I have read, narrates sexual encounters with Dartmouth female students, and was written such that any reasonable person would consider it as an offense to human decency. In particular, it deliberately and self-consciously demeaned women and Native Americans.
What is also especially striking about the poem is not only its description of a student culture dominated by alcohol abuse and casual sex, but, more, the immature and pathetic portrait it paints of the actions of its main character. And while the poem's explicit subject is the drunken sexual exploits of its protagonist, its real significance lies in the assumed power that the conquering male narrator seeks to exert over women and Native Americans at Dartmouth. It holds up as a model an unenlightened attitude of assumed male superiority and brute strength. Unfortunately, it is this type of thinking that has permitted biases and prejudices of all sorts to survive, and, in some parts of our society, to thrive.
While the composition of the poem and its recitation at Beta Theta Pi is not adjudicable under College regulations, some meaningful response on the part of the fraternity seems called for. I have received an unsigned and undated letter from Beta Theta Pi in which your organization has stated that it will host two panel discussions on racism and sexism, one for the community at large and one for members of Greek-letter organizations only. However, such a response to this type of event sounds only too familiar, for student organizations and others have hosted a variety of such panel discussions over the years in the wake of similar such occurrences. Thus, it is essential that your organization develop bona fide, authentic and ongoing events that are not perceived as an easy, pat, or formulaic way out of a difficult situation. It is important that these discussions are well-organized and have a well-defined, specific purpose.
I have sent copies of this letter to the president of the CFSC and to The Dartmouth because I view this incident not as an isolated event, as it was characterized to be in a 17 August letter from Beta to Dean Deborah Reinders, but rather as an example or symptomatic of a structural problem to which selective, single-sex social organizations like your own are vulnerable. Because it is so highly unlikely that such a poem would have been composed and recited in a setting which included women or Native American students, one must reasonably ask what is it about Beta Theta Pi which would lead its author to believe that the poem would receive a favorable reception there?
I am pleased by your report that the reading of the poem gave members of your organization pause, and that its author was not permitted to finish his four-page recitation. Clearly, the poem was intended to be humorous; the means it sought to use to achieve that end were the humiliation and demeaning of women and Native Americans. But why did the author think that such a mean-spirited and insulting poem would gain a ready audience with his fraternity peers? This is the key question, and it deserves an honest answer. Until you and others seek to address this question in a serious minded way, panel discussions will have little import and attempts at reconciliation will be premature.
Finally, I must ask why the second panel discussion on racism and sexism, set forth in the unsigned letter from Beta to me, will be closed to persons other than members of fraternal organizations. Is it not a closed-door, single-sex culture that, in some measure, has led to the problem your organization now faces?
Beta Theta Pi and, by association, this College has been shamed by this incident. Please do not disappoint your peers and the community by not giving serious thought to your response.
Sincerely,
M. Lee Pelton
