As members of our community, you deserve a complete and truthful response to the article in yesterday's issue of The Dartmouth describing two "newsletters" produced by members of Zeta Psi fraternity. This incident has generated a great deal of discussion, confusion, and anger from various campus groups and from all individuals. We are aware of the importance of the allegations made against us in yesterday's paper, and we are determined to cooperate with other members of the Dartmouth community to discuss and learn from this incident.
Yesterday's article in The Dartmouth describes two documents created by members of Zeta Psi, which include various satires of brothers' supposed behavior. In the article, it was implied that these documents detail brothers' salacious behavior and "lewd sexual acts" with other members of the Dartmouth community.
I want everyone to know that the actions described in these documents did not take place, and that no brother would ever condone any of the actions described.
Rather, the stories detailed in the documents were entirely satirical in nature and designed only to poke fun at other brothers in the house. At no time did those composing the stories do so out of malice, or to encourage the type of disgusting, misogynistic behavior satirized in the documents. While we in no way condone the behavior detailed in the documents, we understand that because these documents have been associated with our house, the explicit language and content of these documents have naturally been interpreted to represent our actual beliefs and values.
Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Neither I nor any of my brothers at Zeta Psi support the type of behavior described in these documents. In retrospect, we realize that even in farce, the content of these documents could be construed as offensive and unacceptable. For this, we are deeply and truly sorry.
It was never our intent to hurt, embarrass, offend, or threaten any member of the Dartmouth community. I believe that the many people who personally know myself and my brothers know that we would never, either as individuals or as a house, support the behavior described in yesterday's article.
Support for bigotry, misogyny, and sexism is anathema to our core values as a fraternity. In hindsight, we now realize and admit that the production of these documents was in poor judgement and poorer taste. I am personally embarrassed, as I know all of my fellow brothers are, that this incident has cast a cloud over what we sincerely believe to be an outstanding organization and community contributor.
In addition, I would like to extend our deepest apologies on behalf of the brotherhood to those few individuals outside of Zeta Psi whose names were included in the documents. Even if done in complete jest, we believe that it is inappropriate and unacceptable that persons outside of the house were mentioned in any way in these reports.
Zeta Psi is eager to work with other campus groups and use the unfortunate events of the past few days to effect change in our environment. Even now, as I write this letter, members of our house are engaged outside in a peaceful and constructive dialogue with many of those who feel most deeply offended by this incident.
For us, this is just the beginning. The embarrassment that many of us felt today when enduring questions and criticisms from our friends and those who do not even know us has truly been an eye-opening experience. We feel a responsibility to work to restore our good name by continuing to advance the discussion and improvement of gender relations on campus. It is our hope that this regrettable incident will nevertheless provide an impetus for positive change within our organization and the entire Dartmouth community.
