News outlets’ coverage of an alleged sexual assault at the University of Chicago has prominently featured this detail: It took place at an off-campus house belonging to the university’s Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity. This detail, alongside coverage of the 2024 Cornell University sexual assault case, has prompted a firestorm of comments calling for the dissolution of the University of Chicago’s fraternities and even the expulsion of members of AEPi.
However, a crucial fact has received far less attention: According to the latest reports, a person of interest in the case is not affiliated with the university.
In a developing story about a sensitive matter, information often emerges piecemeal. But at this stage, spotlighting the role of the fraternity without providing the fuller context of the case risks reinforcing the familiar myth that sexual violence is a problem of particular places and dangerous social scenes. That removing or at least more aggressively policing them is an adequate solution seems a natural conclusion for both enraged readers and universities alike.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies factors contributing to sexual violence at the individual, relationship, community and societal levels, including hypermasculinity, alcohol and drug use, and entitlement. These factors may be especially visible in fraternities and may even be particularly insidious at institutions such as the University of Chicago, which refuses to recognize Greek life at an organizational level, but they are hardly exclusive to them.
Yet as a student at the University of Chicago, I saw firsthand how an excessive focus on fraternities led to a myopic view of the problem as a whole. As peer coordinator of the Resources for Sexual Violence Prevention office, I developed and presented workshops on bystander intervention, Title IX resources and survivor allyship for several campus organizations, including Greek organizations.
Time and again, students not affiliated with Greek life questioned the value of these presentations, usually positing that getting rid of fraternities would solve all the same problems our workshops aimed to address. I see that same well-intentioned but narrow perspective playing out nationally now.
In underscoring the role that AEPi, and Greek life more broadly, played in this appalling incident, I worry about our turning the dissolution of fraternities into a panacea for campus sexual violence. It would be more like a Band-Aid, potentially leading us to overlook the cultures, policies and institutional failures that permit this problem to persist.
— Amara Balan, New York
Identifying religious affiliation
Regarding “Sex assault reported at UChicago off-campus party” (Oct. 13), I just find it reprehensible that the Tribune felt it necessary to identify Alpha Epsilon Pi as a “Jewish” fraternity, especially when a person of interest in the alleged assault was not a member of the house.
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I really was offended by the Tribune stating this, as it had nothing to do with what occurred there, which was terrible.
— Amy Schechtman, Riverwoods
Why was detail essential?
Odd how none of the articles I’ve read about the Cornell University sexual assault case mentioned the religious affiliation of the fraternity involved, yet the reporters and Tribune editors thought that identifying Alpha Epsilon Pi as a Jewish organization here in Chicago was essential to the story.
— Marlene Feder, Highland Park
Careless and irresponsible
I am writing to express my concerns about the article about the incident reported to have occurred at the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house near the University of Chicago.
I find the journalists’ use of the fraternity’s religious affiliation was not only irrelevant to the incident, but was also careless and irresponsible.
I hope these journalists stick to the important facts in the future instead of targeting a specific religious affiliation.
— Stacy Weiss, Buffalo Grove
Ban fraternity house life
Is it possible that the simplest solution is right under our noses? What other social organizations traditionally have houses, other than sororities, which do not typically engage in sexual misconduct? Why does a fraternity need to have a place to call home other than each student’s dorm room or apartment?
Living under one roof in a common space that they call their home for the duration of their college lives can further promote, foster and sustain bad behavior.
Keep the fraternities; ban fraternity house life.
— Karen Teplitzky, Chicago
Cornell singled out as villain
The media furor over the sexual assault case that tragically occurred at my alma mater two years ago has unfairly made Cornell University the whipping boy for an issue that is as pervasive as it is unthinkable. Cornell is not alone in this, and it’s unfair that it be so destructively singled out.
According to professor Jens Ludwig’s Sunday op-ed “After Cornell lawsuit, universities don’t know what to do with fraternities,” reported cases of sexual assault on university campuses across the country are at a repugnantly high level: 29.7% at the University of Chicago, 29.5% at Harvard, 31.9% at Brown and 30.1% at Northwestern. Think about it. Your daughter or granddaughter who is just entering as a freshman at one of these elite bastions of higher education faces odds of nearly 1 in 3 that she will be sexually assaulted during her time there.
But in a broader context, sexual assault isn’t just Cornell’s problem or a university problem; it’s a national problem. In January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its “National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2023/2024 Sexual Violence Data Brief.” The report states that “nearly half of women (45.1%) in the United States experienced some form of contact sexual violence in their lifetimes, with 21.0% reporting completed or attempted rape.”
There’s no question that our nation’s halls of higher learning, including Cornell, have much work to do to effectively control sexual assault on their campuses. But so do we as a culture.
Singling out Cornell as the primary villain in this story does a disservice not only to a fine institution, but it also sidesteps the reality that as a country, our moral compass has become unmoored.
This is on all of us.
— Daniel J. Rosenthal, Cornell Class of 1971, Chicago
What sons should be taught
In his op-ed, Jens Ludwig raises an important question: What should universities do about fraternities? Universities have a responsibility to help ensure that their campuses are safe for everyone. But this conversation must begin at home.
Parents have a responsibility to teach their children to treat others with kindness and respect and to speak up rather than stand by when they witness mistreatment. Children should understand what it means to be an active bystander, to have the courage to tell their friends to make the right choices.
When their sons leave for college, parents should have an honest conversation with them about respect and responsibility and what it means to be a gentleman. They should encourage their sons to look out for their female friends, just as they would want someone to look out for their own sisters, and make clear that actions have consequences.
Perhaps one of the greatest gifts parents can give their sons is not simply advice, but a lasting understanding that how they treat others matters — and that doing the right thing is never optional.
— Ifaat Bosse, Northbrook
Gun violence is inevitable?
Last week in Bend, Oregon, more people were shot in a school, including children. More families have been shattered. Has it gotten to the point where gun violence is accepted as normal? Do we think of gun violence as an everyday occurrence, as another headline in the news, as inevitable?
Almost 14 years since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook, and nothing has stopped the purchase of assault-style rifles. Why not? At that time, President Barack Obama said that day was “the single darkest day” of his presidency. How many more times do we have to hear about innocent people being killed while living their everyday lives? How many more dark and sad days do we have to have?
Please ask yourself what you can do to help this stop!
— Frances Moore, Evanston
What we tell our children
As a retired teacher, I spent years practicing all the drills with my students. When my children were school age and all through high school, I told them every single day that if there’s a school shooting, run or play dead. More importantly, do not be a hero. Oh yeah, have a good day.
While my daughter is now teaching in an elementary school and my grandson just started kindergarten, the fright continues. I wonder if my son has started telling his son to run or play dead but don’t be a hero.
— Lori McSweeney, Palatine
Guns too easily accessible
There are more guns than people in this country. If more guns made us safer, then we should be the safest country in the world. Tragically, that’s not the case.
The Bend, Oregon, school shooting is a stark reminder that we have too many easily accessible guns available to just about anyone looking for one. Owning a gun is a right and a responsibility. It’s time we stressed the responsibility of that right just like any other right we have. Let’s get the illegal and lethal weapons off the streets and save our children. Let them live. Let us live the life each individual born is entitled to have.
Life is precious.
— Connie Kiosse, Chicago
Problem is human heart
Regarding the letter “When will this nightmare end?” (Oct. 19): I grieve for every shooting death and for all the other tragic deaths and suffering in the world.
Letter writer Patricia Neudecker blames the Second Amendment, but the cause goes much deeper.
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We have the Second Amendment as a deterrent against a tyrannical government. Our Founders noted that Europe was unarmed and ruled by kings, but we were armed and free. An unarmed populace will not remain free.
Founder John Adams also recognized that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We no longer think religion is important, and we are free to decide for ourselves what is moral.
A woman recently drove a truck through a soccer game. In other parts of the world, explosives are the favorite weapon for mass killings.
The problem is the human heart, and a secular society has nothing to offer to fix that.
— Larry Craig, Wilmette
Father stopped shooter
Has anybody thought to make the comparison between the response to the school shooting by the father in Bend, Oregon, and by the first responders in Uvalde, Texas?
I think it makes you wonder: What if?
— Joe Juszak, Sugar Grove
Legislation on data centers
In communities around Illinois and the United States, people are being asked to foot the economic and environmental bill of data centers in order to confront the perceived threat of losing the “AI race.” We are being told that if we don’t lead the world in artificial intelligence, our enemies will quickly use the technology against us; therefore, we must disregard risks in favor of advancing AI as fast as possible.
Sam Altman of OpenAI had this perspective in September: “No amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness, or let capabilities get ahead of alignment and monitoring.” Then, in a stunning about-face, OpenAI announced in October it had fired three safety researchers in a dispute over the risks of AI.
The eye-watering pace of the AI build-out is not only reckless; it is also having a direct effect on our power bills. These energy-guzzling behemoths are being built faster than the grid can be upgraded, resulting in exorbitant demand that raises energy bills. In addition to the threat of rogue AI agents and the increased utilities burden on American families, these facilities are also being developed as the effects of extreme weather are escalating year by year. This year, Illinois has recorded 210 tornadoes as of Sept. 1; the previous record was 142.
Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said, “An industry of the future should not be chained to dirty fuels of the past and the air pollution from fossil fuels that cause real harm to communities.” Fossil fuel emissions have been tied directly to increasing extreme weather phenomena, which are more difficult to recover from for the less fortunate.
I urge readers to contact Illinois U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, as well their U.S. representative, to encourage these lawmakers to develop comprehensive regulations of AI and data centers via H.R. 6983 and H.R. 6984 in the House and S.5054 in the Senate.
In the meantime, we should pause data center development with a nationwide moratorium until such a time when appropriate regulations can be put in place. As a person of faith, I see it as our responsibility to be good stewards of the Earth and less fortunate people. I encourage readers to join me in this effort.
— Myste Montesano, Downers Grove
Using AI for student support
Clarence Page’s warning about chatbot charm should also reach school-board budget hearings (“Beware the charm of our rising chatbots,” Oct. 19). A low subscription price for student support software tells taxpayers little about the cost of safely supporting a distressed student.
Illinois’ 2025 therapy law permits licensed professionals to use artificial intelligence for administrative and supplementary support, but bars them from delegating independent therapeutic decisions to it. Helping a counselor with paperwork is not the same as replacing a counselor’s judgment.
Before approving AI-driven student support software, boards should publish how concerns reach a qualified person, who handles follow-up and what that staffing costs. A vendor’s promise of round-the-clock availability does not establish that a trained adult will be available when needed.
Any savings estimate should include supervision, training, incident review and human follow-up. That includes time diverted from other students. Work shifted to existing staff is not work eliminated.
A subscription is not a staffing plan. Require one before signing.
— Rohan Sharma, Temecula, California
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