Lessons of UNL’s ‘Fiji’ fiasco are worth heeding

In the early hours of Tuesday, Aug. 24, a 17-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a 19-year-old member of the University of Nebraska Lincoln’s fraternity Phi Delta Gamma, most commonly known as Fiji. Normally, a case like this would go under the radar for the nation. It would be left for the police and campus to handle, and the world would keep on spinning. 

That wasn’t what happened. 

The story sparked an outrage on campus and around the nation, and the nights following were filled with protestors lining the streets outside the fraternity, demanding that Fiji be shut down. A petition was created that, as of Tuesday night, has over 420,000 signatures to ban the fraternity. Girls with similar stories are opening up and calling attention to the fear these boys bring to campus.

See, this isn’t the first time Fiji has seen some heat. In 2017, Fiji was suspended until May 2020 for “inappropriate behavior” and there is still a case from 2019 open regarding a sexual misconduct accusation with the chapter. That’s what makes everything sting a little deeper. 

Last Wednesday, UNL’s president released a statement saying that the fraternity would be suspended until the investigation was complete. There hasn’t been any word since, and it’s likely going to stay that way. After all, that is what always happens when rape allegations are under investigation. 

But that isn’t what have people upset. It’s the lack of accountability about the fact that this all could have been avoided had the fraternity been shut down after so many people accused them of sexual assault. It has even gone so far that Friday, six state senators sent a letter to UNL’s president asking for more transparency. Have we really reached the point where state officials feel like they need to voice their opinion on college happenings? Come on, Nebraska. 

But it isn’t just another rape case that is infuriating the public. It’s the total lack of empathy for the victims and the protecting of the criminals that has people up in arms. Everywhere you look you can see how problematic the fraternity is, the evidence is stacked against it. It should be banned just because of its terrible track record and the tone it sets for its members. 

And yet the university has yet to ban it and most likely won’t unless the victim wins her case.

Is this really how college sexual assault cases are seen in Nebraska? Are they just something that shouldn’t be taken seriously until people make a fuss? That doesn’t seem like ‘the good life’ to us. 

Any sexual assault case should be treated with the upmost seriousness and no thing, not how much money their parents donate, how many touchdowns they have, or the grades on their transcripts should get in the way of that. 

But is the future of this case going to set a precedent for how future Title IX cases are handled in Nebraska? Someday, when some other unfortunate person gets raped (because let’s not kid ourselves, that isn’t going away anytime soon) will lawyers look back at Fiji and use it as an example?

We hope that, as an entirely female editorial staff, CSC would have the courage to do what is necessary in the face of a case like this. While we hope that we’d never actually get to that, we don’t want to pretend we’re living in a fantasy world. Until we start teaching consent better, cases like this are going to keep happening. 

That’s a topic for another day though. 

The only thing we ask is that a club wouldn’t be suspended just because protestors started asking for it, or a sports star doesn’t get special treatment. We want girls to feel safe going to our school. After all, it’s a great place to get an education. But that’s not going to happen if we all follow UNL’s lead.