National Media Return to Campus

By J. Lawrence Scholer | Monday, May 14, 2001

Hordes of television crews and reporters swarmed onto Webster Avenue, Dartmouth's fraternity row on Friday, May 11, in the wake of the College's decision to permanently derecognize Zeta Psi fraternity. The derecognition comes in response to from a series of newsletters published by the house and deemed offensive by administrators. The campus learned of the newsletters on April 18.

Television crews from as far as Boston operated in front of Zeta Psi and had their cameras trained on the house throughout the day. Reporters interviewed students as they made their way to various fraternity houses on the street. Students, however, seemed uninterested, and parties continued despite the media presence.

The event has garnered extensive coverage in the national print media. On Friday, before Dartmouth released its decision to permanently derecognize the fraternity, the New York Post ran an article entitled ''Animal House' in Porn Shocker.' The May 11 article stated that 'Dartmouth College is in the midst of a wild 'Animal House' scandal featuring an X-rated fraternity newsletter with provocative photos of women the brothers claim are their sex partners.' The Post described Melissa Heaton, the woman who informed the administration of Zete's private newsletters, as 'spunky.' The Post did call Zete 'one of the tamer houses on campus.'

The Post article contained several factual inaccuracies. The newsletters did not contain provocative photos of Dartmouth coeds, nor did Heaton go to the deans after a brother slipped her an issue, as the Post states. Heaton approached the deans after she dug a newsletter out of the garbage.

The Saturday, May 12, edition of the Boston Globe ran the derecognition story on the inside cover. The article points out that the newsletters 'came to light during sexual awareness week at the Ivy league school, which inspired the raucous 1978 movie 'Animal House.' The Globe quotes Dean of the College Jim Larimore as saying 'They are effectively out of business at Dartmouth.' The Globe quotes Dean of Residential Life Marty Redman who said that Zeta Psi had 'harassed fellow students and violated ethical standards.'

The Saturday New York Times reported that 'the decision came at a time of rising discontent among critics of the fraternities and sororities, known as Greek houses, that dominate the campus' social life and have mixed Dartmouth's reputation for academic excellence with a reputation for 'Animal House' antics.' The Times mentioned that some members of the Dartmouth community have claimed that the decision 'violated the fraternities' free speech rights.' Dartmouth president James Wright however remarked that, regardless of the First Amendment, the newsletters violated community standards. The Times portrayed Zeta Psi as the campus pariah. 'In general, campus sentiment has been against Zeta Psi,' wrote the Times. 'On April 18, when the campus newspaper, the Daily Dartmouth, broke the story about the newsletter, about 250 students protested on the fraternities lawn.' Over four thousand students attend Dartmouth.

The Upper Valley region's Valley News led with the Zeta Psi story on Saturday. The headline read, 'Dartmouth College Closing Down Controversial Fraternity.' The Valley News made the best effort to see the issue from both sides and pointed out that the war against fraternities is one of the administration and faculty versus the students. The Valley News reports that 'most students want the Greek system to stay,' in addition to citing administrative disagreement. The Valley News is also the only publication to report that the fraternity newsletters were seen only by brothers and were destroyed after meetings.

In the days before the administrators released the decision to derecognize, Zeta Psi still made the news. The Sunday, May 6, edition on CNN Sunday Morning featured a story on the fraternity. Anchor Miles O'Brien said, 'On another Ivy League campus, the news is not nearly as positive today. At Dartmouth, the problem is sexual threats against women.' CNN Correspondent Bill Delaney interviewed women at Wellesley and asked their take on the 'sex papers.' Sophomore Cora Sayers said, 'It's pretty absurd and pretty awful and scary for, you know, women.' Senior Theresa Didonato, a rape and sexual assault counselor, was more concerned with the insinuation of violence against women. 'That just makes me ill. That kind of, oh, that's just perpetuating this culture of violence and this, that just make s me ill. It's disgusting,' she said.

Wellesley Women's Studies professor Susan Reverby believed that the Zeta Psi brothers do not know that date rape is actually rape. 'My reaction was we know that it's often fraternities and sports groups of men in particular that are involved in date rape situations. I think if you asked them, they wouldn't think it was about rape,' she said. CNN did not explain the relevance of Wellesley to the Zeta Psi newsletters, or if the women had actually seen and read the content.

The College's case against Zeta Psi makes no mention of actual rapes or date rapes.

The national media wrote very little about the actual newsletters; it is unlikely even saw them, due to the difficulty of obtaining copies. The reports relied heavily on input from the administration and the administration's press releases.

Coverage on campus was similarly skewed. The Daily Dartmouth's Friday article on Zeta Psi's derecognition was a rearrangement of the paragraphs of Dartmouth's press release. Several paragraphs were excised.

National Media Return to Campus

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