Editor’s note: Due to the sensitive nature of the incidents discussed, a source’s last name and major have been withheld.

Kristen was hanging out with a friend at a university fraternity’s chapter house on Fraternity Row last spring. At first, everything was cool.

But when her friend left the room, the junior said, five fraternity members came in and stood in a line.

“Pick one,” she remembers them saying.

“I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’” Kristen said. “And they’re like, ‘Pick one of us to have sex with.’”

Kristen thought it was a joke.

“I told them, ‘No thank you, I don’t want that,’ and then one of them was like, ‘OK, well, we’ll just pick for you,’” she said. “And one of the guys nominated himself.”

The other four left the room and locked the door behind them. Then, the brother approached Kristen and attempted to initiate sexual activity, she said. She refused. He persisted — tried to convince her.

“I, like, blew up on him, and I was yelling,” she said. “He told me that I should be honored to suck his d— because he’s in [the fraternity]. Honestly, I just couldn’t believe that he would say that because that’s so ridiculous, like, who thinks that? That you have a right to get your d— sucked because you’re in a fraternity?”

She was able to remove herself from the situation without sexual contact, but it made her question the culture of some fraternities.

“Obviously, this was like a planned thing, this wasn’t just like a random act,” she said. “How many other girls have they done this to?”

Interfraternity Council officials said they condemn all sexual misconduct and have a zero-tolerance policy for such incidents.

“A brother who does something like that is not upholding the values of a fraternity man, who should treat women equally and with respect,” said Christopher Frye, vice president of external affairs. “If we receive reports about it, it won’t be accepted. We are going to continue to increase educational outreach efforts on the issue.”

Kristen, however, chose not to report the incident. She didn’t think police would do anything about it, and she didn’t know she could report it to the university until recently.

FRATERNITY ENVIRONMENT

Kristen’s experience is not representative of all fraternities, sources said. Not all fraternities foster environments that promote sexual assault or unwanted advances, and no single chapter on the campus is particularly guilty, sources said.

Still, Greek life has received national attention for the alleged increased likelihood of sexual assault within the culture.

A 2005 study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that in three months of observation at one Midwestern university, men who reported fraternity membership were three times more likely to engage in “sexually aggressive” behavior, which ranged from coercing consent from uncertain victims to rape.

The study showed that men who belong to groups advocating male dominance are also more comfortable committing acts of sexual aggression.

“Fraternities have often been accused of fostering rape supportive attitudes by promoting male dominance and brotherhood,” according to the study, “and fraternity affiliation has been found to be a significant predictor of sexually aggressive behavior.”

A fraternity member, surrounded by “an environment that promotes stereotypical notions of masculinity,” could experience a peer-support system around him and commit sexual assault as a result, the researchers wrote.

This does not mean these statistics apply to Greek life at this university, however. When a person is accused of sexual assault, the police look into the person’s age and other “normal demographics,” not whether they are involved in Greek life, said University Police spokesman Maj. Marc Limansky.

Frye acknowledged there is a “groupthink mentality” in Greek life, but said that doesn’t necessarily translate to increased acts of violence against women.

“In any organized group — whether it’s a fraternity or a club sports team — there is a bit of groupthink. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t an element of it in Greek life,” Frye said. “But we do make efforts to combat that negative culture.”

Frye mentioned that the issue of sexual assault is being addressed by the community. Chapters send members to participate in programs such as the Ten Man and Ten Woman plan programs run by the Department of Fraternity and Sorority Life as part of the University Health Center’s Violence Intervention Assistance training.

“There’s definitely more we can do, I won’t admit that we’re doing all we can,” Frye said. “As new members, Greeks get a lot thrown at them, and they might not remember it. There are educational efforts we could implement to make sure everyone has an understanding of rape culture and bystander intervention.”

The IFC’s current policy only requires 10 percent of each on-campus chapter to attend a sexual assault workshop.

Senior staff writer Ellie Silverman contributed to this article.