I’ve attended the University of Oregon for less than three years. In that time, 14 UO students have reported 11 separate instances of druggings and one instance of sexual assault occuring at events hosted by affiliated UO fraternities.

Eight fraternities have been listed by the UO Office of Equal Opportunity and Access as the hosts of events in which druggings were reported. Of these eight, only Lambda Chi, Theta Chi, Phi Delta Theta and Delta Sigma Phi have undergone complete conduct investigations.

Instead of rohypnol, drinks were allegedly spiked with gamma-hydroxybutyrate and ketamine, dangerous with alcohol and increasing overdose risk, potentially subjecting victims to seizures, coma or even death.

Despite these safety concerns, UO has downplayed the issue, often giving fraternities minimal punishment. In one example, the Associate Dean of Students agreed to lift the already relaxed event ban on Phi Delt for “Dad’s Weekend” just ten days after two women reported being drugged at their live-out.

UO officials claim the university has taken adequate steps to mitigate the dangers that fraternities pose to the campus community.

“Over the past several years, the University of Oregon has implemented a number of steps aimed at strengthening safety and increasing transparency for students,” Angela Seydel, UO spokesperson, said. “These include expanded prevention education, new safety initiatives within Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) and more public reporting of incidents and policy violations.”

However, these protections are glaringly inadequate.

The “expanded prevention education” consists of mandatory sexual assault prevention modules that FSL-affiliated students must complete, functioning more as legal protection for the university than as legitimate tools for students.

This “education” is unlikely to dissuade potential fraternity-affiliated offenders, because they are already educated — if not by basic morality, then by the sexual violence prevention modules that all incoming freshmen must complete.

Defensive action will never remedy the systemic shortfallings that leave sorority sisters vulnerable. Women in sororities are 74% more likely than unaffiliated women to experience sexual assault, an inequality only compounded by their forced reliance on fraternities.

For example, sororities face much stricter regulations on alcohol, encouraging sisters to seek alcohol from frat parties.

Sober monitor training, on the other hand, could be a helpful system, if it weren’t for the fact that these “sober monitors” are members of the event-hosting fraternity.

UOPD Police Chief Jason Wade acknowledged that fraternity members often protect their own during hazing investigations: “you have people at the fraternity who are protective of it… this probably happens more often than not.”

If this pattern holds for hazing, it likely extends to drugging, which typically targets female outsiders.

Perpetrators don’t spike substances because they are too intoxicated to know better — it takes forethought and planning. Why, then, would an intoxicated fraternity member be more likely to turn a blind eye to drugging than a sober one?

This measure might be more successful if the sober monitors were instead sorority sisters.

“More public reporting of incidents” is another positive change — however, an investigation by Eugene Weekly revealed that UO repeatedly refused to alert students to druggings, and argued with a Department of Education campus crime specialist that a drugging occurred at the D Sig house – classified as a campus-related building under the Clery Act — was not under their jurisdiction.

UO must quit dodging responsibility for the safety hazards that occur in the fraternities they profit from — they must either disaffiliate problem frats or assume responsibility for sufficiently warning students when incidents arise.

*Presidents of all the fraternities mentioned in this article were contacted and did not choose to give comment.