The Gentlemen of the Row
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October 20, 2021
Report Offense: Sexual Assault
Incident Description: The university has received a report of sexual assault at the Sigma Nu fraternity house, 660 W. 28th Street, Los Angeles, CA. The university also has received reports of drugs being placed into drinks during a party at the same fraternity house, leading to possible drug-facilitated sexual assaults.
- Email Sent by DPS to the USC Student Body
When I told a good friend I was writing this paper, she told me “everyone has a story from that week.” Whether they or a love one were personally impacted by sexual assault. Whether they participated in the protests. Whether they were in greek life at the time. Whether they were simply a student at USC then and experienced that incredibly powerful and emotionally-charged time in our universities history: when a campus-wide email alleging and detailing sexual assault and numerous drug-related sexual assaults at the University of Southern California’s Sigma Nu Chapter.
I am not here to write about what happened. The unfortunate reality is, I don’t know. Neither do LAPD, Title IX, or the University of Southern California. No one knows except him, her, and maybe them. I am not here to to prove or disprove anything or anyone. I am not here to convince you of anything.
I am here to tell a story from that week.
The following is a collection of anonymized interviews, journal entries, memories, messages, screenshots, and articles from and about that time.
I feel like every time one of us tries to like say something about this situation it’s taken way out of context and seen as victim blaming or like we’re trying to shift the blame when really we’re just trying to tell our story and it’s our story to tell because no one wants to listen to this side of the story.
These men, boys, weren’t the victims in this story. Depending on who you ask, they were or weren’t the perpetrators. They do though, have a story. One that extends far beyond just the reaches of the paper. And on that is so often never shared.
Many of them preferred not to talk. They questioned why I would bring it up. Why was it worth rehashing?
It’s one of those cases where you’re so just like traumatized by an event where you just blank out all the details in your mind and all of that kind of period just meshes into one locked cabinet within my like brain
I remember once, a year out, someone mentioned in a large group of members that everyone should get together to talk about it. He joked that everyone went through this traumatic event and never once spoke on it. It was so isolating. Everyone got through it themselves. Dealt with it themselves. I remember the mix of confusion and fear on everyones faces.
You can tell it scars many of them so deeply. It shows in such weird yet apparent ways, because no one has ever let it come to the surface. They never thought they were allowed to.
I know. Because I too have those scars. I was in Sigma Nu. I am in Sigma Nu. Yet even in writing that line I feel fear and discomfort. I feel like I need to qualify myself. Explain to you that no of course I’m not the victim here, I’m not seeking pity, and I don’t know why I stayed it’s complicated, but I promise I’m not a rapist.
Because I still haven’t processed it. I still haven’t let it go.
I’m two years removed, and only two months from being an adult, and it is something that myself and so many others are about to carry into adulthood and consequently the rest of our lives.
I’m not a rapist, but I can’t let it go.
