Two fraternities at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania have reportedly voted to dissolve following the leak of documents from a fraternity meeting that allegedly described activities by former members using racist and misogynistic comments, as well as alleged references to a “rape attic.”
NBC News reported Wednesday that the college’s chapter of the Delta Upsilon Fraternity and Phi Psi Fraternity posted to their respective Facebook pages on Tuesday night, writing that the chapters had voted to dissolve.
{mosads}Phi Psi Fraternity, in a statement on Facebook, said it voted to give up the rights to its house at the school.
“We were appalled and disgusted by the content of these minutes, which led us to question our affiliation with an organization whose former members could write such heinous statements. We cannot in good conscience be members of an organization with such a painful history,” the organization wrote.
The college’s Delta Upsilon chapter posted on Facebook that it would abandon its claim to its off-campus house, which it said should be used for a space that “promotes healing.”
“Over the last few weeks, Swarthmore Delta Upsilon has listened to the concerns and feelings of the campus community. After much discussion, the members of Delta Upsilon have unanimously decided that disbanding our fraternity is in the best interest of the Swarthmore community,” the statement read.
“We hope that our former house will provide a space that is inclusive, safe, and promotes healing,” the group continued.
The move to disband comes after two campus publications, the Phoenix and Voices, published leaked documents allegedly written by Phi Psi members between 2013 and 2016, NBC News reported.
The materials, which were labeled as “minutes,” reportedly described Phi Psi’s activities and contained references to rape and sexual assault, in addition to homophobic comments, the Voices reported. The documents also reportedly discussed “a rape tunnel and a rape attic” at Delta Upsilon, according to the publication.
The Phoenix reported that the materials allegedly employed racist language to describe one member’s sexual encounter with a black woman, according to NBC News.
The college’s president, Valerie Smith told students in a letter that all fraternity activities had been suspended pending an investigation into the activities laid out in the documents. Smith, however, said there was “no evidence that any current student participated in the behaviors documented in the unofficial ‘minutes.’ “
“We cannot tolerate unsubstantiated attacks directed at individual students or student groups—as too many students have recently endured. Social media posts by members of our community that target individual students or make gross generalizations about student groups are unacceptable,” Smith wrote.