The Red Zone is the time between the start of the fall semester and Thanksgiving when sexual assaults on a college campus are at their highest. While some blame an influx of students or inexperienced freshmen for this, others say there’s another force behind it: Greek life.

Madison Smith, co-president of the sexual violence prevention organization Shatter the Silence, said many sexual assaults could be prevented if the culture within Greek life changed so that survivors felt more comfortable coming forward.

“It very fundamentally needs to look like prioritizing victims over partying which seems really, really like a no-brainer but evidently it’s not,” Smith said.

Greek houses are often viewed as a place to find community and comradery on campus, and for many, they offer just that. But they don’t come without risk. A study done by the University of Oregon found that Greek life members are at significantly higher risk of sexual assault, including attempted or completed rape. 

This isn’t just for sorority women, either. Fraternity men experience sexual harassment and sexual assault at three times the rate than men not in Greek life. 

Survivors already face difficulty reporting cases through the university or police. If they file a Title IX report with the university, they often have to repeat their trauma multiple times, and in some cases, they have to sit face-to-face with the person who assaulted them when reaching a resolution. If filing a police report, survivors run the risk that their case isn’t chosen to have charges filed by the prosecutor, sometimes leaving their case without any resolution at all.

There have been 11 cases reported to IUPD so far in this year's Red Zone.

Since June 10, there have been 42 crimes reported in association with a rape or sexual assault.

Of those cases, 33 were rapes or sexual batteries.

Implicating a Greek organization in this process only makes things more complicated said Smith, who is a former sorority member. She said both she and other members faced resistance when reporting sexual assaults to their sorority or to the fraternity where it happened.

In Smith’s case, her sorority continued to pair with the fraternity where her sexual assault happened for social events. She said that isn’t unusual, and if a survivor wants to fight back, it becomes an uphill battle.

“If someone were to come forward and say ‘I’m a member of this sorority and I was sexually assaulted at this frat and when I raised an issue about it, the sorority did X, Y and Z either to keep me silent or to maintain a good relationship with that fraternity,’ you can face standard consequences within the sorority because there are rules against speaking ill about the organization publicly essentially,” Smith said, who was sent to standards multiple times when raising issues with her sorority about her experience.

Smith said it is mainly the national chapters and their policies that make reporting sexual assaults in Greek life so difficult, but she said the culture within Greek life isn’t without blame, and changing that doesn’t come easy.

“I think there needs to be a fundamental culture change, which is a sucky thing to say because that takes a really long time,” Smith said.

So what is being done to jump-start that change?

The Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life said in an emailed statement their efforts to prevent sexual assault include education, training for Greek life members in areas like alcohol safety and consent, partnering with campus resources like victim advocates, and working with Student Conduct if a case does come to their attention. 

New guidelines have also been introduced this year for paired events involving Greek organizations, such as more stringent policies for sober monitors, ID checks, and even prohibiting alcohol over 15% by volume. 

Interfraternity Council President Ethan Golde said these guidelines are in an effort to make paired events safer.

“Really what we’re trying to do is demonstrate that there is a way to run Greek life in the 21st century in a safe, modern way,” Golde said. “If you continue using the rules from the 80s, your Greek life is going to look like it did in the 80s and nobody wants that.”

Smith, however, says there is still far more room for improvement, specifically when it comes to Greek organizations on a national level.

“It’s not worth putting a survivor through that and not believing a survivor because you believe that 100 out of the 101 guys in the fraternity are good guys. It’s not worth re-traumatizing the person who has been hurt,” Smith said.